THE WORLD OF CHESS by ANTHONY SAIDY and NORMAN LESSING 247 pages. Ridge Press/Random House. $17.95.
HOW TO BEAT BOBBY FISCHER by EDMAR MEDNIS 282 pages. Quadrangle. $10.
IDLE PASSION by ALEXANDER COCKBURN 248 pages. Village Voice/Simon & Schuster. $7.95.
Remember Fischer fever? Mild nausea, mottled fury, odd sensations of Russophilia, night sweats about poisoned pawns. Get set for a new and more severe epidemic. In 1972 the delirium was nourished by a prize fund of $250,000, twelve times greater than any previous chess purse. In 1975 the provender is grotesquely more substantial. Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov, the 23-year-old Russian challenger for the World Chess Championship, have been invited by the Philippine Islands to meet in Manila on June 1 and push little wooden soldiers round a checkered board for the second largest stakes in the history of sport—$5 million.
The mere possibility of the match has reinduced Fischer fever in the U.S. publishing industry, which is currently flogging 15 new books about chess. Most of them are strictly for the professionals, but a few can be warmly recommended.
Misspent Youth. The World of Chess, by International Master Anthony Saidy and Senior Master Norman Lessing, is the handsomest and most informative chess picture book ever produced. Its illustrations include Persian paintings, medieval manuscripts, 18th century court scenes, 20th century abstractions, a few sly cartoons and some arresting photographs of the strange cold men who become grand masters.
In the text, Saidy has provided some moving excerpts from his diary of a fumbled tournament that cost him a grand master's rating. Lessing has wittily recalled a misspent youth in one of Manhattan's less salubrious chess-and coffeehouses. The authors have also taken care to make the historical sections pert and amusing. "Can you forgive me this indiscretion?" Benjamin Franklin writes to a wealthy Frenchwoman. "Never hereafter shall I consent to begin a game [of chess] in your bathroom."
Senior Master Edmar Mednis' How to Beat Bobby Fischer is a detailed anatomical study of an Achilles' heel. The Achilles is Fischer, the winningest chess master in history; of the 576 games he has played since he became U.S. champion at the incredible age of 14, he has won 327 and drawn 188. But even Fischer occasionally loses; in the past 16 years he has booted 61 games. To whom? At what age? Was he playing white or black? Did he blunder? Was he outgeneraled? Do any patterns of weakness appear? In the most intriguing chess manual of the year, Mednis ransacks all 61 games for evidence as to how the great man might just possibly be beaten.