S T O P T H E H A T E !
Idiot chess savant Bobby Fischer
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An idiot savant is mentally retarded except in their genius area. They can't even spell their own name or tie their shoes in a lot of cases. That's where the word idiot comes from. Fischer obviously didn't fall into that category even if it's true that chess was the only thing he was a genius at.
Robert James Fischer was / is a genius! Noone will ever come near to his level.
People have different opinions! So does / did Fischer!
Stop harassing this genius!
Estragon wrote:
With the strongest chessplayers ... Waitzkin a martial arts master.
Waitzkin is a "strongest player" - with a peak rating of 2464?
Bobby Fischer is not a savant. Trust me, I've read extensively about both Fischer and savants themselves. A chess savant would be much much stronger than any top GM. If Kim Peek was a chess savant, the world would implode in on his awesomeness.
True savants are somewhat mentally retarded. Bobby Fischer was not retarded in any way, and his lack of social skills or skills in other areas were his choice.
May 5, 2011
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#27
fyy0r wrote:
Bobby Fischer is not a savant. Trust me, I've read extensively about both Fischer and savants themselves. A chess savant would be much much stronger than any top GM. If Kim Peek was a chess savant, the world would implode in on his awesomeness.
True savants are somewhat mentally retarded. Bobby Fischer was not retarded in any way, and his lack of social skills or skills in other areas were his choice.
Are there actually any chess savants in competitive chess now or in the past, or do you know of any names of chess savants so i can review their games. It might quite interesting to view a game played by a savant.
BalticKnight wrote:
Waitzkin is not a GM, I believe.
I know, he's such an idiot.
herbanmusic wrote:
mtguy8787 wrote:
Estragon wrote:
With the strongest chessplayers ... Waitzkin a martial arts master.
Waitzkin is a "strongest player" - with a peak rating of 2464?
And here we have another person that lives of patronizing cliches, that speaks with knowledge of cause...
A bit of research before you speak out about these kind of things would probably(?!?) help you not look like an ignorant ( in this context, mind- Not in any way insulting you, mind that fact).
Josh was ( probably stil is up to a certain level) a really strong player, GM material no doubt...Easy !! Had he pursued it further, of course !
I always hear "If he had pursued it further." He pursued it for years under world class chess coaches before he had to see he wasn't going to become a GM.
herbanmusic wrote:
@ woodshover- If you say so. Thats not what the "records" speak of... But maybe you know something we dont, of course, for you to say so !!
and world class coaches...You mean those that wanted him to play like karpov, instead of his attacking style? That wanted him to pursue generic methods in order to improve without taking in consideration him as a person... Even though this coach was one of the most noted ones...
Maybe you would like to enlighten us then?
Was that coach holding a gun to his head, and forcing him not to hire a new one, and getting rid of him, if he was so bad?
In listening to Fischer's interviews, it's clear that he understands subtle social cues and knows how to direct the flow of a conversation.
He didn't have any mental disorder. He was simply good at chess.
Windy_Why wrote:
He didn't have any mental disorder. He was simply good at chess.
I think it's too simple to say that he just was good at chess. Going by all the things Fischer said especially during his last 30 years I would say he had some mental disorder, see some of the interviews from the 1990s:
http://www.anusha.com/fischer1.htm
http://www.anusha.com/fischer2.htm
An interesting interview with Larry Evans:
http://www.chessville.com/Editorials/Interviews/GMLarryEvansInterviewOnBobbyFischer.htm
Incredible to read all this. The guy was nothing less than a genius,but he had a lonely and poor youth, which he tried to correct later in life. The US in their crazy anti- communist psychotic period treated his mother badly and tapped their phone etc... So he felt alone and was wasted on the world.
He was investigated by the secret services because he read Russian chess litterature.
How would you react?
Keres and Tal had their countries invaded and occupied, and many were paranoid for good reasons in Stalin's days (and later). Players like Bronstein, Korchnoi and Kasparov didn't have some sort of problem free existence either. Some people grew up in Auschwitz and became harmonious individuals, others had a wonderful childhood and ended up mentally ill, it's all quite unpredictable.
All people are different, but Fischer's story could have been different if he had been supporter differently. But you are very right, the mind is difficult to predict.
paulgottlieb said it well!
I've much enjoyed this topic and many of the 'conscientious'/knowledgeable reponses here ( but I 'see' that I'm 'three years out of date', at least for the first five or ten comments that I've read..
but with 'idiot savants' for math (calculations) and calendar dates (?) (the only two areas that I had some knowledge about), I was wondering about other areas (music?), and yesterday's conversation with a neuro-biologist/cognative psych guy got me 'thinking' about other areas/aspects of cognition. We didn't resolve the 'mind/body' duality (materialist vs idealist) (no 'resolution', in my humble opinion), but we were discussing 'memory' and 'how many' 'thoughts'/'ideas', etc. that a human mind can 'encompass'... and it just occurred to me about 'idiot savants' for chess.
anybody who is seriously interested in this topic, I'd be happy to have continuing discussions about...
I'm currently lacking e-mail accounts (thanks to the folks at Outlook Express taknig over hotmail..), but you could post here.. and I'll try to 'check in' at least once a week or once a month.. thanks for your interest..
(my real interest is in expanding the ranges/modalities of (human) sense perceptions (maybe for other species, too?), and 'amplifying' 'intensities', and deminishing(sp?? lol) attenuation times..
Cheers Bob/Sam
PS I play chess at chess.com as 'sammy17' and I have a FaceBook account, but under a peudonym that I can never recall LOL
The finest steel, is tempered, and tried the most. Usually, outstanding individuals in any given field, don't come from Utophian ( are there really any on earth ? ) like environments.
You have to concider the true meaning of the word 'idiot' in this context. I believe it translates into 'private person' as well as 'unlearned'. It's not an insult, it's a condition.