u debate by saying that he beat larsen 6-0 and how it impressive it was, but u have yet to answer to what i said about his quality of play (which was nothing to be proud of). i think we are in the same wagon here.
and if u doubt that spassky couldve done so, u could at least try to explain why. u seem to know ur stuff. no harm in trying.
Maybe Larsen had his best year in 1967, when the chess journalists awarded him the Chess Oscar for supposedly being the best player in the world that year. He won a bunch of tournaments very impressively, but I don’t think he was better than Spassky, Petrosian or Fischer. He did win both his games against reigning World Champion Petrosian in Piatigorsky Cup 1966 though, both games were quite pretty.
There is an anecdote about Botvinnik scolding the still very young Kasparov about being too careless and superficial in his play, saying that he would end up like Larsen if he continued like that. And that was supposed to, and succeeded in, scaring Kasparov to change his ways :-) Wouldn’t have been too bad to end up like Larsen for any chess playing kid, except maybe Kasparov.
Maybe Larsen had his best year in 1967, when the chess journalists awarded him the Chess Oscar for supposedly being the best player in the world that year. He won a bunch of tournaments very impressively, but I don’t think he was better than Spassky, Petrosian or Fischer. He did win both his games against reigning World Champion Petrosian in Piatigorsky Cup 1966 though, both games were quite pretty.
There is an anecdote about Botvinnik scolding the still very young Kasparov about being too careless and superficial in his play, saying that he would end up like Larsen if he continued like that. And that was supposed to, and succeeded in, scaring Kasparov to change his ways :-) Wouldn’t have been too bad to end up like Larsen for any chess playing kid, except maybe Kasparov.
lol, what was so bad about larsen's play that made Botvinnik scold the young Kasparov?
Maybe Larsen had his best year in 1967, when the chess journalists awarded him the Chess Oscar for supposedly being the best player in the world that year. He won a bunch of tournaments very impressively, but I don’t think he was better than Spassky, Petrosian or Fischer. He did win both his games against reigning World Champion Petrosian in Piatigorsky Cup 1966 though, both games were quite pretty.
There is an anecdote about Botvinnik scolding the still very young Kasparov about being too careless and superficial in his play, saying that he would end up like Larsen if he continued like that. And that was supposed to, and succeeded in, scaring Kasparov to change his ways :-) Wouldn’t have been too bad to end up like Larsen for any chess playing kid, except maybe Kasparov.
lol, what was so bad about larsen's play that made Botvinnik scold the young Kasparov?
There is another anecdote here: when Carlsen was asked about his favourite players or inspirations during a tournament, he mentioned Larsen. Kramnik was present and said with a smile that Larsen was a coffeehouse player. The next time they played each other Carlsen played a Larsen favourite 1. f4 and won. Larsen was just not considered to be “serious” enough to the Soviet School of chess, he played any strange opening and seemed to want to have fun more than being really professional about it.
well, there u have it. spassky played the better larsen and cruised into the win. i think my point still stands that he couldve done what fischer did tbh
what two years? cuz the matches were both in 71
1970 to 1972
thats 3 years but ok (70, 71, and 72)
anyhow, idk what he did in 70 that was that impressive aside from beating petrosian in 19 moves. him winning that whole tournament was a given considering that fact that he should already have been that strong lol its like ur surprised by this lol yes it had strong players, but i could just tell u caruana's win in 2014 (more impressive imo) and then it gets evened out. not to mention, he actually lost his most important match agaisnt spassky, proving spassky's superiority by that point.
