In the late '60s former world champion Botvinnik, in an interview for a Yugoslav newspaper, made a rather profound observation about Geller: (paraphrasing) Geller is clearly the best player in the world. However, what prevents Geller from being the strongest player in the world is that he lacks Spassky's realism.
Coming from Botvinnik, this was indeed high praise for Geller, a sort of recognition from the 'father' of Soviet chess of Geller's outstanding abilities...that in a perfect world he had all of the qualities necessary to shine above the rest. But at the same time it contained a sober truth: that in the actual world, with so many top class players, being the best player is no guarantee of coming out on top. That the hardest fought chess battles are decided NOT by one's strengths BUT instead by one's weaknesses...that the strongest player is the one who can best profit from those opportunities to expose the weaknesses in their opponents' play.
It was not by accident that Botvinnik mentioned Spassky in this context. In those years Spassky was coming into his own, and was seen by many to be the one most likely to become the next World Champion. Spassky was also Geller's main obstacle to earning the right to play a match for the world championship. Twice in the '60s Geller lost badly to Spassky in Candidates' match play, and in each match Geller was not able to win even one game!
In trying to understand better 'the Geller question', it is worth comparing Spassky to Geller. I start with focusing on the more apparent differences between their approaches to chess playing.
The first notable difference is how they behaved at the board. Spassky was famous for his poker face. He seemed to be completely indifferent to what was happening on the board. As Fischer wrote in his book, Sixty Memorable Games, 'Spassky sits at the board with the same dead expression whether he's mating or being mated.' Spassky's expression revealed nothing about what he was thinking.
Geller's facial expression, on the other hand, revealed clues about how he felt about his position and offered his opponent (valuable ?) insight into his thinking. Again drawing upon his book, in Fischer's game with Geller from Bled 1961, he recounts that after making an innovation on move 7 (7...Qf6) 'Geller looked quite happy'. Two moves later Fischer remarks 'He still looked happy' Finally after Fischer's 14th move 'Geller took a half hour on this recapture and stopped looking happy.' Geller resigned on the 22nd move, his position totally shattered and down a rook and a piece! (And clearly distraught.)
Another example can be taken from another Fischer vs. Geller game (1970 Interzonal) where after about 10 moves, Geller, with the white pieces, uncharacteristically offered a draw to his opponent. The spectators reported that Fischer said something quietly (clearly meant to refuse the draw) and it was noted that Geller immediately became flushed, his face turning very red. Curiously, several moves later Geller blundered a pawn for seemingly no reason.
I think that Geller clearly had a certain difficulty controlling his emotions during a tense game, and that perhaps occasionally he played less well when distressed or surprised. Spassky demonstrated much more outward self-control. He consciously prevented his emotions from showing, but this undoubtedly required much energy and probably had some negative effects on his moves from time to time. Even though Spassky's way of handling the very normal types of pressures and demands that occur during any tournament game may be a more desirable one, it is hard to argue that Geller's natural responsiveness to these same pressures was in any way artificial or destructive, or that it created opportunities for his opponent to jump in and take advantage of. (After all, in the end you must find strong moves, regardless of how happy or sad your opponent may be.)
Another difference between Geller and Spassky had to do with how they handled the clock. Geller had developed a reputation for finding himself in time trouble almost all the time. He was known as a deep thinker, (as opposed to a calculator like Korchnoi) and often found himself with twenty moves to make and only ten or fifteen minutes left on his clock to do so. This seemed to be a life long trait with Geller, and should be seen as part of his style: constantly searching for the truth, 'the best move always!' Geller, like Korchnoi, sought to understand each of his opponent's moves, and this is hardly a practical thing to do with limited time.
Spassky, on the other hand, was able to control his time remarkably well. He rarely got into time trouble, but this was a conscious decision. A more disciplined approach. I remember studying the time charts of the famous 'Spassky vs Petrosian' World Championship match of 1969 and noted the strikingly regular amounts of time that Spassky would allow himself to use to find a move. If I remember correctly (this work was done some ten years ago), Spassky would allow himself (on average) a maximum of 15 minutes on a difficult decision, twice a game, and more often than not try to limit these decisions to 8 minutes each. This policy was held to regularly for the duration of the match.
This difference between Geller and Spassky, however, is a purely pragmatic one, a type of factor more influenced by the choice of trainer than reflecting something more fundamental. I doubt very much if it is what Botvinnik had in mind when he referred to Spassky's realism. While Geller undoubtedly suffered from using too much time, and there are numerous examples of him falling on time in winning positions in his career, certainly many more than Spassky, it is very hard to argue that he scored less points than Spassky in the process: perhaps Spassky missed many more promising moves because of his conscious policy to make quicker practical decisions as opposed to always making the best move.
It may be possible to exploit an opponent's time trouble from time to time in some particular game, but it is unlikely that over the course of the career of a chess master this factor would make much of a statistical difference. Case in point is Korchnoi: a notorious time trouble addict, this problem has not prevented him from fighting no less than three matches for the World Title! So I would think it quite reasonable to deduce that Geller's time trouble problems should not have prevented him from playing a match for the World Championship.
Issues such as how one handles the emotional pressures that naturally occur during the game and how much time one uses to find moves are of course important issues for the practical player. But I do not think that they represent fundamental issues that can be exploited by an opponent on any regular basis. And I doubt that Botvinnik was referring to Geller's style or his self control or even his fundamental beliefs about chess.
Part 3 to follow soon.
© Kevin Spraggett