If Fischer had had a normal personality type, would we remember him today?

If Fischer had had a normal personality type and hadn't been so eccentric, many of us probably would still remember him as the first American World Chess Champion after Paul Morphy, but would we elevate him to the level of a Chess titan or just regard him as another World Chess Champion who came and went?

If he was more normal he probably would have played Karpov and then his placement would depend on how he did in subsequent WC matches. 

I don't have a clue what a "normal personality" is. But, he probably would be revered by more people if he held his arrogance in check during interviews, and he probably would not have been so mean-spirited about the jews(I mean wanting them slaughtered), if he hadn't gotten so involved with Jesus-stuff.

Yeah, he'd still be considered one of the greatest. But I do think there is some basis to suggest his status may not have become so mythical. People seem to be fascinated with individuals who are a bit "strange" or who's lives have something out of the ordinary connected to it. For instance in music dying young seems to be a guarantee for a lot of artists of becoming legendary...

People who are considered "normal" by most are the ones I tend to avoid. I think the main attributes of being "normal" are to go with the crowd and to generally become bland and uninteresting.

I think in this case "normal personality" can be interpreted to mean any personality that will allow you to blend in with the crowd without standing out like a sore thumb. You can nitpick on the meaning of the word "normal" all you want, but it's obvious that Fischer did not have what most people would consider a "normal" personality.

Of course not, the first you think of when someone mentions Fischer is "crazy person" and only after a while (if at all) do you remember "chess champion"  Also most serious players could hardly name 4 world champions... people just don't remember this stuff.

Wait, no, I have that backwards, never mind it was a dumb question after all.

Welcome back Eo____

WTF has that got to do with what I said? So you think there are 2 types of people, those and "normal" people? 

In any case I wouldn't judge those kinds of people until I get to know them. You can consider me one of them, in that I have hardly any friends. I'm not miserable however. It doesn't really bother me.

All the real chess heads would.

I agree.

Good question. His eccentricities were definitely part of his mystique. Who is this guy making these outrageous demands? The press ate it up. He was good drama for the news. He is credited for elevating the stature of chess by dramatically raising the salary of chess professionals. If he was normal, I doubt he would have refused to play in the world championship unless the prize fund was doubled. Then he became the mysterious recluse refusing to defend his title. So yeah, if he was normal he probably wouldn't be the mythical figure he is today to the chess world.

Fischer who?

We remember Fischer's greatness despite his personality -- the guy went mental and chickened out of what should have been the entire second half of his career... and then there's the sickening hate he spouted, and after all that people still talk about him on a par with someone like Kasparov. Why? Because his chess achievement up to and including the W.Championship was that amazing. Fischer's sad decline (I'm not talking about his chess skill) may have made him a figure of renown among NON-chess players... but among real chess players it can only lower his status, and the remarkable thing IMO is how much status he nevertheless retains.

If Fischer had a normal personality, would he be remebered? If Fischer had a normal personality, would he have been a chess player? What if you put Fischer's brain in Arnold Scharzenegger's body? What then? What if Fischer had been a house cat that retained the human Fischer's ability to play chess? Would they let the cat play in tournaments? What if Fischer had a sex change operation? Would he have united the male and female championship? Would they have given him/her a belt for each title like they do in boxing? What if Fischer and Karpov had been gay lovers? Would Fischer have played him for the title then? How awkward would it have been? What would have happened if Fischer could fly like Superman?

I believe Fischer is mostly remembered as a figure who is just as well-known for his insurmountable ego and notoriety away from the chessboard as he is for his undeniable gift for the game. All players that make the NM, IM, and GM statuses seem to come hand-in-hand with their own idiosyncratic styles, some more than others. Fischer was no exception to this, and many would not disagree if I were to say that he was the most idiosyncratic of them all. I am in agreement with a younger Bruce Pandolfini when he writes that perhaps Fischer should have stayed hidden and "died young" after his renowned 1972 match against Boris Spassky. Sadly, he ruined his own invincible appearance, along with the then-glorified game of chess which swept the country at the time of Fischer. Parents were teaching kids and kids were teaching other kids and the game was spreading like wildfire. After Fischer "died" after 1972, so did the American acceptance of chess. We are not a nation that approves of taking after neo-Nazi, anti-American mindsets, and therefore chess was deemed "mysterious" and "evil" again, and it fell back out of the public eye. Were Bobby Fischer more "normal", for lack of a better word, how would the story have changed? I cannot really say. Perhaps if he had never pursued the anticlimactic rematch with Spassky and had never turned against our nation, chess would still be the revered televised sport it was in Fischer's glory days.

Perhaps Fischer was eccentric. Pity there aren't a few more eccentrics in the world. He spoke the truth on a number of issues and perhaps with his fantastic powers of analysing stuff , with an increasing access to the internet his opinions would be more refined. The Western media has given Bobby Fischer a bad name, but I believe the Western media's portrayl of the 1e4 King has already vindicated the bad name I already have for these corporate propaganda merchants ! There is no "news" in the papers and TV , it's all agenda stuff "

Which suggests the following.

1.  Immediately after 1972 Americans no longer accepted chess.
2.  Immediately after 1972 Fischer publicly displayed neo-Nazi anit-American sentiments.
3.  Immediately after 1972 chess was deemed mysterious and evil by Americans.
4.  Prior to Fischer, chess was deemed mysterious and evil by Americans.

lol eo____ your threads are great...

Fischer had every right to play Spassky in '92. The American government were in the wrong persuing Fischer after that match. The government allowed American companies to negotiate, trade, profit, and basically "play" in a country banned by Congress. Total BS that Fischer could not play a bloody chess match with Spassky there. The whole story on that injustice is waiting to be written, for sure.

Fischer, also, turned against the American government, not as you put it "our nation", as if there is such a thing. Clearly he had problems, justified in some cases, with American history being some silly beacon of hope and freedom. It's not. He was pissed about it, and he started spewing a bunch of idiotic blame on Jew-controlled this, and Jew-controlled that. Probably the most used scape-goat in the history of Christian-leaning thinking.

As far as your bizarre "revered televised sport", I have NO idea where you got that claim from. The candidates matches, and the championship match were reported vigorously, and broadcast as American propaganda: The U.S./U.S.S.R. battle for the press. Fischer was so naive to American propaganda in the 60's and early 70's, that he had no clue he was merely a pawn in a propaganda game. Probably finding out later about this, added to him being pretty pissed off about the illusion of America.

Wait, stop, I'm not done holding my sides from #16, you guys are too much.

eo____ seriously, the comments your threads can generate are amazing.