Fischer was a one-hit-wonder..!

 Many people tend to favor Fischer when the talk is about the best all time player. However, I think he was basically a one-hit-wonder and we should not even consider him. Now that we know he stood no chance against Karpov in 1975, it is clear that he chickened out.

i think fischer was too arrogant and self absorbed to be scared of other players. Its not unreasonable that he though of everybody except himself as inept.

Translation:

GreedyPawnGrabber:  If I make an absurd statement I'll surely get attention.

paulgottlieb:  Correct.

:-)

Hey... it works for me!

I want to be a one-hit wonder like Fischer !!! Yes I want to become a GM and then World Champion, just a plain little one-hit wonder like that.   

Don't feed the ...

same here

Fischer-Karpov is probably the greatest chess match that should have been played but wasn't. 

I think it would have been extremely close, and yes, I do think Karpov had a realistic chance to pull the upset and win such a match in 1975. But it would have been an upset. In 1975, Fischer was still the greatest player the world had ever seen. Karpov represented a whole new challenge to him though, as Karpov had already shown by beating Spassky convincingly and then defeating Korchnoi in a great match. Karpov was both a great player and a great fighter.

Fischer did indeed "chicken out". There's no getting around that. But he wasn't a "one-hit wonder" either. He was one of the top five chess players from ~1962-1972, and the absolute best player from 1971-1972.

This thread should be placed under off-topic.

Karpov played Petrosian 15 games from 1971-1982 and finished -1 against Petrosian , whom Fischer destroyed .  This included 4 games , all drawn , in 1975 .  Its simply not logical to think Karpov would have any real chance against Fischer in 1975 . In those 15 games Karpov managed only one win , in 1982 , 2 years before Petrosian's death . 

I think Bobby would have beat Karpov in 75, had he stayed involved in the game and kept up on theory. Fischer was peaking in the late 60s and the 72 match was imbalanced (Spassky wasn't that strong of an opponent) but I think FIscher could have kept the title for one more round. By 78, he probably would have lost it...this is presuming he stayed in the game, so it's all speculation of course.

Who would have been a stronger opponent for Bobby in 72 ?  Lets not forget Spassky was #2 by rating and the reigning champ and had a +3 record ( undefeated ) against Fischer . He also won the USSR chmp in 1973 ( Karpov in the field as well ) after losing the title in 1972 . 

Fischer was anything but a one-hit wonder.

mod edit: for hopefully obvious reasons

We simply don't know it! It seems as if Fischer's personality change after he became WC! Before he won the title he wanted to be World Champion for 30 years or more! 

Someone (I don't really remember if it was SmyslovFan or Schlechter55?) showed a Karpov interwiev after 1976 when he met Fischer in Japan ...
Unzicker wrote in 1975: "There was a strage change with Fischer. He stopped playing tournaments after becoming WC!" I guess Fischer really needed psychiatric assistance for being able to play chess again on his high level.

If this had happened I'm quite convinced we wouldn't had a WC Karpov at all. Perhaps even Kasparov in 1984 would not have been able to become WC. (But that's only my opinion and useless speculation.) - History is different! 

According to chessgames.com the score was 1-1 with 12 draws (the other win by Petrosian was in a blitz game). 

At the same time, Fischer had negative scores against both Tal and Geller, while Spassky had large positive scores against both.  Making it simply not logical to think that Fischer had any chance in 1972...or perhaps it might mean that assessing the the chances that player A will have against player B based on their records against player C is not a great method, especially when most people will be biased in selecting their player C. 

actually ahve you read kasparovs book on fischer. He said that he was almost certainly sure he would lose and kind of afraid to.

Kasparov always had a problem with "the ghost" of Fischer! He could have been more relaxed. But he was always sort of concerned about this. I really have no clue to this. I'm confused!

Fischer became WC in 1972 only because Spassky was too gracious and  didn't want to abandon the match. He had the right to do it because Fischer's arrogant behaviour and dirty psychological tricks were unacceptable. If it were someone else, Fischer wouldn't even become a champion, though on paper I agree that he deserved it. Apart from that Fischer proved to be a chicken. He was so much afraid of young Karpov that preferred to disappear forever and let the people speculate about it which is what some are doing up to this day...

I hate to even slightly agree with GreedyPawnGrabber on anything, but I'm not so sure that Karpov should even be considered an underdog.

Maybe it's because I try to have a global view on history and current events that I never raised Fischer high above the other greats... In the end the match never happened, we have no way of knowing how it would have played out; and comparing games against Petrosian sure won't help.