Fischer had the best 2 years in a row EVER!!! Prove me wrong.

he played players, not a communist empire lol chill

im sure they were supported. how much of a difference did it make in an actual game tho? apparently not that much since they lost. i even mentioned how fischer found an opening novelty in a line that taimanov was a master in lol bro stop it.

"the russians were crushing"? funny, u just changed ur narrative there. according to u, fischer was the clear strongest player all the way from 62 to 72, so how could they possibly be crushing the competition? u gotta chose man. its one or the other. either fischer wasnt the strongest and was also getting crushed by this great soviet army, OR fischer was clearly greater than them all. lol defeated their monopoly by what, becoming world champ? karpov disagrees with u. he dominated more than fischer did, and for longer. fischer destroying the soviet powers in chess is purely propaganda made by the americans lol 

by the way, since u ignore like, 98% of my arguments, i think imma just leave u talking to the other fischer fans here. this is clearly not normal.

well, Morphy was quite dominant too in his era.

No, Fischer played against, and broke, the Soviet hegemony.

We have to remember that chess and international athletics were used as propaganda tools to prove the superiority of Marxist socialism. It was all about the State and the benefits of communism.   The USSR invested heavily in both, and because the ends justified the means, established pervasive networks and methods of cheating.

I mentioned above a committee meeting of the Soviet chess and KGB brain trust, wherein, they were planning to use unlimited resources of the State to defeat Fischer, with first Former WC Petrosian, then Spassky.

The Soviet Sports authorities decreed that Petrosian should "win" his match vs Korchnoi (because Korchnoi thought Fischer was unbeatable - a bad attitude).  After eight successive draws, Petrosian "prevailed" in Game #9 - after Korchnoi was promised three international tournaments.  Petrosian never again defeated Korchnoi in a match.

Promised to pay for expenses ig

Soviet Grandmasters treasured the opportunity to travel outside of the USSR.  They had access the material items not available for domestic consumption.

I have an article about the fishy goings on around of the 1971 Korchnoi-Petrosian match, in the Chess News forum.  I wlll bump it to the first page.

Korchnoi got to attend Hastings, Amsterdam, and Palma in 71-72

”The Soviet Sports authorities decreed that Petrosian should "win" his match vs Korchnoi (because Korchnoi thought Fischer was unbeatable - a bad attitude).  After eight successive draws, Petrosian "prevailed" in Game #9 - after Korchnoi was promised three international tournaments.  Petrosian never again defeated Korchnoi in a match”

These types of stories, as many concerning Soviet chess, are maybe more based on wishful thinking than any sort of evidence. The chessgames.com page on the match says:

”Anatoly Karpov apparently thought the match had been rigged. In his autobiography (1992), he wrote: "It was already clear that whoever won would have to face Fischer, who was swiftly ascending to the chess throne .. our Sports Committee decided that that it was better to stop him on his march. Petrosian and Korchnoi were summoned and bluntly asked which of them had the greater chance against Fischer. Korchnoi replied that in the "Fischer age" almost no one had a chance, but Petrosian said that he believed in himself. At that Korchnoi was asked to throw the match to Petrosian, in compensation for which he would be sent to the three biggest international tournaments (for a Soviet chess player at that time this was a regal present) ... No documents exist to substantiate this plot. But the mediocrity of Korchnoi's play and the fact that, considering his bitter nature, after he lost to Petrosian he remained on good terms with him implies that Korchnoi let Petrosian win."

There has never been any admission that such bureaucratic interference took place nor has any evidence been found to corroborate the match being rigged. Instead, there is only unsupported speculation and this is no proof. In the absence of any real evidence to the contrary, Korchnoi’s conclusion that both players played the match in good faith cannot be challenged: "The match turned out be highly tedious; we played eight draws in a row! .... People joked that neither of us wanted to win the match, and then meet Fischer. In the West many were thinking the same way, being unable to believe that the match was being played seriously. And only those who knew me well realized that I was trying very hard, but that my play was not coming off. I was most upset when, in the heat of the moment, I overreached myself, and lost ... the ninth game””

That match was in 1971, and Petrosian had a clear plus score against Korchnoi. In later years Petrosian dropped in strength while Korchnoi got better, so not too surprising that Korchnoi scored better results in later years. Karpov didn’t like Korchnoi and is probably not the best authority on the latter.

Spassky is also said to have been forced to lose his match to Karpov (by others than Karpov), but Spassky, who disliked both the Soviet system and Karpov, and frequently talked about their deficiencies in later years, never said anything else than that Karpov just was a very strong chess player that beat him fair and square. Bronstein claimed he had been forced to not beat Botvinnik, but not everyone believe this to be true. Bronstein never came to terms with not winning that match and blamed everyone for it.

Same thing with the idea that the Soviet players were forced to draw their games against each other in Curaçao 1962 to stop Fischer. Korchnoi was also there claimed to throw games. No evidence there either, and funny that Korchnoi of all people so often is said to throw games.

