Fischer Wins `69 WCC?

Have you started talking to yourself in public too.

As an illustration that others didn't have it easy either:

The Candidates' Tournament 1959 was one of the greatest triumphs of Tal's career.  It was a star-studded field with eight players: Smyslov, Keres, Petrosian, Tal, Gligorich, Benko, Olafsson and a 16-year-old Bobby Fischer!  (Misha beat him 4-0 !)  The event began rather ominously for Tal with losses to Smyslov and Keres.  But he picked up pace with courage and confidence.  By the end of the second cycle it was already clear that the real struggle for the first place lay between Tal and Keres.

The third cycle of the Tournament commenced in Zagreb.

Harry Golombek, recounts:

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Spectators got their money's worth in excitement in the first round at Zagreb.  Despite Tal's wonderful record it was an open secret that Smyslov was rather contemptuous of his play which seemed to him to allow to too great a role to chance and luck.  In fact a few days before he had given an interview to a reporter of the Zagreb Evening News in which he indicated how lucky he thought Tal had been thus far in the tournament and that he regarded it as part of his duties as a grandmaster to beat Tal in a proper manner when next they met.'' 

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Tal recalls,

''Up to a certain point Smyslov played the game brilliantly, and completely outplayed me, while in addition I had only 2-3 minutes left for some 15 moves.  I had nothing to lose, there was no time for hesitation, and I only attempted to complicate my opponent's task in any way possible.  And then, with my flag horizontal, and a further four moves still to make.  Smyslov ran into almost the only swindle I had managed to think up.  As I later found out, he had seen my rook sacrifice on g1, but on h1-no.

Smyslov is normally imperturbable at the board, but here after my 39th move, ...Rh1+, his face changed, and after thinking for some three minutes, he made his reply and slammed his clock with furious force.  Some of the pieces fell over, but contrary to my normal practice, I first gave check with my rook on...g1, pressed my clock, and then only began to restore order on the board.  White could no longer escape from perpetual check.'' (The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal)

http://www.chessville.com/instruction/Annotated_Games/Smyslov_Tal.htm

 please remember that tal never "got" sick. he CAUSED his sickness by his lifesyle of buying drugs, drinks, women, and smokes all of which he freely admitted while he was alive and even wrote about it several times.

 Keres was also one of the few soviet players that Fischer liked , Tal and Spassky were 2 others.  I am not aware of others but these 3 Fischer actually liked. I think Fischer understood the situation of the USSR players and that they were simply " following orders " and faced dire consequences if they didn't. This is why he raged against the cheating russians/commies/soviets and I dont believe he ever singled anyone out by name. This is my opinion but it seems very logical . Fischer detested the "system" that demanded the cheating from its players but understood the position they were in at the same time.

 Its no trivial matter to leave your family behind , especially knowing they may be persecuted if you do.

Leonid Shamkovich was one of the first Soviet GMs to leave in 1975.  Paul Keres died in that year, and Bronstein would have been fairly old by then.  It is more usual for people in their 20's or 30's to emigrate to a new country.  Also, Soviet players tended to get paid a stipend to act as trainers for their clubs, whereas western GMs have to more or less fend for themselves financially.  Flohr and Lilienthal were two players who actually emigrated into the Soviet Union in order to benefit from the support for chess there.

Bronstein was married by the way, to Tatiana, Boleslavsky's daughter I believe.

"Bronstein refused to sign a group letter denouncing the 1976 defection of Viktor Korchnoi, and he paid a personal price for this independence, as his state-paid Master's stipend was suspended, and he was also barred from major tournaments for more than a year."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bronstein

Some just like to know where their next meal is coming from. There is no country where players like Tal and Bronstein would have been supported the way they were in the USSR simply for their chess espertise. Remember that one of Fischer's first prizes for winning a tournament was a typewriter and he certainly never received any help from his country/state.

Well, Kamsky was born in 1974., did he defect as a teenager ? More likely he left after the USSR disintegrated.

More importantly, people have strong connections to their families, hometowns, and homelands. I'd even hypothesize that someone born in the 1920s or 1930s in the USSR may well have honestly thought that Communism was basically right despite "aberrations".  They may have thought that they were contributing more by staying than they could by leaving. 

Also, please brush up on your geography, Tal was not "Russian", and neither was Keres. In a strict ethnic sense, neither was Bronstein. That to you even Yugoslavia blends with "Russia" doesn't it make it reality.

