Fischer Wins `69 WCC?

Clearly, Fischer could have won and didn't. Then he cried about Soviet cheating. Now if I would have said the Soviets "fixed" it so that Fischer had no chance, then I would have been bias in Fischer's favour. So I disagree with your assumption that I can not be objective in the matter. That's just wrong.

trysts - Well since you deal with no specifics and on focus on Fischer's "crying" you certainly don't appear to be unbiased.

It's totally irrelevant if Fischer could have won, it is a question of did the Soviets collude to do their best to keep Fischer from winning. Answer- almost certainly yes.

Why did they change the format after that candidates? Why did people like Hans Kmoch write about the candidates as "Farce vs Farce?" How can 3 GM's draw 12/12 games on average of 19 moves? Clearly, the strategy gave a heavy advantage to keeping Fischer out.

One example-

Consider Geller - Petrosian round 24 - Why with the White pieces, in a sharp, unclear position does a player who is trailing in the tournament agree to a draw on move 19? Essentially by agreeing to a draw, Geller has taken himself out of the running to win the tournament and play for the championship. Who would do that?

Fischer has no one but himself to blame for losing the first two rounds to be sure. But that doesn't mean that he didn't deserve a fair shot at the Candidates.

 Well, in sports and such, when an individual player need only to win more than the other competitors, that is considered a "fair shot". But when not doing so, and blaming everyone but himself for not winning enough games, it is not uncommon to call that "crying", "sour grapes", "making excuses", etc. Fischer had a fair shot and lost. Pretty clear to me... Unless I let bias get in the way of my judgement, Nimzo5.

Bobby Fischer was nothing less than a chess genius. He did things that will never be done again by any human being. He was a prodigy.

That being said, he was also an unstable individual whose actions could only be speculated on...and unpredictable was Bobby.

I personally believe that he could have been the greatest chess player to ever live...but for his unpredictability, his instability, and his seemingly "I first" attitude.

Bobby Fischer could have been WCC earlier than he did, and held on to it for some time after. But that individual would not have been the Bobby Fischer we knew...he would have been someone else. He use to walk out on tournaments that he was leading in, for unknown reasons...he was that enigmatic. I could see Mr. Fischer playing for the WCC and walking away, while in the lead...

...only Bobby Fischer understood Bobby Fischer...

 I'm not a guy, I'm a girl. And I'm pretty sure that Fischer did not win enough games in Curacao, that's how he lost. If you don't know that, then your chess knowledge is probably worse than your arithmetic. Fischer-lovers are so amusing

This posting really made me smile.  And not because I necessarily disagree with it.  I have a love/hate affair with Fischer. He had many admirable qualities tempered by some really lousy ones. Unfortunately, it seems, at least to me, that the balance (or the unbalance) tipped more in the wrong direction the longer he lived.  And it's true that Korchnoi, as great a player as he was, and I truly admire his play and tenacity, was/is a bit bizarre, regardless what Maroczy says.

Fischer was World Champion. And he earned the title in an exciting and unique fashion and wowed and inspired an entire generation, something that no one can ever take from him. But he could have been even greater, and even promised to be, but failed to deliver. The height he reached is almost unfathomable to most, but what he could have achieved was so much more.  Does that make him a failure?  I just don't know. I guess it makes him an enigma and someone to both love and hate. 

I have a friend who married a reformed alcoholic/drug addict.  He was a great guy and for 7 years a solid husband and father to their two children.  Then one day he snapped, ran away back into the world he came from.  No child support, nothing.  When my friend becomes angry (and this happened 10  years ago now), I tell her..."You know, maybe you got the best he had in him.  Maybe, he only had those 7 good years to give, out of his whole life.  And, he gave that to you."

Maybe Bobby Fischer could have become so much more after 1972...but, he didn't.  I don't hold that against him.  I treasure the good that came out of him, the brilliant games, the inspiration that brought so many of us into the game when we were kids...I am thankful for what he was able to become.  Dwelling on questions of "what if" and "if only" and his character/personality problems...I don't see that as useful at all.  For me, he is a chess hero...I look to the examples of other great people if I want inspiration in morality or stability.  His brilliance on the chessboard:  that is the real gift that Bobby Fischer gave to us.   And that is the legacy that I choose to remember.

batgirl wrote 

"And it's true that Korchnoi,....was/is a bit bizarre, regardless what Maroczy says."

