Chess to Enjoy
Mungo says, “Black is Better!”
40 years ago this month PBS hit ratings gold with their broadcast of
Fischer-Spassky.
By GM Andy Soltis
Forty years ago this month a 13-yearold Bronx high school student—who knew
how the pieces move but not much more
—turned on the TV. “There weren’t many
channels then,” John Fedorowicz recalled.
As he flipped from one to another, he
suddenly saw ... chess. “And I thought,
‘Wow, what is this?”’
This was live coverage of the FischerSpassky world championship match,
presented by a former sociology lecturer
who had never been on TV before—and
was appearing in what turned out to be
the most-watched show in public television history.
Who came up with the idea for the
show is in dispute. What is certain is
that Mike Chase, a producer for New York
public TV stations, had attended classes
at the Marshall Chess Club given by
Shelby Lyman, and in the spring of 1972
they discussed covering every game of
the upcoming match.
But when Chase, the son of playwright
Mary Chase, pitched the idea of chess
on TV, only New York City’s Channel 13,
WNET, was interested. “The other stations told him it was a lousy idea,” Lyman
said.
The show was launched with no sponsor and virtually no budget. The unpaid
announcer was Chase’s wife, Chris. The
show was shot in a small studio in Albany
because, as Chris wrote in TV Guide, it
was “the only place in the state of New
York willing to lend WNET a studio.”
There were only two cameras and few
amenities. “There was no air conditioning.
This was the summer, in the ’90s, and I
was wearing a black suit!” Lyman recalled.
And he remembers his salary as $1,000
or $1,500—for hosting the entire summer
run, of more than 100 on-air hours.
The original plan was modest: Lyman
would only cover the opening moves of
each game, from 1 p.m. until 2, when
the station’s big hit, “Sesame Street,”
came on. Even that plan sounded daunting. “I was thinking ‘How can I do this for
a whole hour?’” Lyman recalled.
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Chess Life — July 2012
After the first hour, he was supposed to
appear only at the top of each subsequent hour, to briefly update viewers
about the current position. When the
match began on July 11, 1972 and he got
to 2 p.m., “I said ‘Whew! That’s over.’”
But Channel 13 viewers demanded
more. “We got 300 phone calls!” Lyman
was told. “We’re going to go on!” On, that
is, until 6 p.m., that day and three days
a week from then on. “I was not happy
about that,” Lyman recalled.
“Everything went wrong” on that first
show, he remembered. “I think we called
Ed Lasker on the phone,” he said of the
86-year-old international master. “And
it turned out he was deaf.” The interview
was a disaster. Meanwhile the game took
a striking twist.
Fischer’s worst blunder?
GM Boris Spassky
GM Bobby Fischer
World Championship 1972, first game
-+-+-mk-+
zpp+-+-zp-+-+pzp-+
+P+-+-+-+-+-+-zp
zP-+-zPKzP-+-+-zP-vl
+-vL-+-+-
After 32. Kf3
Fischer had made a stunning capture
on h2 three moves earlier. By now it was
clear he had counted on 32. ... h3 33. Kg4
Bg1—overlooking that 34. Kxh3 Bxf2 35.
Bd2! and Kg2 wins. He blundered again
and lost.
“The thing I remember is: my heart
sank. We’ve waited for long for this
moment, Bobby playing for the world
championship, and then this,” Lyman
said. “It was like a sign from the gods.”
But to the shock of everyone involved,
the show took off. Hundreds of people
called Channel 13 each day, several of
them wanting to suggest moves to Fischer. The infectious novelty of several
straight hours of live TV—something you
see today only on election night—was
captivating. A New York newspaper surveyed 23 bars and found the sets in 18 of
them were tuned to the day’s show and
people inside were betting up to $1,000
on the next move.
The show’s format was primitive, even
by 1972 standards. Lyman, 35, stood at
a demo board while two or three guest
commentators sat in chairs. The panelists often argued passionately with each
other and with Lyman. “Mike always said
that was great TV,” he said. Eugene
Meyer, an up-and-coming 20-year-old
master, became a frequent guest because
he always had his own opinion. He
recalled, “Mike Chase pulling me aside
and urging me to continue disagreeing
with Shelby.”
Soon the shows were getting better
known guests, including Reuben Fine.
But the 57-year-old Fine, who had given
up chess for psychology, denigrated Fischer. “Fine really got me very angry,”
Lyman said. “Bobby was in his heyday.
And Fine characterized him as paranoid.
I thought this was unprofessional and
besides it was not the time to do that.”
In that pre-Internet era, the moves
crossed the Atlantic by Western Union
teletype to Chase’s office in Manhattan and
were then phoned to Albany. Whenever a
new one arrived, someone in the studio
would ring a bell and Shelby would cut off
conversation with “We have a move!”
But due to Spassky’s long thinks, there
were often extensive lulls that had to be
filled, somehow. “I do think one of the reasons the show was popular is that we
really had no idea what was going to happen next, not only on the chessboard but
also in the studio. It was not scripted at
all,” said Meyer, now president of the
Federalist Society.
uschess.org