Knight facings - a WC study

Dunno... that sure looks like Fischer in '59.

The opponent looks a lot like Larsen (whom I've met) but not in '59. Larsen looked like that about a dozen years later. Also, I'm not familiar with any Larsen - Fischer game that followed that exact line, whereas the Keres - Fischer game that I linked above reached precisely that position.

I stand by my identification.

Ok, well I guess I have no particular reason to believe the other person over you, they just posted first and seemed to know the occasion of the photo...but they are also gone, so maybe they were not genuine about it from the beginning.

I found the probable reference (on Reddit), which claims the photo is Jack Collins, and the photo is from 1957, but I don't see any support for that.

Yeah, I found the same image on reddit. I think it might be legit. Do an image search for "Jack Collins chess 1957" and you'll see other photos of Collins and Fischer that certainly do look like the same people.

I guess I was misled by the position on the board. Not Keres after all.

No harm, no foul.  Though perhaps I should not say "no foul" to an emu.

If it is indeed the same position, then Fischer was probably thinking "bah, Jack Collins tried this line against me 2 years ago...".  That would actually be kind of amazing to discover.  Heck, who knows, Fischer could have lost or gotten irked by that position in a quick skittles game and specifically analyzed it exhaustively for next time, leading to an easy win for him at Bled 1959 .

I periodically bump this thread (not often, once or twice a year max) to see if any other info will surface...

Not a world champion, of course, but yours truly always starts with them left sided, like in diagrams, and they end randomly placed as the game progresses.

One thing I have wondered...if somebody says "j'adoube" or "adjust" then changes *your* preferred knight facing to their own just to mess with your head...would that be fair/ethical?  What would an arbiter do?  The adjusting rule does not cover this, but clearly it would fall under the general rule of not engaging in disruptive behavior, I would think? 

I'd answer "je t'aime", that's the only French I know.

"One thing I have wondered...if somebody says "j'adoube" or "adjust" then changes *your* preferred knight facing to their own just to mess with your head..."
This made me laugh unreasonably hard. Imagine Hikaru doing this to Magnus in the middle of a game XD

Fascinating. Maybe you should make a thread about that.

Ding Liren: