This question stems from a conversation I had recently.

I know this guy who is originally from Lithuania and who plays some chess and we were talking about different players from history. Eventually we got around to Bobby Fischer and he said, "You know, the truth is that Bobby Fischer wasn't actually that good."

I asked him to explain what he meant and he just made some general comments about how players today are much better than players from that era and how the game has evolved, etc. But the interesting thing about it is that he didn't have a problem talking about the greatness of other players from Fischer's time or even from before his time.

Of course us Americans think that Fischer was not only great, but one of the greatest of all time. But it made me wonder, do players from other countries tend to think that Fischer was actually overrated?

Do players outside the United States think Bobby Fischer wasn't actually that good?

Yes, I think BF was not actually that good.

The reason is: how a great GM chess player does such a blunder in a World Championship?

In the game below BF blundered as a 1100 patzer - move 29, Bxh2.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044722

Yes, he's one of the greatest I think.

Go over the the 1971 Candidates and look how Fischer DOMINATED the best players in the world there.

Is that true? Interesting. Not sure why, but I would not expect that. Maybe I'd think that Gary at least would kind of hold a grudge for Fischer beating the Russians the way he did.

Bobby Fischer was a one man slaughterhouse!

LOL, I like that description.

I usually tear paper that I dont need. It's not something we should do other people. It may hurt them.

Of course anyone from another country is gonna hate on an American. Especially one as great as Bob Fisher. 

It's all about context :-) The type of comments the OP talks about are usually a result of statements about Fischer clearly playing better than Kasparov or Carlsen, being the greatest ever without comparison, having a by far more impressive career than the other World Champions etc. 

But as has been mentioned greats like Kasparov and Anand admired Fischer very much, in Kasparov's case I think he has been able to continue speaking well about Fischer considering that it must have been a bit sad to have his old idol refer to him as an idiot, criminal, dog etc all the time...

Yeah, that's pretty rough. I think it's important to separate Bobby's chess career from his obvious mental illness (even though without the latter the former may never have even existed). I'm sure that Kasparov, being the intelligent guy that he is, simply realizes that Bobby's brain is broken in some unfortunate ways.

In a way he is a bit overrated. Don't get me wrong, he is one of the best players ever, arguably the best one ... I just think the halo of greatness he exudes sorts of unfairly overshadowed other all-time greats who deserve just as much recognition.

Why?

bobby is my first source of learning when wanting to know the ruy lopez

a brilliant player and one of the best

beckham did alright at preston north end bit of a letdown as a footballer after , rooney is just there to frighten the goalkeeper with his face , god is

ROBBIE FOWLER 

Anyone that knows anything about chess agrees that Bobby FIscher is amongst the greatest players of all time.  As the question "Who was the greatest of all time?" is in principle unanswerable that is all that needs to be said.

If you think FIscher was "not that good" you'll have to find a better reason than this. 

Yes Bxh2? was a blunder, but it was not a patzer's blunder.  A patzer would not have seen that the bishop can be trapped.  Fischer knew that very well, but mistakenly thought he could get enough play for it.  A few moves down the line that hope turned out to be wrong, but Spassky still had to play an excellent endgame to cash in the full point.

Have you read his 60 Memorable Games, or the other games of his match victories over Larsen, Taimanov, Petrosian and Spassky?  I think studying those would give you a truer impression of his abilities than misinterpreting one of his rare mistakes.

Fischer is recognized as one of the best by any reasonable chess player. Yes modern top players are better than past plalyers, but that's not the metric usually used when talking about great past players. Fischer was easily the best in the world at his time, maybe for as long a 10 years, and he achieved it without the massive government support that many of the pros he beat had.

You can convince yourself of any thing you want, but your arguments will not convince people that have different ideas than you about what constitutes greatness in chess. It is not necessarily about how long they were World No. 1 or how many tournaments they won.  The quality of the chess they played also matters.

If we're talking about about peak performance compared to his peers, then from what I've read no-one has matched Fischer's record on the way to the World Championship. But that peak didn't last too long (who knows what would have happened had he defended his title). If we're talking about who dominated his peers over long periods of time, then the likes of Kasparov are clearly better. If we're talking about peak rating, then Fischer has clearly since been bettered. In my view, dominance over a long period is more impressive than shorter flashes of supreme brilliance. What Fischer achieved almost single-handedly is amazing, but of course Americans are going to say he's the best (and Morphy), just like Brits wax lyrical over Staunton, Short and Adams (admittedly with rather less justification). I've lived in a number of countries, including America, and I can say that Americans are the most patriotic people I have encountered so far and they also make up the biggest demographic on this site.