About Bobby Fischer

What I am about to say here may get me chucked-off chess.com and may make me a wanted man for the rest of my life, but here goes anyway...

What the US did to B.Fischer was abhorant.  So he chose to play Spassky in a rematch in former Yugoslavia, so what?  Was Spassky penalised in the same way by the USSR?  No!  What is more, how could the US gvmt revoke his passport for the most spurious of reasons?  I'll tell you the truth.  Fact is the former USSR could not stomch the fact that Spassky was beaten in their first encounter, and so a big nonsense out of nothing was cooked-up by the US over the second match, to help the former USSR get their own back...

The problem was that there were trade sanction in Yugoslavia at the time, making the rematch illegal. Not that I support what happened to Fischer.

For your own safety, delete the comment! Please! Please! Deleeeeeeeeeete.........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gremlin... trolling... see, I get jokes.

I completely support what happened to Fischer. He was an evil, selfish, hateful, bigotted lunatic. He spat on own his country. He is probably giving the devil lessons right now, and good riddance.

His country spat on him after all the good things he did for it. Fischer was a good man.

Fischer was perhaps the greatest chess player who ever lived, but he was also a troubled man. Support for him or condemnation of him should take this fact into consideration.

As far as what he did for the United States, he won a chess title during the cold war. It's no small feat, but its not nuclear disarmament or a cure for AIDS. The game of chess enjoyed an unprecedented boom in popularity because of Bobby, but it died out because he was unable to promote the game.

Oil companies ignoring sanctions on Iran is ok, but a national champion playing chess in Yugoslavia, we gotta take him down, the traitor.

Bobby Fischer was an extremely smart man whose smart mouth got him into a lot of trouble.  I never once believed that he was bigotted - he said those things because he held the rest of the world in contempt for their fickle support of whatever was PC in the day and age.  The only people he felt he should respect were those who were able to think for themselves (and the rest of the world could go to hell, as far as he was concerned).

Love him or hate him, he left a huge legacy in the Chess world, and for that, he will always be remembered.

The only reason that Fischer played Spassky was for $3Million. He knew very well what his position would have been after the match, but he chose the money instead. You can't have your cake and eat it too. He took the money, and he was dis-owned by the U.S.

Was he a hero at the time? Yes...but he failed to parlay his greatness...instead, he came across as self conceited....and all those anti-american rants and negative things he said about women did not win him any friends, in fact he made more enemies. He reached the line of greatness...and instead of doing positive things for the game he professes to love, he took the wrong turn...he went down the wrong road...he became infamous instead....maybe his head was too big.

I didn't know that the U.S. govt. could be edited! How long has this been going on?

Most of the $3M was left untouched, so it is kind of hard to argue that it was for the money...

davepacker, rather than argue your point like a civilized individual, you choose instead to personally attack me? Boy...you act just like Bobby Fischer...he must be your role model.

Personally, I teach my son that Bobby Fischer was maybe the greatest chess player that ever lived...but I also show him that Mr. Fischer also had many negative aspects about him, which in fact takes away from his greatness. 

This is finally, so far, the most reasonable, and relatively fair, discussion overall that I have read about Bobby Fischer in a thread on Chess.com.  Most threads that I have read have been generally unkind, unappreciative, uninformed, and downright mean.  Great to read some sensible and fair comments that show understanding of his great gift to chess and his serious, obviously clinical, mental condition that plagued him for the latter part of his life.  Why not at least forgive, if not forget, his obvious mental illness -- and respect and appreciate what he did for the chess world in our time and forever? 

Well played Mr. Bond.

Why did trade sanctions against former Yugoslavia by the US make the rematch illegal?  And if the rematch was illegal, why didn't the former USSR suggest to Spassky that he also shouldn't take part in the rematch?  What has trade sanctions got to do with a game of chess anyway?

Oh boy, I knew when I read the second sentance of this post that it was going to be heated.

I could easily change it to boredGremlin - lol. 

This is getting nearer to the truth, as usual it's always to do with money for you people - never mind what you have to go through to earn any in the first place...

lol Indeed davepacker.