You really believe someone like Keres and other elite players of his time would be supported by any western govt the way they were supported in the USSR ?  If you do then you are the ignorant one notlesu. Please name one great western player that was paid a salary, all expenses paid to travel and play and furnished a place to live by their govt, simply for their expertise in chess ?  I know Fischer wasnt, the US govt hindered him more than helped him..... one of the things that led to Fischer's hatred I feel certain.... ofcourse when he won any substantial prize they had their greedy  hands out wanting their "cut". Some would say that a man who leaves his entire family to end his own persecution , knowing that this could be disastrous for the family he left behind, is more a coward than the one who stays. The one who leaves , for his own sake, leaving his entire family to their fate, would be seen as selfish by many in this world......

Estragon wrote:

Korchnoi was the first Soviet player to successfully defect, and his being allowed to play under the FIDE flag was fiercely contested by the Soviets.

As I mentioned above, Leonid Shamkovich left the USSR for Israel in 1975 eventually ending up in the United States. Korchnoi didn't leave until 1976.

Alekhine and Bogoljubov left Russia / USSR in the early 1920s, when it was still legally possibly to leave. They were emigrants, not defectors. Also, Alekhine was immediately able to obtain French citizenship, and Bogoljubov the German.

Yes I found it now, he 'defected' in 1989. The USSR was on the verge of collapse then and nobody would have paid much attention to some teenager defecting, nor gone after his family.

 Yes, his habit of walking out on important events and even quitting serious competition for long periods of time certainly delayed him getting the title. The strangest thing about his long leaves of absence from competition is that he always came back even stronger than when he left ! Its clear that even though he didnt play during these periods he was still seriously working on the game. We hear a lot about him walking out on tournaments during the event but how many times did he actually do this ?  I think its a lot less than most people seem to think.....

He often threatened to withdraw from tournaments, and several times he withdrew and then came back. There were also a couple of occasions when he withdrew permanently but I don't think they were numerous.

I realize that the OP already hinted that the thread was going in undesired directions, but really I have to make a few more points. What seems to you like one seamless period of "Russian" history is far from being so.

During Stalin, the families of defectors were being sent to Gulag automatically. Defecting from the USSR then practically meant signing a warrant to send your family to Gulag. The defectors were also deemed traitors and usually sentenced to death in absentia. (If they failed, they were executed.) Do you think that Stalin cared what some Western newspaper might say about this, even if they found out ?

During Khrushchev, the families were no longer being sent to Gulag, but still faced harassment and discrimination. Khrushchev also sparkled hopes temporarily that the Soviet Communism might be able to reform itself, and defections in those days then were less than before and after.

Under Brezhnev, the families of the defectors were still often harassed but the Western governments and organizations and press were increasingly involved - the USSR having become increasingly dependent on the West economically - and frequently their interventions protected the families of defectors, particularly the famous ones like Korchnoy. In Gorbachev's time, there was little or no reason to fear for the families. (Kamsky's defection was encouraged by his father, who then returned to the USSR.)

The point being that it is absurd to pass judgments on people's actions, or lack of them, without having a clue about the historical context in which they lived.

 Can you not have a disagreement/conversation without calling childish names like "dufus" ?  If not then I will not waste my time with you , you are beneath contempt.

In 1958, Fischer demanded that he be allowed to play first board for the U.S. team above Reshevsky, and so he was left behind.  In 1961, after 11 games of a scheduled 16 game match with Reshevsky, Fischer got into a dispute with Jacqueline Piatgorsky, and withdrew from the match.  In 1967, at Sousse Interzonal, while leading 8.5/10, Fischer got into a dispute with the organizer over scheduling, and withdrew.  In 1968, Fischer flew to Lugano for the Olympiad, but refused to play because of his dissatisfaction with the playing conditions.  There was some worry in 1970 that Fischer would pull out of the USSR vs. World Match when Larsen demanded to be given first board, but Fischer agreed to play second board vs. Petrosian.  The following Interzonal and Candidates matches went fairly smoothly, but during the match with Spassky, Fischer defaulted the second game over a dispute about whether the game should be played in front of cameras and audience or not.  In 1975, Fischer and FIDE could not agree on the match format, and so Fischer refused to play.  I think those are the main times that he backed out.