damanegra.com

Tras todo un volumen IV de la serie “Mis grandes predecesores” poco podrá añadir Kasparov sobre la figura de Fischer en el ajedrez. Pero a cuenta de una crítica que realiza en The New York Times sobre un nuevo libro acerca de la figura del genial norteamericano no está de más recordar lo que quizá haya sido la gran aportación de Bobby Fischer al ajedrez: la parte financiera. ¿Después de leer la siguiente cita quién pondrá en duda las palabras de Spassky acerca de referirse a Fischer como “el presidente honorario de nuestro sindicato”?.

(…) the chess world of the pre-Fischer era was laughably impoverished even by today’s modest standards. The Soviet stars were subsidized by the state, but elsewhere the idea of making a living solely from playing chess was a dream. When Fischer dominated the Stockholm tournament of 1962, a grueling five-week qualifier for the world championship cycle, his prize was $750. (…) Ten years after Stockholm, the purse for the 1972 World Championship between Fischer and Spassky was an astronomical $250,000, plus side deals for a share of television rights.(…) My epic series of matches against Anatoly Karpov from 1985 to 1990 fanned the sponsorship flames into a blaze—we were not going to play only for the greater Soviet glory now that we knew there were millions of dollars to be had. We had learned more from Fischer than just chess. Last year’s world championship match, in which Viswanathan Anand of India defended his title against Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria in Sofia, had a prize fund of nearly $3 million despite receiving no real publicity outside of the chess world. In spite of corrupt federations and no coherent organization among themselves, the top players today do quite well without having to also teach classes or write books while trying to work on their own chess at the same time.

— Gary Kasparov