Why do Americans like Bobby Fischer?

He did give the game a lot of publicity.

Their record post-1959 was  +2=2, Fischer's favor, but leaving Tal ahead for a lifetime score (+4=5-2).  Fischer also won a couple blitz tournament games off Tal that don't really count.

Fischer/Tal would have been an interesting championship but they peaked at different times. One of Fischer's most impressive accomplishments to me (when it comes to single games) was nearly defeating Botvinnik with the black pieces in 1962 when Botvinnik was world champion.

That game is worth playing out for anyone who hasn't done it already.

Game 3 of his WCC against Spassky also is impressive to me but a lot of that is due to the off-the-board circumstances when the game was played and the fact that Fischer won with black after never defeating Spassky previously

You should post the actual games you refer to.

Don't know how:(

Que ces gens sont bêtes Is french for how stupid are these people, not la sout tetes.

batgirl wrote:

LordNazgul wrote

Is there any evidence of Morphy's mental illness other than the shoes story ?

Morphy definitely suffered from paranoia.  As time passed he became more and more eccentric.

Read what Léona Queyrouze wrote at 1 p.m. on the day Paul Morphy died:

     He was once young, handsome and wealthy;  wooed by women,  flattered by men, lionized by all, and courted by sovereigns who deemed it an honor to be vanquished by him.       ____    Who? That small, slender man, wandering aimlessly through the streets of New Orleans, with incoherent gestures, and muttering strange words to himself, with an unfrequent, sarcastic smile?  Yes; he was once a king, that frail-looking man, gliding with light, elastic steps through the crowd gathered on Canal Street, the great fashionable avenue which marks the limit between the Creole and American quarters.     Insane, did you say? Insane?  That may be, if you are sure of not being yourself more or less demented, you one of this senseless, grinning multitude.   Watch him well.   He bows to someone.   Have you noticed how gracious his smile can be?   He has stopped abruptly at the corner of Royal street, and there he stands abstractedly, wrapped up in his thoughts, totally unconscious of the surrounding noise and excitement, and heedless of that ever renewed human current which sweeps past him.   He leans back against the wall; and his deep, scrutinizing gaze is intently fixed upon some object invisible to us.   No other eyes but his, can perceive the mysterious things that strike his mind's vision.   The keen profile of his emaciated face, wearing the pallid hue of meditation, stands in relief on the brown wall and looks like an ancient ivory carving.   His fine, nervous hand holds a light cane, with which he draws geometrical figures on the pavement around him.     What do they mean, you ask?   Surely no one could tell, except himself, the wonderful man whose marvelous memory could once simultaneously retain the strategy of eight or eleven chess-boards without his casting a single glance upon them; and whose unrivalled genius transported the world with such admiration, that the title of "Chess-King" was universally and with one voice bestowed upon him forever.     There he stands, isolated as if he had drawn a magical circle about him.   See how his glance brightens.   All at once he ceases his moves, as though he had at last found the long sought for solution of some problem, known to him alone.   He puts his glasses on and lifts a more animated look to the throngs of women passing by, attired in their fresh summer dresses.   He has started again, walking with the same peculiar and characteristic elasticity of gait.     Now he shakes his head with an expression of discontent.  Shrugging his slight shoulders, he hastens away, evidently disappointed; and the habitual weary look again darkens his countenance.   He clinches his hands convulsively, speaking aloud this time.   Mark the harsh, bitter laugh which distends his pale lips, displaying the beautiful white teeth, whose gleam unexpectedly illumines the faded features with a fugitive reflection of youth.     Once more he turned to cast a withering glance, full of unutterable contempt,upon the crowd, among which several persons point at him derisively.   -  Did you hear what he said?   "Que ces gens la sout têtes! (How stupid those people are!)"     He has gone now, and disappeared from the sight of those women who untiringly smile that bland, meaningless smile which is a part of their dress, like their conventional, chronic laugh.   He hurries away from those and others who stare at him haughtily, with rigid faces upon which self-consciousness is indelibly stamped. Far better does his country-woman know who is that newly imported, foreign fop, thrown over by fortune's wheel on this side of the ocean, with perhaps a problematic title before his name, than who is that unassuming man with the simple and exquisite manners of a genuine grand seigneur. Some of them even think that he looks rather funny.     Upon leaving Canal Street and it's ordinary monotonous exhibition, he wends his way down in the direction of the Carré, the Creole city. He cuts across another human wave, that bragging, boisterous assemblage of business-men issuing from the bar-rooms situated on his road. There meet Americans with ruddy cheeks and fair hair; Creoles with pale faces and dark, flashing eyes, and many of those commercial parvenus, with thick, confident laughter and heavy wit, gentlemen by the right of the purse.

