Bobby Fischer: How the king of chess lost his crown

nice comments on bobby

fischer

Fischer watched Karpov easily demolish Spassky from his basement, and said "maybe I should try religion"

I just wanted to say i enjoyed both the article and the pics that the op posted. To me Fischer holds mixed feelings. I admire his chess, but i can't help but think how nice it would have been if he had defended his title. Fischer's later actions hurt others but they hurt Fischer most of all. Clearly he became ill, but its unknown if it was this illness which allowed him to become so enmeshed in chess as to win the world championship.

I wouldn't see his weird claims about jews and about September 11 as 'ill'. He was lonely, ignorant, and later sometimes arrogant. His exaggerated claims about conspiracy of soviet chess players, shown during the Interzonal tournaments and in Reykjavik, his demands for a match after 1973 were part of this, too. Were there enough friends who told him how wrong he was ?

Larry Evans said something like "I don't know if I was his friend or not, but if I wasn't, then he didn't have any."

Fisher's claims about Soviets cheating at the Interzonal was later confirmed by Soviet chessplayers. 

I think the evidence (if there needs to be any) that Fisher was not afraid to play Karpov is that Fisher did not play anyone.  I am pretty sure that Fisher did not think everyone could beat him.

He had enough money and was tired of not being supported in his requests.  Those people who said Fisher could have arranged a match with Karpov under his own conditions are wrong.  FIDE was poised to strip him, and did.

No one thinks Fisher was afraid of Spassky, yet that match required the President (or Kissinger) to contact Fisher to ask him to please play.  Fisher was prepared to walk away from a championship match when he was not the champion because his conditions were not met.

The elite chess players should  (and do) thank Fisher for bringing sponsorship to the game. 

Okay, now what was the guy's name who he lost to and then said he'd be resigning from chess?

And also the same guy who Fischer went on to play again with, disregarding his initial resignation a few years ago?

Even if Chessville can't be accessed it's possible to find archived material, and this interview with Larry Evans is one of the more interesting texts on Fischer:

http://web.archive.org/web/20121025035202/http://www.chessville.com/Editorials/Interviews/GMLarryEvansInterviewOnBobbyFischer.htm

Interesting article, I had read that awhile back. The part I was paraphrasing:

Parr: Do you still "like" Bobby?  If he came tomorrow to your door, seeking succor, would you extend it to him as an old friend?

GM Evans: You ask a question to which my answer will make me sound like a hard man. I kind of feel like the Jedediah Leland character in Citizen Kane who said, “Maybe I wasn’t his friend, but if I wasn’t he never had one.”

Okay, I realize that he's unbalanced, but I don't believe in turning the other cheek. Frankly, it would be hard to shake his hand after all the lies he invented about me in one of his radio rants. He has really deteriorated. I've never done anything but help him and was astounded when he called me "a vicious rat" and "just a son of a bitch." He also said I pretend to be independent, but "the Jewish World Government” tells me what to write.

Bobby displayed the same kind of ingratitude toward Ed Edmondson, a man who moved mountains to make it possible for him to become world champion. The reason Bobby has few old friends left is that he is a friend to no one. Instead he surrounds himself with lackeys and bootlickers who stroke his ego. These people did him no good by egging him on in all those radio interviews.

I cannot admire B. Fischer anymore the way I did when I was younger. Its not enough to play good chess, after all, Houdini plays pretty good, and better than Fischer. There are plenty of better figures in chess, who were also pretty good chess players.

It's kind of weird of Fischer to be such an antisemite, considering he was of Jewish descent as well. I can't imagine what his parents must've thought of him after he sputtered such filth.

Fischer in some way was an orphan. His father (from germany) left him when he was 2 years old, and his mother was more occuped with politic issues than the education of her two childrens (Bobby and his sister). They had to take care for themselves many times, cause their mother was in manifestations and protests, some times in other countries. When Booby began to play chess as a career, he never saw or had contact with his mother again. Maybe this is the reason of his later behaviour. He was angry wiht life. A sensible genius without parents love.

1. hating jews for political reasons is not antisemitism (which has been defined as a form of racism, focussed against jews; btw, this is some sort of imprecision since arabs are semites, too).

Fischer was probably not a racist. What is bad is his accusation of involvement of most jews in a supposed wicked world conspiracy.

2. Aren't there other people who hate people of their own descendence ?

Like Germans ? Or Italians (many now hate their own folks in general, because they voted for Berlusconi) ?

I think this is not true. Chess has gained recognition (and monetary support) due to his (Fischer's !) art, but not because of his financial demands.  

Chess is (has been always) the crown of mind games, even more so due to the interest it raised for modelization of artificial intelligence.

It was a matter of time until sponsors would have been paid well for chess. Look at the fate of other sports.

Roman analyzed a Fisher game on chess.com  In that game Fisher found a forced win that no other current super GM found.  Further, Houdini also did not find it.  Only, Rybka found it after Roman left it to analyze longer than what would be a reasonable amount of time in a standard time control.

Fisher was not impressed enough with that game and did not include it in his 60 most memorable games.

After the 9/11 attacks, he openly called for 'randomly killing Jews' in a radio interview. Tell me how that isn't antisemitism...

On your second point: I can't say I hate all Germans because I don't know them all (not because I'm one myself). 

To agitate the murder of random folks of a certain minority (because it always hits the right one, according to Fischer's logic) is racism. I just used the term 'antisemitism' instead because Jews are involved, and Fischer himself was one, too. I respect Fischer's abilities on the board, but he was a sick (in both senses) bastard. 

Following your logic, you would be a racist, if you would hate ALL Germans. What, if you would be right with this, all of a sudden ?

Don't be mad, I am joking.

I call it racism if someone claims a disadvantage or a bad quality of every member of a nationality by BIRTH (genes), and not by education or culture. ---

Lets not split hairs over this. I agree, Fischer was a bastard to say such things.

For a different perspective on Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov, please check out my upcoming novel, Knight to King 4: The Fischer-Kasparov Match, where two chess titans from different eras match up.  Coming to Amazon in February.  Thank you, in advance, for your interest!

See http://kennethtzemsky.com for more information.

You realize that knight's don't go that way, right?