Hey slow down, I never said he would have been rusty, unprepared or scared - I was merely wondering why a man that said he wants to play more and more chess never played any until '75. No rifts with FIDE over conditions and all that stuff.
My comment was not really directed at you.
"* indicates a game played in the Curacao Candidates tournament, in which the Soviet players colluded to ensure Fischer would not become the challenger to Botvinnik"
I don't know how many times you have claimed that Fischer was the by far strongest player in the World in 1962 and would have won the Candidates with a huge margin instead of finishing three points from third place if not for the draws between "cheaters" Keres, Geller and Petrosian. Fischer stated that Korchnoi threw games to the top three, but wasn't included in some draw pact and ended up 0.5 behind Fischer. I wonder how far ahead of Fischer he would have finished if he hadn't allegedly thrown all those games and been affected by the draw pact between Keres et al. If one believes Fischer's excuses for being so far from a top three spot, that is.
The Soviets, after Fischer's huge win in the interzonal, and Botvinnik's narrow escape from Fischer in the Olympiad, were pulling out out the stops to stop Fischer from being the Challenger in 1963.
They admitted to collusion at Curacao, years later. Of course, they called it "sporting tactics."
At the Candidates tournement there were five Soviets (Petrosian, Geller, Keres, Korchnoi, and Tal). There were three non-Soviets (Fischer, Benko, and Filip of Czechosloakia). Fischer had to play 20 games against the Soviet bloc - as it turned out, Tal became ill and dropped out of the last cycle.
The Soviets were ordered to make Fischer play as long as possible so as to tire him out. And the Soviet contingent there, was well-supported with analysists and seconds.
Petrosian, Geller, and Keres are alleged to have had a "drawing pact" to conserve their energy. They recorded draws in every game amongst themselves.
Such was the embarrassment and shame of the FIDE, that the next cycle instituted Candidates knockout matches and a limit on the numbers of Soviets.
Acedemic circles will never tire of this subject it will rage for millennia if only we could take a look into another parellel reality but then they would have both won and lost so we are still none the wiser lets say it ended in a draw.The combatants shook hands and parted laughing at the whole comedy of conjecture
"They admitted to collusion at Curacao"
Who are "they"?
One has to be blind to think that the usual draws in the Petrosian-Geller and Petrosian-Keres games were the reason Fischer started Curacao with losses to Benko and Geller to never be close to the lead. He just didn't play well enough and made the usual excuses. I think Keres much later said that he after the previous Candidates where he got very tired towards the end had decided to not play as aggressively and take more short draws, to improve his chances to finish first. So the only thing that wasn't as usual were the four short draws between Keres and Geller, but I doubt they had much effect on anything.
"They admitted to collusion at Curacao"
Who are "they"?
"They" are the Soviet players an officials who talked about Curacao. As I recall, the primary apologist was Averbakh.
Part of Fischer's sickness was an inability to see any failure on his part as other than the result of a conspiracy: he had a persecution mania, which was later the basis for his obsessive anti-Semitism. However, there really was a kind of Soviet conspiracy at Curaçao, though it was less extensive and corrupt than Fischer claimed: Petrosian, Geller and Keres had a non-aggression pact, so that each of their four games against the other would be quickly agreed drawn. The idea was to conserve their energies for use against other rivals — of whom Fischer, of course, was pre-eminent. As Fischer wrote: "There was open collusion between the Russian players. They agreed ahead of time to draw the games they played against each other . . . They consulted during the games. If I was playing a Russian opponent, the other Russians watched my games, and commented on my moves in my hearing. Then they ridiculed my protests to officials. They worked as a team."
There is a long history of Soviet collusion in international chess. A good study which outlines some if the statistical proofs can be found here:
""They" are the Soviet players an officials who talked about Curacao. As I recall, the primary apologist was Averbakh"
"Interesting are the words from Averbakh on the Curacao 1962 tournament, where Bobby Fischer accused Petrosian, Geller and Keres of a conspiracy. Bobby claimed that they made short draws among themselves, so as to stop him taking first place. Averbakh writes: it is certainly true that all games between the first three players ended in draws, but that is easy to explain. Petrosian and Geller had been friends for many years. Their games in previous tournaments had usually ended in draws. As far as Keres is concerned, it is laughable to accuse such a gentleman and sportsman of a conspiracy. The oldest player in the tournament, in order to conserve his strength for the finish, is quite likely to draw with his closest rivals. At the end of the day, each player chooses his own tournament tactics, and their correctness or otherwise is shown by the final result. If Fischer had been able to beat the Soviet grandmasters, as happened later on, then no amount of draws between the latter could have stopped him"
http://chessbooks.nl/elburg162.html
There's also the logical flaw: even if the Soviets colluded, it doesn't mean that Fischer had any realistic chance to win the tnmt in 1962 without collusion.
Korchnoi writes in his autobiography about how surprised he was that Geller had drawn a very short game against Keres, and asked him: "Who do you think you can beat by playing like this?!", getting the answer: "YOU!" :-)
Petrosian of course drew very short games also against Fischer in Curacao, anyhow I think the draws had less to do with a Soviet conspiracy than with the three players that were in a class of their own in the event concentrating on beating the bottom half. Just like when for example Anand and Kramnik draw games very quickly and try harder to beat Svidler or Adams. Fischer was no threat after his very weak start, and as Geller implied, Korchnoi and Fischer were players to beat, not because of nationality.
To me the research paper on Soviet collusion makes some fairly dubious assumptions. Most striking is perhaps having as a starting point in the statistical analysis that Tal and Korchnoi were involved in a 1962 pact:
"We did assume that all the Soviets were colluding" in Curacao.
Reshevsky is said to have had 27% chance to win a "fair" Candidates 1953, which sounds enormously high given a field with Smyslov, Keres, Petrosian, Bronstein, Najdorf, Geller etc. Keres and Bronstein are both given less than 5%.
It depends on the game and advantage. You can not say anything at this stage. This is not wrestling!
We see a match between Fischer versus Karpov match in the future but substitute to Magnus Carlsen (Capablanca-Karpov ) to Wesley So (Fischer); Wesley style is so close to Fischer and Wesley play is solid and mature, twice he drew to Carlsen.
Indeed. Roughly comparing "conspiracy" to "collusion" back in those days were totally due to semantics. Connotations notwithstanding Im not surprised by fabel's thoughtful opinions many decades later
1. Nice comments about the importance of physical conditioning. "A 2 move combination is better at the 5th hours, than a 5 move one at the 3rd, it is said. Fischer was in superb condition in 1972 an perhaps the greatest difference 20 years later was his physical deterioration. Likewise, while I have heard that Botvinnik figured out Tal, exactly what this meant is not clear but one having kidney disease should not be forced to play in a world match.
2. Discussion about Curaco misses one point. It was not only draws but superb opening preparation directed to Fischer. Yassir, you spent 3/4 of your time on Fischer and 1/4 on everyone else, why so much time on your compatriots and why are you not trying to beat this capitalist. There were at least 3opening novelties. It is suprising that more time was not spend for Spassky.
I like both players and learned a lot from Fischer and Karpov but if a match took place in 1975, I believe Fischer would win. Fischer with his aggressive and dynamic style would been too much for Karpov. Karpov was leading in 1974 Candidates Match against Korchnoi but choke and Korchnoi was able to win and even the score and Karpov won the last game. The final score was Karpov 12.5 and Korchnoi 11.5. Too close and if Karpov had a difficult time with Korchnoi, can you imagine Fischer who is even more aggressive.
The 9-9 draw clause was much more fair than the return match rule.