Chess: How does White win? 06/06/2011

FOR one brief and astonishing moment in the summer of 1972, chess was bigger than anything else in the world – and it was all down to lone wolf Bobby Fischer, who wrested the World Chess Championship from the Soviets by beating Boris Spassky in Reykjavik

That was almost 40 years ago, and now a controversial and cerebral HBO documentary by Oscar-nominated Liz Garbus, released today in the US, looks at his life – Bobby Fischer Against The World. It traces Fischer's epic and tragic journey from child prodigy to Cold War American hero to paranoid recluse and pariah, through to his death in 2008 at the "chessic" age of 64.

I have seen several cuts and rushes of the documentary at various stages of its production. It includes interviews with Fischer and the people who knew him and played against him, and features great footage and news reports around his rise to the summit in 1972. This is a documentary no chess fan should miss. It will be shown during the Edinburgh Film Festival and its UK-wide cinema release is on 15 July.

Last month in St Louis, Hikaru Nakamura – arguably the strongest US player since Fischer – beat Ukrainian Ruslan Ponomariov in a an exhibition match that consisted of six classical and six rapid games.

Although the rapid games didn't count for ratings, the classical ones did, and Nakamura gained more world-ranking Elo points by beating Ponomariov in the final game to win by 3.5-2.5.

H Nakamura - R Ponomariov

St Louis Match, (6)

Slav Exchange

1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Be7 4 cxd5 exd5 5 Bf4 c6 6 Qc2 Bd6 7 Bxd6 Qxd6 8 e3 Qg6 9 Qxg6 hxg6 10 b4 a6 11 f3 Nd7 12 Bd3 Ne7 13 Nge2 g5 14 Kf2 Nf6 15 g4 Kd8 16 Kg3 Bd7 17 a4 Nc8 18 h3 Re8 19 Kf2 Nd6 20 a5 Re7 21 Rac1 Nfe8 22 Ng3 g6 23 h4! gxh4 24 Rxh4 f5 25 gxf5 Nxf5 26 Nxf5 gxf5 27 Rh8 Rb8 28 Na4 Kc7 29 Nb6 Be6 30 Rf8 Rf7 31 Rxf7+ Bxf7 32 Bxf5 Nd6 33 Bd3 Rh8 34 Rg1 Kd8 35 Na4 Nc4 36 Nc5 Rh2+ 37 Rg2 Rxg2+ 38 Kxg2 Kc7 39 Bxc4 dxc4 40 Na4 Be8 41 Nc3 b6 42 e4 Kb7 43 Kf2 c5 44 bxc5 1–0