14th March, 2003

MY 60 Memorable Years would have been an ideal title for a follow-up
book to Bobby Fischer's timeless classic, My 60 Memorable Games, but
alas a combination of paranoia, hubris, and hatred, forcing him into a
self-imposed early retirement, proved to be the unravelling of the
game's most revered icon.

However, on the final day of Linares (March 9th), as Garry Kasparov paid
his own little personal tribute to his favourite player with a
Fischer-like rant aimed towards the journalists and the organisers
during the prize giving ceremony, the chess world was again abuzz with
reminiscences of the most charismatic and enigmatic player in the
history of the game, as Fischer celebrated his 60th birthday.
Fischer's achievements were staggering: in his time he was the youngest
U.S. master (fourteen), the world's youngest grandmaster, and the
youngest candidate for the world championship (fifteen). Asked to
explain his sudden emergence on the world stage at such a young age, the
precocious youngster simply shrugged his shoulders and said, "I just got
good."

No longer welcome in the US after being indicted by the Treasury
Department for breaking a UN sanction when he came out of retirement in
1992 to play a $5 million match in war-torn Yugoslavia with his old foe
Boris Spassky, Fischer now lives in his adopted Japanese home of Tokyo.
This year there was a strong 126-player field for the Anibal Open that
ran alongside the Linares elite tournament. Among the field (by a
strange coincidence as 'Gentleman' Jim Plaskett would have it) was
15-year-old Japanese-born Hikaru Nakamura, who only last month broke
Fischer's 44-year record of being America's youngest grandmaster.

Nakamura, who moved to America with his US-born mother as a young child,
was up amongst the leading group in the Anibal Open before losing out in
spectacular style in the penultimate round to joint winner Ernesto
Inarkiev of Russia.

The leading final scores at the Anibal Open were: 1-5 A Korobov
(Ukraine), E Inarkiev (Russia), A Kharlov (Russia), S Del Rio Angelis
(Spain), A Delchev (Bulgaria) 7.5/10; 6-10 A Beliavsky (Slovenia), S
Vasquez (Chile), V Kotronias (Cyprus), E Najer (Russia), E Gleizerov
(Russia) 7.

H Nakamura - E Inarkiev
10th Anibal Open, (9)
King's Indian Defence
1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 Nf3 0-0 6 Be2 e5 7 0-0 Nc6 8 d5 Ne7
9 b4 a5 10 Ba3 b6 11 bxa5 Nh5 12 Re1 f5 13 Nd2 Nf6 14 Bd3 Bh6 15 Nb3 Kh8
16 f3 bxa5 17 Nd2 c5 18 Nb5 a4 19 Bb2 f4 20 Nf1 g5 21 g4 Ng6 22 Nd2 Rf7
23 Kf2 Bf8 24 h3 h5 25 Rh1 Rh7 26 Be2 Be7 27 Qc2 Kg7 28 Rhg1 hxg4 29
hxg4 Rh2+ 30 Ke1 Qh8 31 Qd3 Qh4+ 32 Kd1 Qf2 33 Rf1 Qg2 34 Re1 Nh4 35 Na3
Bd7 36 Rb1 Rh8 37 Bc3 Bc8 38 Rb8 Qf2 39 Rf1 Qg3 40 Kc1 Nxg4 41 fxg4 Rxe2
42 Qxe2 Bxg4 43 Nf3 Rxb8 44 Be1 Bxf3 45 Qd3 Be2 0-1

JOHN B HENDERSON