in 1971, he played taimanov and larsen, and neither played as well as they shouldve (i think that people know this, since nobody actually said anything on it just yet). is it impressive? heck yeah. is it enough to say that he was the greatest player of all time? nope. taimanov was not at his prime, and the same could be said about larsen. taimanov didnt prepare that well either (fischer found a novelty used by a russian in a line that taimanov was a master in lol) while larsen played arguably worse than taimanov did lol him being 4th in the world is great, but then i could point u to ding liren and how he played in the legends tournament just a few days ago lol and he still 3rd in the world btw and still managed to play like that.Â
finally, the one impressive thing to be said about fischer's win agaisnt spassky is how well he prepared and how he managed to beat a guy who was quite literally his ultimate enemy. aside from that, he had no shortage of long, hard fought wins, and almost a few losses that were saved and turned into draws because spassky was in time trouble (i believe 4 or 5 can be found), which wouldve given spassky a winning score, btw. not to mention that spassky's preparation for his games were a joke. he played wrong moves on purpose, forgot preparation, played lines he never played before, or didnt prepare whatsoever. i believe one of his seconds wrote that they didnt even study some of fischer's games either lol
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March-April 1970, USSR vs World, Board 2, 3-1 vs Petrosian
April 1970, World Blitz Championship, Herceg Novi, 19/22, 1st place, ahead of Tal, Petrosian, Korchnoi, and Bronstein, Smyslov was an also-ran. FISCHER 8.5 RUSSIANS 1.5
April-May 1970, Tournament of Peace, Zagreb, 13/17, 1st place ahead of Hort, Smyslov, Gligorich, Korchnoi, and Petrosian, FISCHER 1.5 RUSSIANS 1.5
July-August 1970, Bueno Aires, 15/17, 1st place ahead of Tukmakov, Panno, Nadjorf, Reshevsky, and Smyslov, FISCHER 1.5 RUSSIANS 0.5
September 1970, Chess Olympiad, Siegen, 1st Board, 10-3, Silver medal, FISCHER 0 SPASSKY 1
Nov-Dec 1970, Interzonal, Palma de Majorca, 18.5/23, 1st place ahead of Larsen, Geller, Huebner, Taimanov, Uhlmann, Portisch, Smyslov, and Polugaevsky FISCHER 3.5 RUSSIANS 0.5
May-June 1971 Candidates 1/4 Final Match, Vancouver, FISCHER 6 TAIMANOV 0
July 1971, Candidates 1/2 Final Match, Denver, Fischer 6 Larsen 0
Sep-Oct 1971, Candidates Final Match, Buenos Aires, FISCHER 6.5 PETROSIAN 2.5
Just looking at the results 1962-70, Fischer had a minus against the top players on the whole. He had even scores against Korchnoi, Keres and Larsen over 16 games, but then worse results against Petrosian, Geller and Spassky over rather many games +2-8=13. He only played Tal in Curaçao and scored +1 there (but then Tal scored a winless -7 against the top four).
Spassky did well in comparison, with a plus against all these opponents over the same years. +9 against Larsen, +5 against Geller, +4 against Tal, +2 not only against Fischer but also Petrosian and Keres, and +1 against Korchnoi (adding up to +25 against these opponents vs Fischer’s -5). He also won the World Championship. I’d say that if their results over these years were switched, few would question that Fischer was the strongest player in the world during the 1960s :-)
This comparison is somewhat unfair. Spassky lived and played in the Soviet Union, so with exception of Larsen and Fischer, he had the opportunity to play them several times a year. In this same period, Fischer took two long layoffs, declined to participate in the cycle for the 1966 WC match, and dropped out of the one for 1969 WC match, while leading the field comfortably at Sousse (despite having a number of games in hand). He scored an indifferent result in the match tournament at Curação which is skewing his overall results, since he played much fewer games against the same set of players than Spassky. Nevertheless, he only had one real bogey opponent; Yefim Geller (his life-time score against him was -2). Over the course of 1962-70 he played Spassky only four times, and never in a world championship cycle until the WC match in 1972. However, I don't see how you get Fischer's minus score to -5. He played Petrosian 12 times (+1 [4 and -1 at Cur. 1962]), Geller 9 (-3, [4 and -3 at Cur. 1962), Larsen 6 (+1), Korchnoi 6 (= [4 and -1 at Cur. 1962]), Smyslov 5 (+2), Keres 4 (= [all at Cur. 1962]), Spassky 4 (-2), Tal 3 (+1 [3 and +1 at Cur. 1962]). The score in the 1962-70 period (excluding Smyslov) is -2 against those opponents. 44 games in total, 19 of which were played at Curação 1962. Fischer's modest minus score was accounted for by that one tournament, and if we leave it out, he's actually on a plus or equal score against everyone in the period, except for Spassky.
