The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 82

1 I FISCHER Continued From Page 23 I MX tr ILl 6 This is roughly the way the world's championship chess match will appear when Bobby meets titleholder Boris Spassky. In a previous meet Fi scher lost, but few expect same result this time. Despite his previous unsuccessful meetings with Spassky, Bobby is supremely confident of defeating the Russian. "I'm the world's greatest chess player," he says matter-of-factly. "To prove it, both FIDE and the American Chess Federation rate me No.

1, with FIDE putting me 70 points and the American Chess Federation 134 points higher than Spassky, whom they list as No. 2." Fischer, who is almost belligerently close-mouthed about his personal life and his family, freely admits that chess dominates his life. Since his mother moved to England and remarried, he has lived alone in a succession of hotel rooms, usually ones without a view (a good view, he explains, cuts down on concentration.) He's never known his father who left the family when he was 2. His married sister lives in Los Angeles. Since he belongs to the Church of God, a small sect that observes the Jewish sabbath and Jewish holidays, Bobby will not play chess on Jewish holidays or between sundowns on Friday and Saturday.

In a recent $8,000 tournament which he was leading, he refused to play games scheduled for Friday evening and Saturday and had to forfeit the contests. i strong-mindedness on personal matters has gotten Fischer into trouble with the chess establishment more than once. His insistence on optimum playing conditions, proper lighting (glare-free), negotiable playing schedules and barring of photographers from playing halls have become legend. Prince Rainier of Monaco refused to invite Bobby back after the 1967 International Match, because of the "frivolous" demands of the young prodigy. In 1968, Fischer walked out of the Chess Olympiad in Lugano, because officials refused his request for special lighting and a private playing room away from spectators.

"The ideal has finally become a reality in tournament chess," Fischer reports. "FIDE has set standards indirect lighting, a 30-foot minimum distance for spectators, no photographers and a player's option to accept or reject a schedule." BoBBY FEELS bitter that most chess masters have let him go it alone in tangling with the Russians and FIDE. "Chess organization in the United States is poor," he complains. "We're often not sent to big tournaments. Nobody sees to it that we're prepared, that we're in practice, rested.

Ev In erything is at the last minute. We're notified a few weeks before if we'll be going. Chess, one of the most popular sports in the world, is treated like an amateur contest in America." Money has long been a sore point with Fischer. He points out that in Russia players are well taken care of, and economic want is not permitted to interfere with their play. In his case, he says, he has been able to carry on in chess because he has made himself oblivious to the other advantage in life.

In the last year, however, his tournament wins have brought him a before-taxes income of about $20,000. In Bobby's room at Grossin-ger's there is little evidence of the carefree existence that a famous, 29-year-old bachelor might be expected to enjoy. Clothes are draped over chairs or hung from doorknobs. The constantly ringing phone and frequent knocks at the door usually go unanswered. Fischer peers about, frowning, a trapped animal.

Next to chess, Bobby's biggest love is rock music. Not long ago he made the front pages of only safe place is on an Indian reservation." He's a bit off-key, but Bobby blasts the song with the surefire pizzazz he reserves for the chess board. Bobby, the perpetual Boy Wonder, the prodigy whose I.Q. tested only 123 at Erasmus High School in Brooklyn, doesn't stay off the subject of chess for Jong. He's decided he's going to sock it to the Red Chinese, too.

"I'll play all the best Chinese players at one time," he hoots. "I'll beat them blind. It was China's idea that we send over our ping pong team. We wanted to show them that we are good guys, and we got slaughtered. But I'll show them." Bobby's bravura, both comic and endearing, emerges as he sweeps an imagined opponent's King off the board with boyish glee.

Then, he proceeds to set up the pieces for another game of solitaire chess. Somberly, giving Spassky the white spaces, he moves P-Q4 for him. Then he sets his jaw and glares maliciously at the board. (From Sunday Group FMturt SrWc) Fischer works out in gym on bag used by Rocky Marciano. His approach to chess is adrenalin-charged, physical.

newspapers when during a night out, he began vocalizing a rock and roll number at a nightclub in Bled, Yugoslavia. "I like this sort of music," Bobby says. "Do you know the Temptations' song about the Indian reservation?" He begins to sing a few bars in Sha-na-na rhythm. "Fear everywhere tension in the air unemployment's rising fast the Beatles' last record was a gas and the.