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

I didn't imply it was.  That's why the statement started with "and", which technically isn't correct grammar, but is a colloquialism for "by the way".

So why ask for outwitting, when yourself cannot achieve it?

It's true that Fischer probably wouldn't be the top player today.  But today's game is different and you pretty much have to judge players based on the environment at the time.  Fischer really didn't like book preparation and certainly would not have liked all this computer analysis (he liked Fishcer random chess to force humans to think on their feet, for example.)

But look at it the other way around.  Would Kasparov or Carlsen done as well back before there were such good books, training aids, and computer assistance?  Hard to say, but maybe not.  In other words, we keep thinking like "if Bobby played today, how good would he be?"  Maybe we should be asking "if today's players were born at the same time as Fischer, would they be as good as him?"

I'm not asking him to outwit, I'm telling him he hasn't done it even though he thinks he has.

Are you one of those guys that thinks you can't discuss anything unless you can prove you're better than what you're criticizing?  That's very passe.  And your non sequiturs are very tedious as well.

How do you know what he thinks? He made no mention of outwitting. Are you a psychic?   In the last paragraph you totally rambled. So no, you are not a psychic.

Tedious non sequiturs, done with you.

Are you trying to say "Capablanca is a gentleman", or "Capablanca is the best, gentlemen" ?

This is completely wrong .  Fischer worked on chess like a madman and was easily one of the most " booked up " players of his generation , especially in openings . ( specializing in a handful )  He was famous for reading ( memorizing ? ) even Russian printed sources to be better " booked " than his opponents .... even learning Russian himself to help him do so . He did this in a time when there was no computer/data base help so he had to get the printed books/periodicals/magazines . 

I probably could have phrased that better, but the point is, Fishcer liked analysis, not rote memorization.  One manifestation of that, as I said, was Fischer random chess (for which there can be no book preparation, or at least wasn't any).  Just because he read up on the games of Russian players by no means meant that he intended to play them by "memorizing" their openings so he could play those moves back.  He was simply analyzing their play and delving into their lines.

So yes in that sense he liked "preparation", but it was preparation by analysis, not mere memorization of openings.  He would have hated the current state of some games that are literally memorized out to 20, 25, 30 moves.  If he played such a player, he would have preferred to take them outside their comfort zone into a line where they would be forced to out think him if they wanted to win.

I think this is 100% and absolutely correct. And I can speak for Russia and the few Estonian players I've met, Fischer is HUGELY respected in the former Soviet Union for that simple reason.  Yes, they think he was a little bit insane, but he was.  On the other hand he was a genius. 

Speaking of anti-Semitism, based on what I've read in the past, part of Fischer's beef with the US was that he thought it was partly a Jewish plot (to steal his stuff, not allow him back in the country, etc.)  In other words, he thinks US Jews were out to screw him.  But he also thought there was some sort of conspiracy to convince him he was Jewish.  (Everyone seems to know he was, except him.)  So the ironic thing is, why would there be a conspiracy by Jews to screw him over while at the same time trying to convince him he's a Jew?  Such was his mental ailment that he wasn't able to make these simple connections.

All the world wanted from him was to see more of his brilliant chess that made him famous in the first place.  Of course, he was a free person and under no obligation to do so.  By the same token, the US government was under no obligation to let him off the hook when he broke the law, which they actually might have done if he had been a more cooperative and sane person.

Genius and insanity often go hand in hand ... and not only in chess .  

This doesn't even show up on most Top Ten lists of great GM blunders, and if it does, it's just one of many such blunders, to answer your question literally.  Anyway, it could easily be Fischer thought he saw a way to win having 2 extra pawns in the end game and it was somewhere in that complicated analysis that he went wrong.  In other words, it could have been a bishop sacrifice that can be solved by modern computers, but we all know Fischer didn't care much for draws and was willing to take some risk to avoid them.

Fischer was famous for playing an extremely narrow repertoire. His memory was great. He didn't have any problem at all with rote memorization. 

