Some Fischer fans do seem to underestimate Kasparov, to put it mildly :-)

Perhaps.  Or it could be that Americans would just like to think that the best American player ever, was better than the best Russian player ever.

Crazy like a Fischer:

 Fischer and Kasparov were a generation apart.  When Fischer stopped playing, Kasparov was 9 yrs old.  Get your retarded theories out of here and dont let the door hit you in the ass on your way out!

 Fablehaft, you got a minute---i'm gonna set you straight. Its as obvious as the nose on your face that you know absolutely nothing about chess history. Sometimes the  Russian State called the shots and sometimes the players called the shots. In Curacao---the players called the shots. The Russian State was quite convinced that a Russian would emerge to challenge Botvinnik. After all, The Russians had five of the best players in the world playing in the tournament---Petrosian, Keres, Geller, Tal, and Korchnoi. America had two---Fischer and Benko. So the chess leaders in Russia kept their hands off and let the players make the deals. Petrosian, Keres, and Geller made a deal whereby they would play easy, quick draws amongst themselves and retire to the beach for sun and relaxation. It worked perfectly as the came in 1,2,3 in the tournament. Korchnoi wanted in but the trio said nyet!  Why dont you know this stuff Fablehaft---its in a hundred different books!

As for Tal, he might have went along if ordered to do so by the State but I dont think he is going to agree to a bunch of draws with players he thought he could beat. Perhaps he had more integrity than Keres, Petrosian or Geller. Fischer knew Tal wasn't in on the fix. Fischer was the only player to visit Tal in the hospital.

How about this Fablehaft---if you are going to defend the Russians so vigorously pull your head out and  read a book about the Russians.

It's impossible to know who would win in this matchup, but I am fairly sure Kasparov would be the likely victor. Fischer vs Kasparov would be a great matchup, but we will never know what would have happenened. Both are very talented.

 Which is likely a myth created by people like you of course. And I wonder how much Fischer's visit had to do with Bisguier being a good friend of Tal's...

Deep Blue was not a chess player; rather, it was a number crunching machine, that was aided by numerous 'boffins'.

 Arctor---you are an ignorant buffoon ---I will give you the same advice as I gave your buddy Fablehaft. If you are going to talk history on this site---learn history.  I feel sorry for someone as dumb as you are and whats really pathetic is---you think you know chess.

Blub blub blub, keep those lips flapping maybe something sensible will come out eventually.

  Being such a distinguished historian, why don't you enlighten us? Was Bisguier Tal's good buddy or wasn't he? Was Bisguier Fischer's second in Curacao or wasn't he? Can you provide an earlier source than Fischer's biographer Frank Brady for the claim that Fischer was the only participant at Curacao that visited Tal in the hospital? (a claim that funnily enough Tal never mentions in his autobiography)

This is from a recent interview from Yasser Seirawan-

Taking the golden opportunity that you are so familiar with these two great men, could you please make a comparison between Fischer and Kasparov, their weak and strong sides, the key of their successfully dominating in their times, respectively?

Sad to say Bobby gave up the game when I started to play, so my comparison of Fischer versus say Karpov or Kasparov wouldn’t be helpful. I can say that Bobby had an extraordinary capacity for hard work and probably spent more time honing his game than anyone previously had. He was truly professional in his choice of openings and so on. People like to say “Bobby was the best chess player ever!” Such words make them feel good or even knowledgeable. I might ask them: really? In which time frame was Bobby the best player ever? Think about it for a moment.

Before Bobby entered the cycle that culminated in his historic 1972 World Championship match victory, by his own agreement, in 1970, he allowed Bent Larsen to play board one ahead of him in the match versus the Soviets. To repeat, in 1970, the great Bobby Fischer, himself, thought it correct that Larsen play ahead of him.

Before Bobby defeated Boris Spassky in their match, he had never beaten Boris and in fact had a bad score against this rival. If we are generous, we could say that Bobby was the best player in 1971 and 1972, and then he quit. Hmm. That doesn’t sound like solid grounds to me to make the claim that he was the best ever.

