King's Gambit, Fischer Defense King's Gambit, Fischer Defense The Fischer Defense to the King's Gambit is a chess opening variation that begins with the moves: Although 3...d6 was previously known, it did not become a major variation until Fischer advocated it in a famous 1961 article in the first issue of the "American Chess Quarterly". In the "Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings", the Fischer Defense is given the code C34. After Bobby Fischer lost a 1960 game at Mar del Plata to Boris Spassky, in which Spassky played the Kieseritzky Gambit, Fischer left in tears and promptly went to work at devising a new defense
Hermann Helms their well-respected 1995 book "The Bobby Fischer I Knew And Other Stories" (p. 329), which is the major source for this article. Helms assisted Bobby Fischer in 1951 with his move into organized chess, when he responded to a letter from Bobby's mother Regina Fischer, who was seeking opponents in Brooklyn for her eight-year-old son. Helms encouraged and stimulated the young Fischer, who would develop very rapidly, and become U.S. Champion by age 14 in 1957, later going on to win the World Chess Championship in 1972. There is a small file of ten of his games at chessgames.com. This