Top players then and now don't just memorize openings. Most top players have no problem at all memorizing their repertoires. But chess has changed since Fischer's day. Today's chess is marked by attempts to get away from prepared lines as early as possible.

In Fischer's day, opening lines were actually more important than they are now. Fischer was known for his ultra-precise opening repertoire, especially as Black. People fell for opening traps far more often in the 1970s than they do now. Polugaevsky, Ljubojevic, Taimanov, and others would spend countless hours at home preparing deep opening traps. That sort of preparation still exists today, but takes far less time to prepare and memorize. Instead, top players look for ways to avoid all the traps and just play. 

As Ivanchuk said, playing these unusual openings actually takes more preparation than playing the main lines. Chess has changed dramatically since Fischer's day.

There was a revolution in the 1970s, after Fischer left the scene, which saw the rise of "system openings" such as the Hedgehog, the Triangle,  and others that relied on opening understanding more than precise move orders.

Yes, today's players use computers to prepare their openings. They also use computers to train. If you watch the World Championship, you will see how opening preparation has changed.

Carlsen isn't trying to get an opening advantage, he's trying to get positions that are not heavily analysed and that have a wide variety of options.

Karjakin is playing a bit more traditionally, but even his choice of Ruy Lopez with d3 and a3 is not one that is conducive to main lines. We almost certainly will not see the Najdorf during the match. And we certanly won't see the same variations repeatedly argued about the way Fischer and Spassky debated the Breyer for example. 

Again, Fischer was one of the all-time greats.

But today's players deserve tremendous respect for standing on the shoulders of giants  to see a bit farther. In terms of opening preparation, that means not just memorizing lines, but working out broad, seemingly amorphous plans that are designed to maximize their opponent's chances to go wrong. 

Sorry man, you keep saing false thinks about him, and then you draw conclusion that he was insane. There wasn't a Jewish plot to steal his stuff and not allow him back in the country, this was the action of US Government because Jugoslavia was under NATO embargo in 1992 when he had the 2nd match with Spasski. No plot, no conspiracy here. Please stop spreading false thinks.

I don't know how old you are, or what your reading comprehension level is, or how good your English is, but whatever this strange fascination is that you have with arguing with me, you need to just forget it.  I didn't say there was any such thing as a Jewish plot or conspiracy.  As far as Fischer's sanity, there's not a single person on this planet outside of possibly some fringe holocaust deniers that don't agree that Fischer was mentally ill.  Start paying attention or just stop wasting forum space.

That's not really the point though.  He can have a great memory while still believing it's not very respectable to play that way.  So I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your post, but how does Fischer's advocacy of Fischerrandom coincide with your thoughts?  How do you respond to Fischer's quote here?

"I don't know when, but I think we are approaching that [the end of chess] very rapidly. I think we need a change in the rules of chess. For example, I think it would be a good idea to shuffle the first row of the pieces by computer ... and this way you will get rid of all the theory. One reason that computers are strong in chess is that they have access to enormous theory [...] I think if you can turn off the computer's book, which I've done when I've played the computer, they are still rather weak, at least at the opening part of the game, so I think this would be a good improvement, and also just for humans. It is much better, I think, because chess is becoming more and more simply memorization, because the power of memorization is so tremendous in chess now. Theory is so advanced, it used to be theory to maybe 10 or 15 moves, 18 moves; now, theory is going to 30 moves, 40 moves. I think I saw one game in Informator, the Yugoslav chess publication, where they give an N [theoretical novelty] to a new move, and I recall this new move was around move 50. [...] I think it is true, we are coming to the end of the history of chess with the present rules, but I don't say we have to do away with the present rules. I mean, people can still play, but I think it's time for those who want to start playing on new rules that I think are better." —Bobby Fischer (September 1, 1992)

@jeffnc: Mentally ill people are on medication or interned in mental hospitals. Fischer never was. You take his anger and various fears he expressed as mental illness, but you are wrong (and others).

I keep meaning to try Chess960. It's definitely an interesting idea, if somewhat inelegant.