hmp. everybody is a unique individual. let fischer be fischer, and you go and play chess. but don't do anything where you seemed fischer had failed, otherwise, others may write the same things about you. my feelings about fischer? i like him, no matter what. people grow old, get sick - physical, psychological. fischer's a lonely person - no wife, no kids, the chess pieces are his loyal friends. he talks to them, and they talk back to him. in the four corners of his room, he is their emperor, both sides of the kingdom, white and black. he would play the white pieces, and then go to the other side to play the black pieces. he would play against himself. everyday of his life. he would not talk about girls, no saturday nights for him, no taxes, just pure chess. you talk to him, he would get his pocketchess, like you don't exist. he's got his own world, outside of that, everybody's against him. whatever syndrome he had, i like him. but i'm not anti-jewish nor anti-american, nor anti-russian. fischer's got sick, dude. you can't allow yourself to go low his level of sanity. there's a boy inside every man, see the boy in the old fischer. the boy who just wanted to play chess, and be the very best in the entire planet. a boy seeking the love and guidance of his father. fischer never got the chance to call anyone dad when he grew up. and he never had a chance to be even called a dad himself. it got it into his head, being the cold war hero. he was primadona, and everybody else had to submit to his demands. but like the rest of us, fischer gets hungry, he sleeps, he eats like us, he farts like us.
Fischer: mentally disturbed or just mean spirited jerk?
Well, the guy was pretty extreme in is hatred against everyone in USSR (that's quite a fair number of people) and back then, Americans didn't think there was anything wrong with that. But suddenly when he said those things after 9/11, he was public enemy #1. It's all perspective. I think he was a legend at chess, however I am sutre he had some mental disorder (Asberger's and maybe something else) that, complimentary with the fact that he is just an outspoken, arrogant sort of person lead to him having some extreme views.
hmp. everybody is a unique individual. let fischer be fischer, and you go and play chess. but don't do anything where you seemed fischer had failed, otherwise, others may write the same things about you. my feelings about fischer? i like him, no matter what. people grow old, get sick - physical, psychological. fischer's a lonely person - no wife, no kids, the chess pieces are his loyal friends. he talks to them, and they talk back to him. in the four corners of his room, he is their emperor, both sides of the kingdom, white and black. he would play the white pieces, and then go to the other side to play the black pieces. he would play against himself. everyday of his life. he would not talk about girls, no saturday nights for him, no taxes, just pure chess. you talk to him, he would get his pocketchess, like you don't exist. he's got his own world, outside of that, everybody's against him. whatever syndrome he had, i like him. but i'm not anti-jewish nor anti-american, nor anti-russian. fischer's got sick, dude. you can't allow yourself to go low his level of sanity. there's a boy inside every man, see the boy in the old fischer. the boy who just wanted to play chess, and be the very best in the entire planet. a boy seeking the love and guidance of his father. fischer never got the chance to call anyone dad when he grew up. and he never had a chance to be even called a dad himself. it got it into his head, being the cold war hero. he was primadona, and everybody else had to submit to his demands. but like the rest of us, fischer gets hungry, he sleeps, he eats like us, he farts like us.
WORD
Sounds like the pressure got to him. US champ at 14? Playing for the US against Spassky? And then, after devoting his whole life to chess, he becomes World Champion and there's nothing left to challenge him. I think that's what made him "break".
Sounds like the pressure got to him. US champ at 14? Playing for the US against Spassky? And then, after devoting his whole life to chess, he becomes World Champion and there's nothing left to challenge him. I think that's what made him "break".
Yeah gxtmf1, I hear you. But I guess my question really has to do with my own mixed feelings about my continuing interest in him both as a person and a chess player. In my opinion he was one of a long line of top level chess players who have really been quite nuts.
Nobody wud agree bt @some point every regular chess player behaves weird
Nobody wud agree bt @some point every regular chess player behaves weird
Ddi you mean "everybody" when you said "nobody"?
This argument comes up a lot here. Fischer was before my time, and I realize by the countless books and articles on him what a genius he was at chess. But reading about him, that was before he became the really bigoted person he grew into. The question I have, is if he had exhibited this bigoted personality during his heyday, would other chess players have refused to play him personally or in tournaments he was in? I'm no professional chess player, but I would not even want to be in the same room with such a person, no matter how talented they were.
Alekhine was a nazi sympathiser. Plato was a paedophile. So was Beethoven. So is Roman Polanski. I'm still big fans of all of their work.
(p.s. I'm suprised you didn't pick up on Fischer's rampant mysogyny as well)
Tal; "Fischer is Fischer, but a horse is a horse" upon hearing about his mysogynist rants.
Even a friendly dog will bite you if you kick him enough, Fischer was kicked a LOT ! How would you do if you were abandoned by BOTH parents ?! Not a very good start for someone to have a "normal" life , is it ?
Where's the neutral or non-derogatory choice?
How often madness and genius go together. As far as just plain ugliness, a dying Henry Ford refused to let his company go public lest "Jew speculators" own stock.
Reb, how was Fischer abandoned by both of his parents? I'm pretty sure Regina was there right through to the end (although he probably would've rather had it some other way).
From what I have read his mother left him alone in NYC when he was still a teen... apparently he never even knew his father ? From what I have read of his mother she didnt have both oars in the water either. Its possible some of his problems were genetic ?
As for the genetic link to his behaviour, both his father and half-brother were certifiable apparently (the brother being brilliant and ending up pushing a shopping cart around town wearing oven mitts).
Regina did leave him alone when he was just a teen but this was as much his wish as hers. He was very tired of her always making his business her business, and loudly.
Still I find it a bit hard to believe (as with all these psychiatric kinds of explanations) that they are sufficient. Shouldn't then everyone in such an environment go bonkers? But that doesn't happen. There's gotta be something more to it than that.
Ofcourse, I dont have all the answers and refuse to pretend otherwise but "experts" say most child molesters were also molested as children themselves, yet not all who were molested as children do become child molesters themselves. Many people kill themselves over certain life experiences but not all do.
For me i think of Fischer like Michael Jackson. Both men ahead of their time as far as talent is concerned in what they did, but both men a little crazy as well, but as i said very brilliant in their chosen fields. Both had troubled childhoods too interestingly enough.
when Bobby, as a teenager, decided to drop out of school his mother was furious over this matter and told bobby to go on his own. remember his mother was a brilliant woman, and it was an embarrassment to have a son dropping out of high school just for chess. although bobby went outside his house to stay with a friend he would call his mother over the phone from time to time, because he cares for his mother.
during the times when bobby fischer was outside of the U.S. you could imagine just how difficult it was for him to get to his mother's burial, i think that was in 1997 if i remember correctly.
bobby fischer, in an interview denied being a misogynist - a word he seemed to have heard for the first time in his life (he had to ask the interviewer what a misogynist is). He just described that women should be at home waiting for their men to come and serve them food etc. - probably the very thing that bobby fischer wished for all his life, a family just like what his classmates and playmates had. His mother, being a single parent, had to work very hard to sustain him and his sister Joan.
gokukid very insightful. i think someones disposition is more important than their actions/words... bobby fischer was a good person despite whatever he may have said.
I came in to chess a couple of years before the Fischer vs Spassky match in 1972. My mom was a pretty strong player as a child, having grown up in Easter Europe and attracting the attention of the chess trainers in her area. As a young boy (I was 11 when I played in my first tournament) I was totally fascinated by Fischer and Fischermania. I studied "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" and later got (and still have) a copy of his "60 memorable games". So here's my dilemma: I'm completely appalled by Fischers anti-jewish and anti-american rantings, but I still find myself drawn, like moth to flame, to him. And part of me hates myself for it.
Does anyone else have mixed feelings about being proud that Fischer was "one of us" but on the other hand turned out to be an absolute embarresment as a human being? Just curious.