Obviously, after 1959 (when Fischer was only 16), Tal was no match for Fischer.  Show me your database results.

Well, if he has data, I'd like to see it.

Morons don't need data. Their own existence is unshakable proof of their sayings.

Ain't that the truth....

(Bud #154)....Fischer.  From age 7 ALL he thought about was chess....

....and now all chess does is think of him.

I can agree with that! ha :-)

I'm feeling pretty empathetic right now....and I don't quite know what lit the candle ?....but I'm really happy I started to read about BF....the myriad of stories from everyone. I'm trying not to get caught up in all of it....like some of you seem to be....but it's starting to come to me. A kind of understanding about the emotions he has brought out in people....so, it's beginning to register.

I will admit that I keep some distance from chess on purpose. I don't wanna let me go. So, I keep it to blitz. But, I see how it can grip your everything. And that scares me a little.

I believe the ghost of BF....if it's found the comfort to leave its dormancy yet....is there in a 'stay at home' & happy existence....and away from what was. You know, the steps he took was kinda by force, don't you feel ? Was it fair at that tender of age ?

Anyway, Fischer is not the only WC against who Geller had a positive score. Se le daban bien.

Stavros: Well said.

I'm haunted by this Fischer quote: " Children who miss a parent become wolves."

Bobby became a wolf.

that's a nice pic of him about to devour a Brezhnev knuckle sandwich. Karpov was one heck of a biter.

One account made the case that Fischer was afraid to fly to Iceland because he thought his plane would be shot down.

The only reason Fischer became world champ

Pretty simple question...It's because he won the championship fair and square, and that's the way it was, history.  

Spassky (a very decent guy who was very accommodative and forgiving of Fischer's foibles and faults) put the result down to the fact that Fischer played better.

However, it is also true that Fischer's win in 1972 depended also on the fact mentioned in the OP.

IMO, there is a good chance that Fischer would have played on a few more years and won in 1975 if he had not played in 1972. I don't believe Karpov would have been able to prevent this.

(Stavros_34 #188) Fischer was a child who born with out love...raised with out love...grow with out love...become a man with out love...and he eventually hated the world for that! I personally can't accuse him for nothing...

Well, when you start off w/out a father....right there, that's not good. And then when sharks are swimming around you when you're a young teen ?....that's not gonna end good either. IOW's, he didn't need a father figure....he needed a father. Funny that his real dad didn't resurface when he started to get in the papers....maybe he was dead by then.

****

Does anyone know anything more of a man by the name of Richard Schaap ? This is one of the first stories I ever saw (TV) about BF. Now, I'm pretty skeptical about wikipedia, but here's what I just called up and read:

Around 1955, Dick Schaap befriended Bobby Fischer, who was at the time a twelve-year-old chess prodigy, and would later become a world chess champion. In 2005, prompted by questions posed by Schaap's son, Jeremy Schaap, Fischer acknowledged that the relationship was significant and that the elder Schaap had been a "father figure" to him.^[10] Fischer was still pointedly resentful that Dick Schaap had later written, among many other comments, that Fischer "did not have a sane bone left in his body".^[11]

The Sports Emmy division of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences renamed their writing category "The Dick Schaap Outstanding Writing Award." ^[12] The 2005 Emmy in this category was won by Jeremy for a SportsCenter piece called “Finding Bobby Fischer.”

Thanks P2P !....I'll watch that one. It could be the same one I saw a few years ago....

Recently in  "The KGB plays Chess", published in Moscow, it is revealed that Karpov was successfully recruited by the KGB as an agent under the pseudonym Raoul.

Karpov had a comfortable relationship with the Soviet regime, so who knows. But if he was working with the KGB, I doubt he did more than report back on what he saw and heard in some situations.

Well, I hope he found peace is this life. And I still believe his steps were controlled by determinism (much more than most).....which can wear down your happiness factor. Really fast.

As the players who remember Fischer die out, so will his overblown legacy. And that's a VERY good thing. 

The reason the 72' match was such an AMAZING victory for Fischer was because the Soviet masters were treated like rockstars by their government.  They were the highest funded chess players in the world, they had EVERYTHING at their disposal(literally everything).  Fischer was 'more or less' a self-taught kid from a country who didn't pay him ANYTHING.  He didn't just beat Spassky, he beat the entire country of Russia, and he beat them alone, with basically ZERO funding or backing from the U.S..

If you arent American it still shouldn't matter, Fischer didn't just win one for the U.S., he won one for the little guy.  And he did it with FEARLESSNESS, he slapped 'big ole mother Russia'(and her 'powers') in the face, pooped in their cornflakes, then he took their trophy.  Not for the U.S., but for chess itself.  He was a chess hero.