The Battle of the Brains

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painfully familiar on the grand-master circuit. For all its sedentary appearance, chess is a brutally punishing game. A recent physiological experiment at Temple University showed that chess drained as much energy out of a player as did a comparable session of boxing or football. In the crunch of play, in fact, it is not unusual for a grand master to faint dead away, or lose 15 Ibs. or more during a tournament. Under stress, the late Latvian grand master Aron Nimzovich used to stand on his head between moves to keep the vital juices flowing. The Yugoslav chess team travels with a portable sauna and a trainer who leads them in daily calisthenics. In the 24-game grind of a world title match, says former World Champion Tigran Petrosian, "chess may start out as an art or science, but in the end it is an athletic event."

Appropriately enough, before the match Fischer spent seven months working out at Grossinger's, the Catskill resort that is a favored training site for contending boxers. Fischer passed part of every day swimming, playing tennis, lifting weights, skipping rope, riding an Exercycle, doing sit-ups and pummeling a 300-lb. bag. "You gotta stay in shape," he says, "or it's all over." For his part, Spassky retired months ago to a dacha outside Moscow with a team of handlers. His regimen included running, swimming, yoga and daily sessions with a chess-playing psychologist.

Both Spassky, 35, and Fischer, 29, are at the peak of their considerable powers. Both are walking Univacs in their book knowledge of chess, having long since memorized the basic strategies of games past. And both are classicists whose mature chess styles are broad, clean and lucid. Their major difference is in motivation. Spassky says, "Chess is like life"; Fischer says, "Chess is life." Thus, while Bobby lives only for the game and comes on charging, hell-bent on destruction, Boris affects an air of supreme detachment. "For me personally," he says, "it doesn't matter if Fischer wins."

Spassky further promotes this image by describing himself as a "lazy Russian bear." There is no bluster about him, no impatience, nothing restless. While waiting for an opponent to move, he gets up and strolls around with his hands folded behind his back, like a skater cruising over the ice on Lake Ladoga. "I like sports," he says offhandedly. "I swim a bit, and now I play a little tennis. I have other interests: reading, music and, yes, I do some chess." When he does, his remarkable calm makes him a formidable bear indeed. "Spassky's strength is his emotional stability plus his stamina," says Larry Evans. "His strength away from the board sustains him at the board."

Spassky seems to draw strength also from his near reverence for the game. "Chess brings out man's creative powers," he says. "It is not only struggle, it is a sphere where humans can fight for justice because there are strict laws." Those laws have served Spassky well. Before the match in Iceland began, Spassky had played Fischer, the highest-rated player of all time in the F.I.D.E. scoring columns (a statistical scale based on tournament results and strength of competition), five times and never lost. He won three times and gained two draws.

If Boris is the lazy Russian bear,