Was Bobby Fischer crazy?

Bobby Fischer

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvsfpxy8FZE

Good video, thanks. This gives a real feel for where Fischer was at. The light-haired guy sitting at the dinner table, although evidently Fischer's friend, takes the practical view that most of us and the general public takes: that Fischer has vulgar language, is strongly opinionated, comes across as crazy, and is a has-been. However, Fischer even explicitly mentions that he (Fischer) is not crazy, and gives evidence of how Jews stole his files he needed to publish a book on his alleged Karpov-Kasparov fraud (of prearranged games), which would have been very interesting, I believe. His Pasadena jail experience sounds horrible, but then--as most of the public is aware--it's unwise to punch a police officer! Very interesting was that Fischer hated chess at the end, which I didn't know, since chess was too well understood and was largely a chore of memorization. No wonder Fischer never published any more practical chess books after his height, despite public urgings. His opinion of chess should be a warning to all of us about how much time we invest in chess and other careers. Personally I'm not about to change my taste in chess due to my own reasons, but it's still wise advice.

I believe I can fly!  I believe I can touch the sky!!  Think about it every night and day!

I don't want to know what the singer was thinking while singing that song! Ouch!

Am I the only one who finds that video ending in the middle of a conversation? It appears to be footage from that Icelandic documentary that Fischer eventually threw a hissy fit over.

(That said, just skimming through some of it was enough exposure to looniness and Jew hatred for one night. I wound up watching a Mato Jelic video to disinfect my brain and spirit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV5lw0TQV7o

The so-called Ukraine Immortal; what a great game! But I digress...)

As to testimony on "Fischer" saying Fischer wasn't crazy, perhaps you meant his psychiatrist friend? It's true that no medical authority diagnosed him with schizophrenia. OK, so he wasn't having hallucinations per se. Still, I don't know the rules in Iceland, but in the US there ethical rules that health professionals have to report someone if it appears they're a threat to themselves or others. Eventually alienating almost everyone who knows you because you can't stop ranting that we have to kill all the Jews might not cross that line but I would think it's getting close. And not being able to have a conversation with police that doesn't degenerate into kicking, biting, and being placed in handcuffs might just cross the legal crazy line.

Regarding his "stolen" "proof" on the Karpov-Kasparov match being a "fake" match with recitation of previously memorized games, I would point out that allegations aren't proof. It's known that Fischer's agent at the time didn't pay the rent for his storage space. After a set period of nonpayment those items weren't Fischer's anymore. If he didn't like those rules he didn't have to sign the lease in the first place. Claiming his belongings were stolen by the CIA and Mossad (as minions of the International Jewish Conspiracy) just seems, well, crazy to me.

As to his hatred of chess, well, he wound up hating almost everyone so it's hardly a surprise. Yet here we are on a site with millions of people who still find beauty, joy, and friendship in chess, including any number of GMs who have normal personalities. Well, aside from GM Giri and his draw fetish; he should really seek help on that. (Just kidding!)

Bwahahahahaha!

Fischer was a great guy. Eccentric? Maybe. A lot of people are eccentric. He is my favorite champion of all time. I'm not gonna be judgemental here. A lot of people hate him, and I understand that. I'm cutting him a lot of slack. Sorry if you don't agree!

he had those crazy eyes, no man could look into them without trembling. (but kids had no problem with them)

No, not lost touch with reality crazy, he was sensitive, a latent problem of high intelligence, he delayed a Russian American chess championship for two days due to lighting, but he was also persecuted later in life by America due to his outspoken political views, in effect a kind of exile, then the outlandish comments he made, kind of sounded crazy ( cia fbi rats--- and, the united states doesnt have the right to exist) without the context of his exile being perpetrated on him rather than self imposed as was the attempted public narrative.