In that same period Spassky played Petrosian 55 times (7 of which outside the WC), Larsen 25, Geller 23, Korchnoi 19, Keres 15, Tal 15, (Smyslov 6) and Fischer 4. So while a +25 score may look impressive, its spread out over 156 games, nearly four times as many games as Fischer played. Furthermore, +15 of those +25 are accounted for by his crushing scores against Larsen and Geller alone, two of the players who never became world champion. Against the rest he had only modest plus scores.
In short, I wouldn't say there's that much between Spassky and Fischer even at that early stage of Fischer's career, despite Fischer not actually having/taking the opportunity to face those world class Soviet players or the Dane Larsen very often. It's a great shame for the history and game of chess that Fischer was relatively inactive in the 1960s, and that he declined to participate in the WC cycles (despite FIDE having resolved the issue of the Soviets playing as a team against him), not to mention his retirement in the early 1970s, aged only 29.
i feel like people forget how consistently strong of a player fischer was. he wanst like spassky, where at any moment he would lose completely winning games. he played at the same level, and only got better with time.Â
i feel like people forget how consistently strong of a player fischer was. he wanst like spassky, where at any moment he would lose completely winning games. he played at the same level, and only got better with time.Â
I think it was Yuri Balashov or Yuri Razuvaev who once said, 'Look at Fischer's games! His pieces are never poor, because he swaps those badly placed pieces off, ensuring that he's only left with the good ones.'
i feel like people forget how consistently strong of a player fischer was. he wanst like spassky, where at any moment he would lose completely winning games. he played at the same level, and only got better with time.Â
I think it was Yuri Balashov or Yuri Razuvaev who once said, 'Look at Fischer's games! His pieces are never poor, because he swaps those badly placed pieces off, ensuring that he's only left with the good ones.'
ik. albeit, my point was twofold. yes, he was obviously consistent at being good, but would this make the bad scores he had against people even more amazing then?
“Larsen 6 (+1)”
I didn’t include exhibition or blitz so some numbers might be different because of that, but I have Fischer winning and losing one each in Piatigorsky Cup 1966, then winning one in Monte Carlo 1967 while losing one in the Interzonal 1970. Fischer won an exhibition TV game and blitz game as well, but none of them with classical time controls. Petrosian should have 2 losses more though, counted 1962-69 there.
And of course Fischer would probably not have a minus score if he had played more against these opponents, but still tough on Spassky to say that he never was the best player given the results he did show. To me Fischer was the best player in the world maybe 1970-72, which also was Seirawan’s assessment, but not yet there in the 60s.
Hey,,I just beat 2 title master in a row,,, in Fischer Random match 
There is a book entitled, "Russians versus Fischer," by Dmitry Plisetsky and Sergey Voronkov.. it details every game Fischer played against Soviet/Russian competition over 30 events from 1958 to 1992. It draws on notes and minutes, heretofore secret, from USSR chess federation, national sports committies, the KGB, opponents and other Soviet chess luminaries.
A particularly insightful chapter presents excerpts from the minutes of the USSR Chess Federation Trainers' Council in 1971, convened after the Taimanov match. GM A. Kotov called the match "the biggest setback in the entire history of Soviet chess." Col. Victor D. Baturinsky of the KGB, and vice chair of the Soviet Chess Federation, declared, "Until a winner in the Korchnoi-Petrosain match emerges, this group will prepare for the Fischer match ... and don't forget the result of the [Taimanov] match have to be qualified as totally unsatisfactory!"
Attending the strategy meeting were Averbakh, Alatortsev, Antoshin, Balashov, Baturinsky, Boleslavsky, Bondarevsky, Bykhovsky, Vasyukov, Keres, Konstantinopolsky, Kotov, Petrosian, Spassky, Suetin, and Taimanov.
and actually, now that u mention that, then yes, spassky couldve likely pulled off what fischer did to larsen tbh