Bobby Fischer is the most influential chess player and it has nothing to do with his gameplay

Josephyossi, I am honored to hold that title, not sure if being serious? EscherehsE explained it what I meant

Bronstein came up with those ideas before, in a different way. Kasparov used to think that Fischer's variants prevailed because he was a WC, but later he decided it was mainly because they were more simple.

Lol ofc the american would think it's bobby fischer...

It depends on your perspective... and what parameters you use to measure what influential is...

I guarantee most indians would think it's anand (just look at what he did to india)

Fischer was a crazy basket case genius, sure, his accomplishments are unparalleled, but he also pussied out of wc... chess was all he had... if he lost wc title getting defeated it's likely he wouldn't be able to handle it ...  I wouldn't doubt that he forfeited the second game to spassky to have an excuse in case things didn't go his way... his luck was that his opponent was spassky, the man, the myth, the legend, the gentleman... a man who makes fun of KGB in front of KGB, whose love and respect for chess was greater than some stupid petty little dispute between usa and su about whose [edited mod] is bigger... so he accepted fischer ridiculous demands just so that the match could happen... so, if it wasn't for boris, fischer wouldn't be champion, and he wouldn't be nearly as influential as he is...

! Boris is a fine name, he's the best

Bobby is the man, idgaf what anyone says bad about him.

Well, he was a man, it's hard to argue with that logic. Thank you for your well thought out essay.

beth harmon is most influential chess player of all time obv

Being "a man" is different from being "the man"

but he's wrong anyways

Also a big thing Fischer did was push for demands and changes for professional chess players. He truly took chess out of the stone ages and made it a viable occupation for millions around the globe.

When he was still active, 100% of players outside the Soviet Union were struggling to pay bills and always had side jobs unrelated to chess to support themselves. Meanwhile, the Soviet players were subsidized by their government so the prizes at tournaments were literally peanuts.

Fischer pushed FIDE to make changes so that pros could afford to make a living by playing chess and also paved the way for lots of players to go into writing, coaching, and having careers outside of competing. I'm positive that if he were around today, Bobby would be a great chess streamer!

in before the lock

For a Fischer thread, this one's been relatively civil. But yeah, they all blow up and get locked. :-)

     This was probably a (not very) humorous reference to the fact that Fischer was anti-feminist, anti-Muslim, anti-Soviet, anti-American and also anti-semitic even though he was [edited moderator SB] 

how can one person have so much anti-*insert whatever here*?

     Many people think he was mentally ill. A lot of them think he developed these problems after giving up his championship but it seems more likely they were present for most of his life and got worse when he lost the one thing he was most obsessed with.

IMO, Fischer's dream was to become world champion and, once he achieved that goal, he felt that continuing to play chess was pointless. Many people think he was scared of losing the title, or scared of Karpov, but I believe he was just bored with the game, which was why he invented "Fischerrandom".

After 1972, it was reported that Fischer was exploring the world and wanted to try out new things that he never had time for as a chess professional. He was clearly not motivated by money, because he actually turned down several endorsements that he was offered after becoming the champion.

Yep, not interested in money at all because the endorsements he turned down amounted to millions even back then. Also, he had reason to dislike the U.S. because he would have been arrested for coming back here for his mother's funeral and all he did was play some chess games in Yugoslavia in 1992 with Spassky. This violated the sanctions against the Soviet Union that were in place at the time. His mental illness has been categorized principally as Paranoia/Schizophrenia, which his father reportedly had too. He thought Jews were out to get him, the Soviets were out to get him and the U.S. really was out to get him. Imagine being Paranoid and having it amplified by the NSA/CIA really being after you.

anyone can be a troubled human in the world we live in.  All the greatest geniuses were usually troubled.  look at this world who wouldnt be troubled by this epic failure of how things are handled?