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Regina didn’t know who Bobby’s father was if she was having an affair with Nemenyi around the time the Mexican assignation with Gerhardt Fischer occurred.

    In an attempt to find other boys who might want to play with Bobby, Regina wrote to the chess editor of the
Brooklyn Eagle
to see if he knew of any seven-year-old players. She referred to her son as “my little chess miracle.” The editor, Hermann Helms, a great old chess master, replied that she should bring Bobby to the Grand Army Plaza library on a particular Thursday evening in January 1951, so that the boy could play in a simultaneous exhibition to be given by several chess masters.
    Normally, a simultaneous exhibition is given by
one
master who walks from board to board, competing against multiple players. The boards are arranged in the shape of a square or horseshoe. When the master reaches each of the boards, the player makes his move and the master responds before quickly moving to the next board.
    Bobby, accompanied by his mother, entered the high-ceilinged rotunda of the Grand Army Plaza library and was momentarily surprised by what hesaw. Circling the room were locked glass cases displaying unusual and historic chess sets, loaned to the library from private collectors for the occasion. The cases also contained a variety of popular chess books and some incunabula printed in German. There was a ceramic set of chessmen inspired by Tenniel’s illustrations of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland;
two sets from displaced persons’ camps, one carved by hand and another made of woven straw; each set had taken more than five hundred hours of work to produce; and a set from Guatemala that was reminiscent of pre–Spanish New World architecture. This was all quite fascinating for the general spectator, but Bobby Fischer hadn’t come to look at chess sets. “They did not interest me too much,” he remembered. He’d come to play.
    On that evening masters were performing in rotation, one playing for about an hour, followed by another who’d take his place. When Bobby sat down to play with his own new wooden set, the master who came to his board was Max Pavey, a thirty-two-year-old radiologist who’d been champion of both Scotland and New York State and who was playing at the top of his form. Pavey was the first master Bobby ever played. It’s also likely this was his first serious game of chess against a player with tutored expertise. What was occurring at that moment was analogous to a seven-year-old playing a few games of tennis with his peers, then taking to the court against a still-active John McEnroe.
    A crowd of spectators gathered around the board as the diminutive Bobby faced the self-assured, tweed-jacketed Max Pavey. The boy was so serious about what he was doing that the game attracted more and more onlookers. He kneeled on his chair to get a more panoramic view of the pieces.
    Bobby remembered his experience in solving puzzles. He must not move too quickly; he knew that the solution was there waiting to be found, if only he had time, time, more time. Pavey, who excelled at playing rapidly—he’d recently captured the title of U.S. Speed Chess Champion—seemed to zoom around the room hardly studying the other boards as he made his moves, returning to Bobby’s game in such a short time that the child couldn’t calculate as deeply or as carefully as he wanted. That night there were only eight players, making it more difficult for each to contend with the master than if there’d been scores of players, who would have slowed Pavey’s progress.
    The master was much too strong. In about fifteen minutes, puffing on hispipe, Pavey captured Bobby’s queen, thereby ending the game. He graciously offered his hand to the boy and with a gentle smile said, “Good game.” Bobby stared at the board for a moment. “He crushed me,” he said to no one in particular. Then he burst into tears.
    Despite his phenomenal memory, Bobby as an adult could never