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

just ignore him

He does have something of a point in this particular case, though.

Many here talk of "Bobby" as if he was an intimate of theirs (often the hero-worshipping set) or as if the sun shone out of his arse. It's quite sweet, but also slightly worrying at the same time.

No other player seems to be referred to by so many in such an intimate way. It's the equivalent of me going around calling Michael Adams "Mickey", something which I would never do. I've never even met the guy.

More objective folks will just call him Fischer.

Who's Michael Adams?

And even Capa.

Must be just me then :) I don't recall ever calling players solely by their first names, as if I knew them. I see it more with Fischer than anyone else.

@mcris: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Adams_%28chess_player%29

Ah, Mikey! 

Haha, ;)

I put up in my house someone who played a match with Fisxher.

Fischer was a hero. He was a flawed hero, yes, and went mad, yes. 

He was a flesh and blood real live man, and in some ways he would have been better never to have played Chess, because he transcended it.

Chess destroyed him. He was a tragic figure. He was a tragic hero. 

"Fischer was a hero"

"He was a flesh and blood real live man"

"he transcended it"

He was a person that was good at a board game. I'm not much into hero worshipping, and would save that for those more deserving than Fischer, Carlsen or Nigel Short...

Fabelhaft, your final clause is ambiguous. Do you mean Carlsen and Short are more worthy of worship than Fischer, or do you rather mean none of those three players are worthy of worship?

"do you rather mean none of those three players are worthy of worship?"

Yes :-)

Ok :)

Chess has claims to be the greatest game ever invented.

At least until a blind, senseless beast destroyed it. At present that beast is called Komodo, but even it may be surpassed.

Nah, that would be snooker :) And at the end of the day, it's still just a game.

I agree with this, as far as it goes.

There's a second part to the equation: his fans. 

To me, there's no question that Bobby was one of the greatest players of all time. But for his fans, that's not enough. If anyone suggests there's been someone better than Bobby, then that person is labelled a Fischer hater. 

I'm not exaggerating. Take a look at all the Fischer threads that Reb and I have participated in. 

Fischer idolotry is rampant on this site.

What are you trying to say SF ?  Stop beating around the bush and just say what you mean and mean what you say .    I dont deny I am biased in favor of Fischer ( and Spassky ) .  My reason is that their match in 72 is what really drew me into tournament chess , for better or worse . So , the two of them are my idols in chess . I never met Fischer but did meet Spassky ( several times ) .  

It is enough for me to see Fischer is right up there.

Idolotry for him? Maybe by some.

But, I certainly know why he is so blindly hated by many, and so did Bobby.

And with that, I leave this discussion to continue, as it will forever, here or somewhere else.

But, SmyslovFan, please realise just before I sign off that this my reply is not animated by any animus towards your person. Not to say that I do not disagree with you sometimes. But the general impression I have of you is good.  

That's a great pic, Reb, and I appreciate your being a fan of both players. Spassky was a truly universal player. I learned a great deal, especially on how to handle B+N vs 2 Bs from Spassky. I too studied all of the extant games of Fischer up to 1977. (I only just discovered the match he played against Gligoric in 1992 and haven't played through those games yet.)

I learned how to play chess before the 1972 match, but Fischer made chess cool. My first chess book was the Smith and Hall book on the match.

Personally, I fell in love with the games of Alekhine, Rubinstein, Tal, and Smyslov rather than Spassky and Fischer, but I understand their allure.

I understand being a fan. But I don't understand the complete and persistent lack of objectivity by some strong players when it comes to comparing the quality of Fischer's play to that of Kasparov's or Carlsen's.

As Rodney Dangerfield might have said, today's players get no respect.

Several superlatives are tossed around about Fischer, including "greatest ever" and "Game of the Century" (which actually you could argue is slightly insulting to the players of the countless number of other fantastic games played in the entire 1900s, even if Fischer was a mere teenager; other players, if they are lucky, just get "XX's immortal", which is not so gushing).

A mere 13-year-old Carlsen beat former World Champion, Karpov (so a lot stronger than Byrne). Perhaps Carlsen's game wasn't so spectacular but doesn't he still perhaps deserve a "Game of the Twenty-First Century" for that achievement?

You actually missed a point.Fishcer actually liked calling him as bobby only by his friends as he expressed.But his bobby name become more wide spread than Robert