Great line, Sara.  You rock.

I'd like to point out that the reason that the Candidate's changed from tournaments to matches was because of Soviet collusion at tournaments, particularly at Curacao.  Fischer was not wrong here, but I agree that he still wasn't strong enough to win it, even if it had been on the up and up.  He hadn't matured enough either as a player or a person, as he shows by withdrawing from international chess for a few years.  In 66 he would have had a shot, but Spassky was still Spassky then, and Larsen was starting to dominate Western chess, so getting through the Candidateswould not have been easy.  I think Fischer would have been strong enough in 69, but I don't believe that Spassky would have been denied.  I still see 72 as the year.  But in 75, I think he would have beaten a still-too-young Karpov badly, with the result being a Korchnoi-Fischer match in 78.  Could chess have handled or survived that?

 Funny, because he dominated the Interzonal leading up to it- he and Tal were considered the clear favorites going into the Candidates. Tal got sick and Fischer got off to a terrible start. If you did a simulation of 100's of this tournament my guess is that

Fischer wins 30-35% of them

Tal if not sick wins 20%

Petrosian wins 20%

Geller wins 10%

Keres wins 10%

Kortchnoi wins 8%

Benko 3%

etc.

But % likelihood is meaningless, as Petrosian did win. :)

 Great commentary... nice read and I aggree

Personally , I dont believe Fischer was the best in the world before the age of 19 or 20 . After becoming the best in the world the soviets ( USSR ) did do as much as they could ( in both fair and unfair ways ) to keep Fischer from the title but they did this to other strong western players like Larsen as well. Fischer also didnt help himself by walking away from events, even when leading , and even walking away from chess for lengthy periods during his career.

In Kasparov's great predecessor books Kaspy even defends the soviet "cheating" in a round about manner. He points out that the USSR players must obey orders from their "bosses" and so they are simply " following orders ". He said if they didnt they would be punished when they got home.

Not a lot has changed really when you see today there are 5 russian men's teams in the current Olympiad !!  When has the host country ever been allowed more than 2 ?! 

But surely Stalin's death and Beria's arrest (the blood-stained KGB head) were potentially positive developments ? Did they perhaps allow themselves to be scared unnecessarily ?

I think you underestimate the danger of uncertainty.

It is true that Geller, Petrosian, and Keres usually arranged draws between themselves, but this is not nearly enough to call them what you call them. The USSR is long dead now and still there are many arranged draws.

Each of them was a great player.

And please again, try to not use that many exclamation marks. I realize that you have read some, but there are others here who are more or less literate too.

It's amazing Atos and others bother to "talk" to this guy...

Petrosyan, Keres and Geller had arranged draws between them also in Bled 1959. Was this a Soviet conspiracy against Tal then ? He didn't complain, and won the Candidates Tournament nevertheless.

In the 1950's and 1960's, most of the top Soviet players liked to draw each other in just about every event at home or abroad.  Part of it might be that Keres, Smyslov, Geller, Tal, Petrosian, and Spassky were all of a similar level for much of this time, so they found it hard to win against each other.  It wasn't until Karpov and Kasparov came onto the scene that people started playing for a win again.  Even today there are quite a few players at the top who like to agree to draws even if they have white.

It should also be noted that Korchnoi never seemed terribly interested in short draws, and Botvinnik usually played for a win.  Flohr was one of the first Soviet players who really loved to play with the draw in hand, and he may have had some influence on the post war generation of players.

Fischer probably wouldn't have played so much chess and become World Champion if the world weren't so full of drama queens and blowhards just dying to share their pointless opinions with everyone else.  To all the haters out there, could you please just keep your hateful, stupid opinions to yourselves, or would that prevent you from having a reason to exist in the first place?   Try actually being a great chess player before you turn around and criticise one.