I probably risk repeating what other people have put - if it was 8 pages I would have read it all but its 22 so I am going to be lazy.  Americans are rightly proud that one of the greatest ever players the world has seen was from their country.  He dominated the world at a time when the Soviet teaching system was churning out master after master.  The one thing I wish was that he had come through the Soviet system himself as he would have been even better, I think.  Regardless, he came from America and still became the best in the world.  Not just Americans love and respect him for his play - for me he is one of the finest players ever.  Sure, you can criticise his statements; certainly his politics leave a lot to be desired - can you though doubt that he was a total asset to chessplayers everywhere?

Thanks!

Wish Batgirl would post the Morphy-Kasparov game from the fictional story she linked to in another thread (hint, hint:)

One wonders if Fischer would have beaten Spassky without the psychological warfare that Fischer employed before and during their match, if he could have beaten him without first "upsetting his equilibrium" (to use the words of a Fischer biographer.)

I wish I could.  But the story by Mark Kislingbury has no game in it.  You might be thinking of  a story I once mentioned in which Morphy lives long enough to challenge Lasker.  The story, "The Strange Life and Chess Career of Pablo Morphy," was one written by Tim Krabbé and published in the Dutch chess magazine Schaakbulletin  in 1974.  A friend of mine translated it into English (something that surprised Mr. Krabbé himself when I mentioned it to him).  I had wanted to publish the story online but Mr. Krabbé, in a very gentlemanly manner, declined giving his permission.  So, the game, being of the story, isn't mine to publish online.   It's really a rather silly game that seems to achieve a position through a kind of retro-creation - the moves made up to reach that position. 

I was told by my Dutch friend, even before I spoke with Mr. Krabbé that the author was very ambivilous and sensitive about that story due to some very severe criticism from a reader in the very next issue of Schaakbulletin (which I've published below):

Coming right to the point I want to say this:
     Let Mr. Krabbé stop writing horrible articles like "The Strange Life and Chess Career of Pablo Murphy." The general public already knows little or nothing about chess history, so it is absolutely unnecessary to add the rubbish as in the aforementioned article. You may understand by now that I am angry, and indeed, you are right about that.
     Last Friday, a member of our chess club opened a game with 1. h3.   I asked him how he had thought of this novelty. His reply was the astonishing "Don't you read "Schaakbulletin?"  The world famous Morphy played this in 1896 against no less then Lasker."
      There I was, shocked, saddened, but not silenced. I told him that this was quite impossible, because Morphy died in 1884. His cool voice filled with contempt told me that I ought to know better, because Morphy also had won the 4th prize in Hastings, 1895.
      It took me quite some time and effort before I could convince our friend that he was the victim of a practical joke, that the writer Krabbé is even more paranoid than Morphy has ever been, that the largest part of the article is nonsense, that he should look up what Donner thinks about Krabbé, and that he could better spend his money on buying a book about chess history than spending it on "Schaakbulletin."
     I just want to question the part of the article that is somewhat in relation to the truth. Can Krabbé name the source of his statement that Morphy wanted to play every other chess player at the odds of a piece?
     If I ever find a lousy article like this in "Schaakbulletin," I will never read your magazine again, or no, even better, I will write a story, completely free of charge, on the strange life and chess career of Mr. Krabbé.

Thanks for reply, Batgirl, but I was under the impression the Morphy/Kasparov game did have moves, just moves that were described rather than written in chess notation

No need to put "story" in bold and highlighted text; I'm aware Morphy and Kasparov didn't really play a game:)

The bold, blue text is to indicate the word is a link (in this case to the story itself).  The latest chess dot com update did away with the usual indicators.

Oh, Ok. Thanks. Sorry for misunderstanding.

D'oh!

Fischer was pure genius, and all humanity adores him for it. It's a pity that he was not better surrounded and that his life was a lonely one, which made it difficult to become à stable and rounded person. It's lonely at the top....