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

Only if Fischer kept playing and did poorly could you talk about longevity. But he quit playing completely.

I have not insulted you, so why do you feel that it is okay to insult me.  Would you call me stupid to my face, or is it only the on-line nature of these forums that makes you so brave?

I am not stupid.  I do not post stupid things. Please refrain from gratuitous insults.

And while we are about it please do not ascribe to me beliefs that I do not hold and have not stated. In this case that "world champions have no quality of chess but it happens just naturally or they were invited to recieve the title for free every year", whatever you may have meant by that!

Incidentally, your post simply confirms my point,  people have different ideas about what constitutes "greatness". You seem to think that your ideas are "correct" ones and that anyone that disagrees is "wrong".

If you plan on debating the point with me I would like to see some logical argument rather than an "ad hominem" attack, or an attempt to set up a false "straw man" argument and pretend that it is what I believe. 

One final point:  YOu seem to be debating a different question than the one you opened with. The question is not whether or not Fischer was a "greater" player than the other great players you have listed. Maybe Fischer was not the greatest of all, as his fans believe.  Maybe he is not even in the top ten.  Nevertheless he was a great chess player.

I am serious because it is a serious question.  If you weren't serious you can indicate it by the style of writing or with a smiley.

You started this thread by suggesting that Fischer was "Not actually that good" and not the question of whether  he is the best ever or not.

I responded as I did because I do not like being called stupid, and I do not like my opinions being called stupid, especially if someone has misinterpreted what I said.

I accept that in your opinion the factors that consitute greatness are World championships, tournament success and longevity but you seem to think that so obvious that we should all automatically agree with you.  Well, we don't.

Fischer actually achieved two of your criteria, the World Championship and many tournament successes.  That he failed to defend his title against Karpov does count against him.  But he was nevertheless at or near the top of World chess from the time he came to widespread notice in his mid-teens until he won the World Championship at the age of 29.

I suggest that we should respect the  views of people that also rate peak performance and the quality of the chess played as important factors in "greatness"

I personally do not have an opinion on who was the "greatest" player of all time.  I do think there is something special about Fischer's games, a classical clarity that makes them very enjoyable to play over. But the question of who is the best of all time is an unanswerable question because we'll never all agree on the criteria.  I do have a very clear idea of what is a great, outstanding, exceptional player and Fischer was (in my opinion, which you are not obliged to share) definitely one of those. 

Maybe I am not always Modest, but I go out of my way to be Polite.

I did not see any criticism in your posts.  Just an insult, a lack of convincing argument, and a conviction that you are right and anyone that disagrees is wrong.

promises, promises!

I'll copy paste one of my previous posts on this topic:

According to me, the 5 greatest chess players of all time are:

1) Paul Morphy.

2) Emanuel Lasker (27 yrs)

3) Alexander Alkhine (17 yrs)

4) Garry Kasparov (15 yrs)

5) Bobby Fischer

I have simple way of judging who is the greatest of all time. If a player has reigned as the world champion for the longest period, then he is the greatest in my view. The only other factor that might influence this metric would be if a player has voluntorily stopped playing chess for some reason and may still be arguably the best in the world in that time period. And there are only two such cases: Paul Morphy & Fischer. In these cases, their reign period would be until the rise of a new champion. Paul Morphy played in 1850s and retired in 1860s(even though he was still the best). Then, Steinitz was there but its unclear when he should be treated as a champion. I am putting Steinitz champion from around 1880s. So, according to me, Morphy remained effectively undisputed champion for 30 yrs(1850s - 1880s) even though he had stopped playing chess in 1860s. Similarly, Fischer voluntorily pulled out and Karpov became the nominal champ. So, Karpov was second-best and his reign also belongs to Fischer. That would mean Fischer reigned for around 13 yrs effectively.

Why is reigning period important?

Because, thats the only unbiased way of judging clearly if one is good. If a player is not good, he will not be able to reign for much time. He'll be soon found out and defeated. It takes a really great player to remain on top for a long period. The longer you remain on top, the greater you are.

About Morphy:

This idea that Paul Morphy would not be able to face the current crop was started by Capablanca when he was champion in 1927. He was the one who came up with this theory. It seems like a clever way of pulling down a past giant player. At that time, Capablanca perhaps wanted to portray himself as the greatest player of all time. But, Capablanca was on the top for just 6 yrs. So, he is nowhere in contention for greatest player of all time.

About Fischer:

Karpov was never the best. He remained the second-best even during his playing days. Karpov was nominally on top only when the really best(Fischer & Kasparov) were not playing against him.

About the argument of 'level of opposition':

Basically, the argument is, "level of opposition of a particular player(in this case Morphy) was mediocore, so his wins are not so great. And so, he is not all time great."

I think this argument was first used by Capablanca to pull down Morphy in a clever way. But, this is an argument that can be used to pull down any player(in the past or future). For example, you can say that Garry Kasparov was not really the greatest because his 'level of opposition' was poor compared to the past or future. Literally, you can use this argument to pull down any player you dislike. There is no way to know the 'level of opposition'. The opponents of Morphy look mediocore because Morphy makes them look mediocore. Infact, if you look at any player's lost matches, they'll look mediocore. That does not mean they were mediocore in general. It just means that they made a mistake in a match or they were outplayed by their opponent.

Capablanca used the argument that Future chess player is better than the past chess players. If that argument is true, then Carlsen would be the greatest and the next greatest would be Anand just because they are the most recent champions. This is clearly a bad argument but some people keep repeating it to pull down an all time great player like Paul Morphy. They tarnish all the players of his generation just so they can decrease the greatness of Morphy. Because they don't have any other argument to belittle him.

