I shook hands with Fischer: Lyssenko

By P.K. Ajith Kumar

KOZHIKODE, OCT. 7. British Grandmaster (GM) Nigel Short said the other day how he regretted he could not shake hands with Bobby Fischer, though he had actually played with the legend, on the internet. Well, International Master (IM) Alexander Lyssenko, a widely-respected coach from Russia, did that, three years ago at an obscure Japanese restaurant in Budapest.

``I actually shook hands with the great man,'' he told The Hindu at Hotel Asma Tower here on Sunday.

``I had gone to that restaurant with some Japanese players, who were my wards. It was on the evening of August 18, 1998, and there were only two people when we entered the hotel. When I saw this bearded man, it struck me immediately that his face seemed so familiar, but I could not identify it. Then I saw him speaking on telephone, and he was talking about chess. Now I knew it was Fischer.''

No wonder Lyssenko, now in India on a coaching assignment, remembers his meeting with the maverick American, who made chess the global sport it is today, in graphic details. For, Fischer has been living an extremely private life after winning the World championship in 1972 in Reykjavic, Iceland, beating Boris Spassky and the Russian might in the mind sport. He shut himself out from public glare, and resurfaced only in 1992 briefly for a repeat match against Spassky.

``Fischer was very warm to us at that meeting,'' recalls 50-year- old Lyssenko. ``He signed autographs for all of us, and asked my Japanese students about their game and the chess books they followed. When they told him that they admired his `My Sixty Memorable Games', he said only one German publisher printed the book correctly, and that there were mistakes in all other editions. He did not allow us to take photographs though.''

Lyssenko also believes that Short's mysterious opponent at the Internet Chess Club site was indeed Fischer. ``Looking at the games, you could see that only Kasparov could have played like that, if the mysterious opponent was not Fischer. There's another reason why I am convinced it is Fischer. Because when I met him, he looked very healthy and happy. He must have been 55 at that time, but he looked only 45. Which means he must have been enjoying life and that means he was playing chess.''

Lyssenko is a regular contributor to the well-known Russian chess magazine `64', but he hasn't written a word about his meeting with Fischer.

``My editor told me Fischer wouldn't have liked it,'' he says. ``Before now, I have spoken about this incident only to a local newspaper back home.''

Lyssenko thinks the Fischer clock is one of his greatest contributions to chess. ``Its relevance is all the more now, with the new time control. And of course, it was Fischer who brought money to chess and made it popular the world over.''

Before the advent of Fischer, the erstwhile Soviet Union had a monopoly in producing World chess champions for a quarter of a century. The game thrived in the country, and numerous chess schools, that would produce the likes of Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and Vladimir Kramnik, came into being. Lyssenko is also a product from such a school, but he found out that he rather enjoyed teaching children.

He graduated from the High School of Coaches in Moscow in 1987. Currently he is teaching at the chess school in Ekkaterinburg, in the hills of Russia. ``Back in my school there are about 1,000 students and I am one of the 30 coaches.''

He also accepts coaching assignments from other countries. ``I am mostly involved with India, Japan and Croatia,'' he says. This is his third visit to India. He is coaching K. Ratnakaran, the surprise bronze medallist at the Asian junior championship in Teheran recently, for one month, accepting invitation from Tal Chess Academy here.

``He is a very promising lad,'' he says. ``He can definitely become an IM, and if he works harder he is even GM material. Because he has the talent. I found some of his moves in his games as good as a Grandmaster's.''

He is impressed by the huge improvement India has made on the chessboard of late. ``The standard of Indian chess has definitely improved, since I came first came to this country 12 years ago. The All India Chess Federation (AICF) and its energetic secretary Mr. P. T. Ummer Koya can feel proud about it. I am particularly impressed with the girls here. India will be among the top five or six nations in the world in women's chess in a few years.'' His first visit to India was in 1989 when he conducted training camps for junior players and coaches at Patiala.

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