If Fischer would played Karpov for the World Champion, who would win?

Maurice Ashley is extending that further and making even patzers rich!

Karpov said the same thing about himself losing to Spassky in the candidates match leading up to the world championship in 1975...then he proceeded to trounce him!  I believe Karpov said Spassky would easily beat him then go on to face Fischer in 1975; instead Karpov won convincingly with a score of +4 -1 =6.   So, just because Karpov gave better chances to Fischer winning in 75' doesn't mean he would win.  Truth is, Karpov was improving rapidly at this time. 

As I made clear in my telegram to the FIDE delegates, the match conditions I proposed were non-negotiable. Mr. Cramer informs me that the rules of the winner being the first player to win ten games, draws not counting, unlimited number of games and if nine wins to nine match is drawn with champion regaining title and prize fund split equally were rejected by the FIDE delegates. By so doing FIDE has decided against my participation in the 1975 World Chess Championship. Therefore, I resign my FIDE World Chess Championship title.

Sincerely, Bobby Fischer

"The single sticking point was Fischer’s demand that should the contest be a draw, he be allowed to keep his title"

Or rather that Karpov had to win the match with a margin of two games, 10-8, to win the title.

Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine also demanded huge sums in their day, but that is rarely as praised as Fischer's doing it :-)

When Alekhine was challenged by Botvinnik, even being ill, just after the war ended it it was possible to speak about playing the match, - Alekhine began to get ready for the match, he was thinking about chess, not about money or other non-chessy conditions. Whatever capablanca's condition had been - he did play the match with Alekhine. Whatever Alekhine's conditions had been, there were even two matches between him and Max Euwe ...

Again. Comparing Spassky to Fischer is misleading. Just because Karpov beat Boris soundly, doesn't mean he had the same chances vs Bobby.

Tal gave more kudos to an kid with an idyllic memory (guess who?) than an rising talent like Karpov. Why is that? Is it because an ex-champion wasn't impressed with Antoly's play during that time? It's curious.

So where is that list? I don't see it anywhere on the net. Just everybody going on about 179 demands.

I happen to remember a bunch of them (yes, I was around at the time too) and as I remember they were more than reasonable.

Just to name a few.

- No children in the playing hall (unless they know the rules of chess)

- Specifics about lighting

- The board and pieces to a certain standard

- No high heals on women(the most annoying sound imaginable when playing chess)

- The spectators at a sufficient enough distance from the players

etc,etc.

So what if he had 179 demands? If they are reasonable, why not.

You have no idea what you are talking about.

Period.

Unless it happens at the expense of amateurs, and that's exactly what is happening today. It's OK for professionals to get paid properly from wealthy patrons, but not from competing amateurs. When FIDE spends money from membership charges to serve professionals rather than common members, this is wrong and the problem arises.

Open swiss tournament organizers offer paying professionals beforehand just for mere participation, while amateurs have to pay incredibly high entry fees. Even a 2000+ rated local club top player has to pay such fee and gets very little comfort in return. For a 1000 CzK (~ 50$) entry I expect at least decent silent playing room with good illumination and comfortable chairs, not noisy hall illuminated with cheap strip lights and equipped with common plastic seats. Closed round-robin local tournaments for amateurs disappeared. I observed and experienced how FIDE's (+ national federation's) charges increased in time and tournaments' entry fees too, while services and comfort decreased.

There was a reason why Kasparov's two organisations for professionals dissipated and FIDE went nearly bankrupt in 1995. The reason was only a few wealthy patrons and too many professionals (esp. from the former USSR) with incredible demands, which Fischer set a precedens for. Also patrons have no problem to pay a legend (Fischer, Korchnoi, Spassky, Portisch, Timman, Karpov) for an exhibition, but they would not sponsor a living for 250 or so 2600+ GMs. Kasparov felt hurt when Fischer's casual rematch vs Spassky in 1992 raised more funds than his "official" PCA WCC match vs Nigel Short.

He died in 2008

@ Polar_Bear

Nice post but I'm sorry, what you are saying is far from reality.

The money I made as a chess player was from playing tournaments, giving simuls, club matches, articles, lessons, etc. Never ever a single cent from a federation.

Show me where FIDE is spending money and giving it to (top) chess players. As far as I'm aware of, the pricefunds and starting fees always come from sponsors, governments, entree fees etc.

Besides people love to watch the best players compete. Why shouldn't they spend some money here and there on it? If you go to the cinema, to watch football or some concert you also pay for a ticket, no?

There are plenty/loads of tournaments with good playing conditions in the world. Play those instead.

Round-robin local tournaments for amateurs? Never even seen one in my life. Maybe organize them yourself?