Were Bobby impressed, truly amazing, was his incredible Candidate Match results as well as the final margin of victory in the 1972 match. Bobby was always good against the lower half of the field in round robin events. He wasn’t always dominating against the top half of the field at all.

Anatoly Karpov was a remarkable world champion. It always seemed to me that victory came to easy for Anatoly. From 1975 to 1985, essentially Karpov won everything. For Anatoly gold was important and he accepted it with minimal effort. He wasn’t trying for “Fischeresque” results, he was happy to simply win first prize. And win he did! People don’t really understand how good Anatoly truly was. Just consider that while I believe that Garry Kasparov was the greatest player ever, in 1984 Anatoly was giving him a drubbing of 5-0 before the match was aborted. Imagine, leading the greatest player ever 5-0 after thirty games. Furthermore, imagine it was only a chess genius like Garry Kasparov that prevented Karpov from dominating for another decade!

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7638

 I have a lot of respect for Seriwan, but I thinks some of his analysis is seriously flawed. True at one point during their first match Karpov was 5-0 against Kasparov, but what he doesn't say is that Kasparov adjusted and was only behind 3-5 when the match was aborted. At that point Kasparov had all the momentum. He really seems to have an axe to grind against Fischer who beat Taimanov and Larsen 6-0 and handily beat Petrosian and Spassky. To say that it might be "generous" to consider Fischer the strongest player in 71 and 72 seems absurd. However I do agree with him about Karpov; he was truly great and his tournament record is unsurpassed.

 Tell me arctor---Do you want me to prove to you the earth is not flat ? Do you ever read a book about anything ? Please stay away from me---every time you talk to me my brain cells start dying. Go away please! You are absolutely  and positively the dumbest guy to ever post on this site.

How about this---be pen pals with fablehaft---you guys are about on par with one another.

I don't think so, I've often found Seirawan to be much more positive about Fischer than about Kasparov. I read an interview with him where he stated that the biggest regret of his career was that he hadn't punched Kasparov in the face during a game. Not for some big thing either, Kasparov had just punched the clock harshly and apologised. Seirawan called it a lifetime regret that he didn't beat Kasparov up in the playing hall. I mean, physically assaulting an opponent is no small thing, I can't even imagine that players like Topalov and Kramnik ever thought about it when their relation was at its worst, while Seirawan really regretted not having done just that for years. In the same interview he also spoke very warmly about what a sympathetic person Fischer was.

In 1970 Spassky was World Champion and he once again won against Fischer in the Olympiad, taking their head to head score to 3-0 and a couple of draws. He had also won matches against the top players clearly on his way to the title. It's by no means certain that Fischer should be ranked ahead of the World Champion in 1970. The only match he had played was the one against Reshevsky and he had never won a tournament ahead of the World Champion either. If someone would have said in 1969-70 that Spassky shouldn't be counted as the best player in the world it would have been hard to point at something he could have done better. Maybe Fischer was the best player in the world already in 1970, but he had done much less to prove it than Spassky had.

Oh yeah?  Well it just so happens that fabelhaft has leprosy and his nose fell off.  So there!

Gubble gubble gubble. Nice way to sidestep the questions. Come on, educate me, show me the error of my ways. Or are you as clueless as I suspect?

Tal and Bisguier were good friends (as were Bisguier and Keres among others) that's a fact. Bisguier was Fischer's second in Curacao...that's also a fact. Another fact...Fischer had previously acted with animosity towards Tal in personal correspondance (something Tal couldn't have known obviously and thus wouldn't have impacted his side of the relationship). So tell me, what changed? How did Fischer go from wanting to kill Tal to being so concerned that he was (allegedley) the only player to visit him in hospital?

It's the Night of the Long Quotes. 

Maybe people that suspect that they are wrong about something feel a bigger need to repeatedly praise their own superior knowledge :-)

I'm a firm believer in:"If you can't daazzel them with your brilliance,baffle them with your bullshit."