A great chess player without dispute. You could even make a case for his being a genius at chess. But "a great guy?" No, your generosity is misplaced. By the end of his life you could count the number of friends and acquaintences he hadn't alienated on the fingers of a maimed hand! Leaving aside the Holocaust denialism, the paranoia, etc., you're still left with story after story demonstrating a petty, vindictive, and greedy man. He was the very antithesis of a mensch.

that's extremely biased and hateful, he had many true friends until he died, those who cannot forgive never forget the ugly things.

That reminded me of a Greek saying, that goes "From a kid (little child) and from a crazy man you'll learn the truth" ha ha

He had many true friends who were estranged from him would be a more accurate way of describing things. Friends like Anthony Saidy, who had the temerity to suggest that people would stop inviting Fischer to tournaments if he didn't, you know, actually play chess. They never spoke again after that phone call. When Larry Evans later quoted Saidy attempting to defend Fischer and saying the press should leave him alone, Fischer denounced Saidy as (big surprise) a Jew. Then there's the Walter Browne telephone bill story. Even the sympathetic Icelandic neurologist had to cut off contact. If the ugly things aren't forgotten just maybe it's because there are so many of them.

But feel free to prove me wrong -- if you've got something more than empty hero worship. Forget the "he's a genius" excuses for bad behavior. Instead, let's hear some of those testimonials for what a great friend Fischer was. Feel free to quote people who knew him on how decent, loyal, and generous he was.

BOBBY FISCHER IS NO CRAZIER THAN I AM

Stop writing in all caps.

You are attacking him for his political views. That's understandable. Please dig deeper and you may understand him better, and watch his interviews. He doesn't come across as crazy at all. I think he was a great guy, one of the greatest champions that ever lived. He was an extremely intelligent person. His brilliant book My 60 Memorable Games was republished with numerous alterations where they tried to make a fool out of him. Some alterations are in fact mistakes in positional evaluations to which Fischer pointed out. So, dig deeper and you may find a whole lot of information. He was truly harassed. I don't think you should believe everything you hear.

His views on the holocaust have been proved to be correct.The World Jewish Almanac shows that the world population between 1933 and 1948 did not fall...in fact it went up by about 4000,000.The holocaust is not mentioned in Winston Churchill's six volume work on the history of WW2.Same goes for General Eisenhower and also Pres. deGaul.In 1992 the Auschwitze death toll was officially reduced from 4 million to 1.5 million and that of Majdenak from 1.5 million to 70,000.Despite these huge reductions holocaust naraters still claim an unchanged death toll of 6 million.This is an absurd claim on their part.The allegded death room at Auschwitze Museum does not show evidense of a death gas having been used there.

true, but from the perspective of a crazy person, they take solace in being able to find crazier people so that they can move the craziness scale to define crazier as crazy and crazy as normal.

No, a political view would be that Israel's settlement policy is wrong and should be stopped, or that Arabs were cheated out of land in the the Balfour Declaration, etc. Extend your disapproval from those points to all Jews everywhere and you're just another bigot. The world is never going to run out of bigotry.

But Fischer took things way further, writing in his unpublished homage to Mein Kampf that since killing all the Jews on the planet was impractical right now, the readers would have to settle for killing random Jews on the street until the people woke up and demanded a real pogrom. That's not just political talk, it's crazy talk.

Video interviews are usually condensed and/or edited so it isn't surprising Fischer might come off sympathetic in things you've seen. But earlier in this discussion was a link to just one of Fischer's many radio interviews where he could demonstrate at length what a hateful nutter he was.

As to being "truly harassed", do you mean that the Mossad really had him under surveillance in his flop house apartment? Or that revoking his passport after a quarter century of refusing to pay US taxes and breaking US law (despite being warned in advance not to) constitutes harassment?

Oh, well, if only a million people people died at Auschwitz, I guess that makes it all OK then. Nothing to see here, let's just move along.

But getting back to Fischer, he insisted to Laslo Polgar (who lost family members in the camps) that the Auschwitz camp didn't even exist! I'm pretty sure Fischer hasn't been proven right on that, any more than on his theory that Christianity is really just a Jewish fraud concocted to help them rule the planet. Fischer wasn't just wrong, he was crazy wrong.