Kasparov felt hurt? Come on, he's the biggest a****ole ever to play chess. He screwed up FIDE and the World Chess title matches for personal gain. With the help of Nigel Short. And his two organizations were founded for exactly the same reason. Personal gain. Glad he's gone. Good riddance.

The reason FIDE almost went bankrupt in '95 was clearly mismanagement. I would looooove to have a look at the books and see where the funds went to. Not the chess players I can asssure you.

Title holders have free accounts on this site too. If you have such a problem with that, shouldn't you reconsider your membership?

cheers,

NR.

I would just like to remention that concerning the Karpov-Spassky Candidate match in 1974 while Karpov won 4-1 excluding draws the match was much closer with very high quality play by both players. Kasparov said Spassky made no blunders like he did against Fischer in 72, and played great chess. Karpov just played better. Karpov didn't crush Spassky in that match, the score doesn't do the match justice and if you analyze the games of that match you'd realize it was much closer than 4-1. What you can take away from that match is that Karpov played against a better Spassky than Fischer did in 72 and he beat him so in 75 we can say that Fischer would have a tougher opponent than Spassky in 72.

Fischer would win if he didnt lose his mind.

chess_gg, Fischer making demands at tournaments and the world championship weren't new. He did so on numerous occasions, and was known to leave a tournament midway through it because a demand wasn't met. So lets not say he did so to avoid playing Karpov, which is pure speculation, because making demands, even if trivial, wasn't a new thing for him. It also makes less sense then why he was preparing for Karpov before 75, and why he gave great interest to a possible match with Karpov in 76 until the Soviet Federation shut down the negotiations and told Karpov he wouldn't play in an unofficial match with Fischer. The evidence to support Fischer being afraid of playing Karpov doesn't hold up well to me and I think is just a lazy reason to why Fischer just gave up his title without a fight. If you think you know Fischer well you should know better than that.

What FIDE congress rejected (by a narrow margin to!), wasn't any of Fischer's demands that he made up on his own but an objection to one point in the proposal by the Vice president of FIDE in 1973 of a new World Championship match format which Fischer liked and back in 1973 wrote FIDE to adopt it immediately. This was before a Karpov or any challenger came on the scene, and the proposal was fair; First to ten wins, draws not counting and in the event of a 9-9 tie (just as if in a 12-12 tie in the then current format), the match would be drawn. The Challenger had to win 10 games to get the title (12.5 in the old format) and the Champion had to win 9 games (12 in the old format) to retain the title. It allowed the same problem that any challenger had, they couldn't let the champion get to X points (12 in the first, 9 in the proposed one) or they'd lose the match due to a tied result, but instead of worry about draws, the challenger only had to worry about loses, which benefited both sides and allowed for a better chess match where the only way either side could win the match was to win a certain amount of games, not just one and draw the rest. This allowed for "comeback's, and in the first Kasparov-Karpov World championship when this proposal was adopted (which makes the rejection back in 75 more interesting!) we saw that Karpov went off to a quick lead but because of the format, Kasparov slowly started to comeback, where he would otherwise would have lose the match had it been the 24 game format. Had the match not been cancelled we'd have seen if Kasaprov would have come back to actually win the match or not. 

FIDE decided against a point in a proposal that made sense. Fischer decided that he wasn't going to play without that format because he traditionally played to win and felt that the World Championship should be based on players winning games and promote fighting chess. I think the evidence supports this view the most. Had FIDE allowed that point, I have no reason to think the Fischer-Karpov match wouldn't have taken place.

No, of course I never did. But I made SOME demands when the situation required it.

I'm not Fischer. For him to want perfect conditions for playing for the highest title in chess, there is nothing strange about that.

Have you seen the demands? If so, would you mind giving a list?

Telling us "absurd demands" without providing some examples is pretty weak. At least I gave some examples from memory.

Nobody knows for sure why he refused to play, and we never will. Everything anybody says about it is speculation.

I'm on the losing side? Don't make me laugh. On second thought you probably wouldn't know how to.

Do my own homework? YOU were the one that came up with it.

It's clear you've never seen the list with demands. So you're just talking out of your ***.

End of story. Game, set and match.

Ciao

Tracking turned off!

Karpov would win. Fischer was a chess prodigy, don't get me wrong, but Karpov is generally considered the second-best player of all time, second only to Kasparov. However, Karpov would only narrowly win the matches with Fischer, hypothetically. However, much like Alekhine's dodging of Capablanca in the early 1900s, Fischer discreetly avoided playing Anatoly Karpov in tournaments. There has even been some speculation that they played an under-the-table game at some point. Karpov even regarded him as superior to any other grandmaster at the time.

Fischer's game has deteriorated in the past couple years. 

Chess_gg, you should list some of the outrageous demands Fischer made. Lets see them. :)