"Capablanca used the argument that Future chess player is better than the past chess players. If that argument is true, then Carlsen would be the greatest and the next greatest would be Anand just because they are the most recent champions. This is clearly a bad argument"

That's two entirely different things. Anand plays better chess than Lasker did since he has an advantage of a century in professionalisation, opening theory, coaches, tournament circuits, chess databases and engines etc etc. Lasker is greater since he could win every tournament he played for three decades from 1895/96 onwards, except one when he was second, and was the best player in the world for decades.

Hard to compare. Paavo Nurmi was able to win too different long distance olympic races in one afternoon. Is he the greatest athlete ever? Well, no one (himself included) could do it nowadays.

The trouble with your ranking, Ashva, is that Morphy was only *demonstrably* the best in the world for a few years. After that he retired, so we can no longer say with certainty, even if the likelihood was he still was the best for years to come. Lasker was *demonstrably* the best over a much longer period. Also, Morphy was never an *official* World Champion, and your ranking mixes official and unofficial world champions.

Hey, I am conducting a research on the chess prodigy Bobby Fischer and I need to do a few interviews. They will be just general questions regarding his life and his tragic end.
The interviews can take place over call or skype (whichever ) you prefer.

Can you please help me out on this by giving me your interview?

He isn't senile. He is dead!

We are all welcome to our opinions, but it is foolish to expect anyone else to share them, or be persuaded to adopt them for the same reasons as yourself.

[My emboldening in the quote above]

You have not given any reason for believing this. You simply state it as if it were a self-evident truth.  It is not.  There are many other reasons why we might think of a player as "Great".

For example I happen to thnk that Nehzmedtinov was a great player, yet he never won the World Championship and never even gained a GM title.

Fischer made chess moves that previously were not even known to be legal - leave alone

good. He found chess squares that previously were not even known to exist - and now

that he has gambited his body people attack him.  Why not attack him when he is alive?

Not sure why Americans would be biased towards Fischer considering Fischer hated America. Doesnt quite fit the whole patriotism thing. He was a great chess player none the less, but even as an American with my "bias" I would still put Carlsen ahead of him simply because of versatility. 

Fischer stuck to only a few openings for the most part as can be seen here http://bobbyfischer.net/repertoire.html, Carlsen on the other hand kills it with everything, including winning with 1. a4 (even if it was a blitz match, it was awesome) http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1671724

Neither of them are as fun to watch as Tal though, but that only constitutes "greatness" of spectatability, rather than the "greatness" of skill I believe is being applied.

That is an interesting point,but not, I think, a fair one.

Carlsen strikes me as a pragmatic player. He'll play less than the objectively best moves if he thinks he has a better chance of winning that way.  Fischer always seemed to be striving for the truth about the positions he played, including the starting position.

It is true that he broadened his repertoire in the 1972 match with Spassky, but as much as because he had come to accept that openings other than 1. e4 for White and 1. e4 c5 are just as good as his oft-played favourites as to surprise Spassky.

Besides, who, other than super GMs, thinks they would have survived against Fischer, even after he had played 1. a4? if he had ever done that for the hell of it?  Not me for sure, not even 30 years ago, and not more than a handful of the strongest players on chess.com

You may think anyone as great or mediocre. But, thats an opinion and like all opinions(yours or mine) it will be biased. Even if its not biased, it is still not an objective way of deciding the great player of past or present. Thats why we have a championship to decide who happens to be champion of the time. So, it follows from this point that whoever had reigned as the champion for the longest period must be the greatest player. 

Sure, there are certain champions in the past(like Alekhine) who used to run away from giving his opponents a chance to challenge his world championship title. Similarly, there are other greats like Morphy or Fischer who quit chess before others could challenge them properly. Inspite of these things, I think championships(and reign periods) are the most unbiased method. Other methods seem biased based on liking or disliking something.

It is a matter of opinion that holding the world championship for the longest time determines who is the greatest.

Logic is not your strong point, is it?

Never mind that the original question, of which some have lost sight, was not about whether Fischer was the greatest of all but about whether he deserves to be considered a great player at all. You seem to think he does not.

"I think championships (and reign periods) are the most unbiased method"

Yes, we know that is what you think.  Some of us agree with you, some of us don't.  You can keep hitting people over the head with your assertion as to what is the most important criterion of greatness, but you have proven (as in demonstrated its truth) nothing and are not going to force anyone to agree with you.

I have said that you are entitled to your opinion.  It looks like you are unhappy about anyone choosing to disagree with you.

Ther is no objective way of deciding who is the strongest player of all time, or even of setting the bar for "greatness"  because there is no objective measure of chess strength.  Length of tenure of championships depends on all kinds of factors beyond the chess strength of the participants, so all we are left with is ratings and the moves of the games they played.

Ratings measure the relative competitive performance of contemporary players in a range of competitive situations. Even then they are not precise measures, and they are very poor tools for comparing players of different eras.

So we are left with the moves of their games as the most "objective" evidence of their chess strength, but evaluating quality of player is a job for super GMs. ANd even though the moves themselves are an objective fact their evaluation is still subjective.

The huge majority of chess players of all strengths consider Fischer to be a great player.  That is good enough for me.  Was he the greatest of all time?  That is unanswerable right now.  If ever we create a quantum computer that plays perfect chess we might have a way of answering objectively.  Until then it is just opinion.  Your opinion might be as good as mine, but it isn't better.

I agree 30 yrs for Morphy is a bit arbitrary because he was never conquered as such. So, its really up for grabs. Steinitz became champion after Morphy left chess just like Karpov became Champion after Fischer left chess. In Fischer's case I simply put the whole Karpov era in Fischer's pocket. If I do the same with Steinitz and Morphy, then Morphy would be a reigning champion for 37 yrs, not just 30 yrs.