Tal has mentioned how the Soviet players had an exhibition simul each where they faced revolution hero Che Guevara, and all others gave him the expected non game draw after a few ceremonial moves. When Korchnoi returned from his simul, Tal asked how it went. Korchnoi answered that he won every game. The surprised Tal asked: ”Guevara too?”. Korchnoi had looked very puzzled at Tal’s surprise and said: ”He had no idea how to play against the Catalan!”

The Soviet players had both advantages and disadvantages because of their background. The advantage was the resources they had at their disposal. Chess schools, coaching, the possibility to have chess as their day time job, etc.

Then there were also disadvantages. Players like Tal, Spassky, Keres, Korchnoi, Bronstein were individualists with little of Communism in them. They would probably all have been much more at home in the west instead of in a system where others decided what they were allowed to do.

Many also had a very tough background. When one reads about the persons and not just the Soviet system, one gets these grim descriptions of Korchnoi drawing his dead grandmother on a sled through the starving Leningrad, Spassky surviving with some luck, Petrosian working as a street sweeper, etc. These guys didn’t get much for free. Keres would have become World Champion if his country hadn’t been invaded and annexed by the Soviet Union, Spassky claimed.

Keres is maybe my favourite of all the ”Russian” players. Spassky later said that Keres was a giant, a Gulliver, while Botvinnik was the king of the Lilliputians. Tal talked about an endgame he had, which he thought was drawn. Keres came and looked at it, explained the nuances of it and showed how to win it and left with a smile, while Tal sat looking at it all trying to get it, thinking for himself: ”But wait a minute, I am the World Champion of a couple of years back!”

But such stories also show one of the huge advantages the Soviets had. Every adjournment could be analysed by some top players. 

Keres barely avoided being executed after the Soviet Union overran Estonia.

I have and endgame book authored by Keres.  He was probably the strongest player never to become champion.

According to the book, "Russians versus Fischer," originally published in Russian, Spassky and Karpov both attested to the facts that, after the Petrosian-Korchnoi 1971 semifinal, both were recalled before the USSR Sports Committee. Chairman Pavlov requested that Korchnoi act as Petrosian's second in Buenos Aires.  Korchnoi adamently refused!  Korchnoi stated that Petrosian made "disgusting, vile" moves which made him "sick to watch." (Page 273).  The two were never again friendly.

What does a second do anyways? Help review the game?

ah ok

Seconds acted like on-site trainer and assistants.  They analysed adjourned games with and for the player, participated in pre-game or pre-match preparation. And performed "go-fer" tasks during play.

The story Karpov tells about Korchnoi and Petrosian in 1971 is a flat out lie. Korchnoi hated Petrosian's guts after the Curação 1962 Candidates tournament (where Petrosian, Geller and Keres did have a drawing pact, leaving Korchnoi out of it), he would never have thrown a match against Petrosian. Petrosian obviously was still strong enough at that point for his match strategy to work, i.e. simply wait for Korchnoi to blow up (Korchnoi explained that he just ran out of patience, and started bothering about the audience's reaction to their many quick draws. As a result he lost his head and basically handed Petrosian the win on a platter.) However, such a conversation did take place. In 1974 when Korchnoi and Karpov were about to play their Candidates final (as confirmed by Korchnoi), and the outcome of their conversation - all Soviet resources thrown behind Karpov - was the main reason for Korchnoi's defection in Amsterdam, 1976. Karpov is notoriously unreliable as a source. Not quite as bad as Bronstein, but not far off.

Spassky didn't throw the match against Karpov. Although Spassky had won the USSR Championship in 1973, that really was his last hurrah as a player (he did have decent results after that, but he was naturally a bit lazy and he didn't really follow the opening revolution that took place in the 1970s). Karpov was probably already on a par with Spassky strengthwise. However, just like Petrosian, Spassky is unlikely to have been hungry enough to return to the 'monk's existence' (Petrosian's words) of a world champion, whereas Karpov had everything ahead of him. It requires a certain competitive temperament, that of a Botvinnik, Karpov, Kasparov and recently Carlsen (interestingly enough, the downside of it seems to be that once they lose the crown, they're not very long in retiring from active play).

While Paul Keres is one of my favourite players, too, I strongly doubt that he would ever have become world champion, even if he'd managed to escape to Sweden, as he was planning and trying to do towards the end of World War II. Keres himself was the first to admit that he sometimes suffered from 'bad competitive nerves'. He had several good chances to make it through to a World Championship match, but always fell at the last hurdle, due to what is often dubbed 'incomprehensible' mistakes, although such blunders are only all too common from players of a natural combinative bent. They suffer from more ups and downs than positional players.

how many of you are typing after me

Yeah, send Karpov a purple yoghurt!  No, wait!  The knight move is better - send him an orange juice instead!!

Yes