FISCHER'S ROSEBUD

"You were much more than Jedediah, my friend." -- Bobby's last words
to GM Larry Evans, who explores this cryptic sentence and unravels the
mystery of Fischer's role in updating My 60 Memorable Games, one of
the greatest books in chess literature.

http://tinyurl.com/2noyxp




wrote:
EVANS ON CHESS NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

Reprinted courtesy of Chesstours @ all rights reserved.

WAS IT A HOAX?

"No other chess figure has had, has, or will have more autograph
imitations than Bobby Fischer GUARANTEED!" Fisching For Forgeries by
Lawrence Totaro

Bobby Fischer has kept a low profile since becoming an Icelandic
citizen, but he still make news. Another kerkuffle took place at an
auction on eBay Canada for a revised edition of his My 60 Memorable
Games called My 61 Memorable Games. A foreword was purportedly written
by Fischer himself, who is said to be in poor health and low on funds.

"I know many readers seek answers to probing questions regarding
the Bobby Fischer of 1972. That person no longer exists. I've wanted
to release an official version of my book updated in algebraic
notation with a few minor corrections. And why now? The United Bank of
Switzerland has taken almost all of the money from my 1992 rematch
with Borris Spassky -- over $3,000,000. My ongoing battle with them is
getting nowhere despite International Law clearly being on my side. So
I bring to you my previous 60 games plus one from the event that has
caused me so much trouble, in the hopes that sales of this book will
reverse that situation."

Suspicious fans promptly noted that UBS stands for the Union (not
United) Bank of Switzerland and that it's Boris (not Borris) Spassky.
And why was it signed Robert J. Fischer instead of Bobby Fischer?

The seller stated: "The cover price of this book is $24.95 but as a
collector's item of limited production run, they can obviously sell
for much more. You are bidding on THE FIRST 50 COPIES OF THIS BOOK!
The first 100 copies are marked as SPECIAL EDITION, FIRST PRINT RUN.
Another auction will be for books 51-100. All books from 101 onward
will say SECOND EDITION."

The bid reached $3050 when eBay pulled the item: "We recently
suspended this seller's trading privileges. Due to privacy concerns we
cannot share further details."

I worked on this book with Fischer and inspected the sample page
provided by the seller. Some wording was changed and the analysis was
indeed improved, possibly with the aid of a computer.

Icelandic papers reported that Fischer angrily denied writing it.
Yet in our extensive e-mails the seller insisted it was no hoax.

"So what should I do with all these books then?" she asked. "Why not
send them -- if they exist -- to Fischer in Iceland?" I replied.

Her last message: "I decided to take them to a nearby mall parking
lot when the weather gets nice and attach a sign: FREE CHESS BOOKS,
TAKE ONE, TAKE ALL."