Karpov - Fischer

Kortschnoj are you kidding!

Spassky once said: "Kortschnoj was a chess-worker!" And I strongly believe Spassky is right. That's why he couldn't win against Karpov in their matches. And I strongly doubt if Kortschnoj who was even lucky in the 1980 Candidates final vs Hübner that Hübner lost his nerves after Kortschnoj equalized a two point lead of Hübner. (Hübner blundered in an adjourned game where he should easily hold a position. And as a shock he lost an other game! - Very sad for Hübner because I guess he'd had the better chances vs Karpov!)

No, I'd give Kortschnoj no chance at all vs Fischer! 

i heard the same thing about Hübner.

I repeat! 

Why do people (including Kasparov) assume that Fischer wouldn't have continued to get stronger if he chose to keep playing after winning the championship?

That's an invalid assumption if you ask me.  There is every reason to think he would have continued to improve also.

I agree with Symslovfan, Korchnoi has a high chance to beat Fischer in a match. Fischer did not show any dominance over Korchnoi.

Korchnoi was the runner up in 1974, 1978, and 1981.

I never said that Fischer would lose to Korchnoi in a match. I did say that Fischer couldn't expect to defeat Korchnoi 6-0 because Korchnoi was a fighter. I implied that Fischer would lose rating points in a match against Korchnoi, and I believe that.  Fischer would still win such a match. 

I don't think Fischer would be able to hold off Karpov in both 1975 and 1978. He might have won one, but not both matches.

People attack me for what I never said, then claim *I* am the troll.

Korchnoi played a ton of games against Spassky, Tal and Petrosian. He had a huge winning advantage against Tal and Spassky, but was even against Petrosian. Botvinnik wasn't really a contemporary of Korchnoi, but they did play a handful of games, the last in 1960. They also had an even record against each other.

Smyslov (+1 after 20 games), Karpov (+18 after 121 games!) and Kasparov (+15, with only one loss after 40 games) were the only world champions to have positive scores against Korchnoi!

You can never expect to win a match 6-0!

The problem Taimanov and Larsen had was probably they both wanted to win their very good positions. They then missed the point to go for a draw or even blundered so they lost very promising positions. Then both wanted to catch up and this again includes high risks of losing an other game. Once things go wrong this way it's really hard to stop it.

Unlike Hübner Fischer would really not allow Kortschnoj to catch up! So once Kortschoj would have lost the first game and tried to win the second he could easily have been in the same situation as Taimanov or Larsen.

(Note that even the same could have happend to Petrosian if Fischer had taken his free days to overcome his illness - where he made 3 draws and one loss. After that Fischer won 4 games in a row against a nearly unbeatable Petrosian!)

And once again what impact would a loss in 1975 had have on Karpov. Would he have come out stronger or as any other opponent of Fischer (from 1970 to 1972) would he never reach the same strength again. I believe even in 1978 or 1981 Karpov would have lost any match vs Fischer. Young Kasparov in 1984 would have been an other question ... 

But in my assumption Fischer really should have continued playing tournaments - what he didn't. Maybe also Karpov wouldn't have won so many tournaments as he did. So still everything is speculation ... 

Wolfgang Unzicker put it the other way round: "Should Fischer not come back Karpov doesn't have to fear any Challenger in 1978!" That's probably closer to the truth! (In 1978 Karpov won rather easily vs Kortschnoj in Baguio City - so Unzicker was proven right!) 

This is not a fact, but an opinion of yours.

come on that bull, autism just because he was focused??? Signs of social anxiety?? thats why he spoke a million  times with all reporters and play dominoes and cards with all chessplayers??

And abandonment issue let him to play chess??? I mean come on....

You know this is the kind of reason psychology is all bull, if you want it you can find such stuff in everyone and there is no objective way to telling if any of this psychology mumbo jumbo is even true...

To me not showing up for a challenge is a worst disgrace then showing up and losing badly. Fischer was a great challenger but at the bottom of the barrel is far as champions go. It doesn't matter how strong you are at anything if you don't bother to show up.

Fischer would have won. Why do I think so. Well...if we look at Karpovs history. He has really cracked when he is under pressure. Against Kasparov he couldnt win even when he was ahead 5-0!! Fischers style was more universal. Fischers natural talent and experience at that time would be too much for Karpov. Karpov himself gave the odds 60% to 40 % in favour for Fischer (if the match would have been played before 1975). But maybe in the future we can load the computers with all their games . Letting the comps analyse their games into atoms and play against each other. :)

The bottom line is no one knows what the result of a fischer-karpov match would had taken place but most players agree it was fischer's fault it did not.To make the matter worst Fischer used to brag before he became champion about how he would defend his title often.