WHY is Bobby Fischer still respected in the chess community???

Did it take you 4 pages to realize that?

Because he was...

kingofshedinjas wrote:

chessking1976 wrote:

This is clearly a very successful troll by the OP. Next we should start a thread to question why we still enjoy Micheal Jackson's music.

Did it take you 4 pages to realize that?

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That we should start a thread about MJ?

[watch your language -CrystalMoon]

Yeah.

I hope this is readable (if not, right-click/view image- it's quite large).  I came across it perusing old chess magazines. I don't know if the name Burt Hochberg means anything to most people but he was editor of "Chess Life and Review" for 13 years (during which time he wrote this article). He was also deeply involved with R.H.M. Press which gave us many high quality chess books under his guidance.  He was also socially connected with most of the great players of the 1960s and 1970s. 

A little anecdote from a friend of mine who worked and socialized with Hochberg: 
Hochberg was a classically trained pianist whose first but unattained ambition was to be a concert pianist.  My friend tells me that when his visited Burt and Carol Hochberg's apartment (also frequently visited by Fischer), Burt would play on his grand piano "...not Beethoven or Brahms, but Scott Joplin rags."  Hochberg was a Jew but on sunday mornings he would attend Christian church services just to hear the music.

I am illiterate. I don't even know what I'm typing right now. Is this words?

TRextastic wrote:

batgirl wrote:

I hope this is readable.

I am illiterate. I don't even know what I'm typing right now. Is this words?

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Hilarious.

@Batgirl, Thanks for posting this interesting article and anecdote.

To understand Fischer, you have to study the Cold War and US/Soviet relations and what was happening in world including Nixon's visit to China, the Vietnam war, Watergate, the Palestinian massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics  and the first oil crisis. These were all stories in 1972 when Fischer played Spassky.

To truly understand Fischer you must consider his anger on his absentee birth-Father.  Fischer was raised in overty by his immigrant mother who left without telling his biological farther that she was pregnant, much less that she had given birth to his son.  The biological farther (whose name escapes me at the moment) was a gifted physicist who hounded out of his teaching/research position by the Nazis. 

Fischer's mother revealed to him his farther's identity, but did not admit that she hid from his farther her pregnancy & his birth. As a result, Fischer grew up with hatred for his biological farther; which is evident in the early interviews because whenever he was asked about his missing biological farther he became visibly flustered, terse and upset. So Fischer obviously (irrationally but an all too human failing) generalized his hatred of his absentee Jewish biological farther to all Jews.

Also, Fischer dropped out of high school to devote himself single-mindedly to chess, so his general knowledge of history and the world was myopic and skewered by his hatred.  His anti-Americanism did not take hold until the US govt imposed sanctions on him for playing his rematch with Spassky in violation of the UN imposed trade embargo on the host country.  Even before then Fischer had trouble tho with many authority figures. It is said that such a gifted player was such a disturbed human being, but history has repeatedly borne out that intellectual achievement and artistry are not necessarily aligned with being a good person, and have in many instances such gifts have been bestowed on truly dispicable people.  That is life and chess talent is no exception.

Incidenetally, a statistically significant chess world champions and contenders have come from a Jewish heritage; perhaps because the religion places an emphasis on learning and other, more traditional, avenues of achievement were blocked. But the whys and wherefores of that are another discussion shrouded in mystery.... lol.

^ Such a great comment. Everyone has their reasons to see and react to the world in the way they do. Call it sympathy for the devil if you will, but I find it very easy to sympathize with the "crazies" and "evil" among us. Just look at Charles Manson's history. He had it even worse than Fischer growing up. No father and his mother was incredibly cruel to him. She once tried to trade him for beer. None of this excuses someone's actions, but it's hard for me not to feel some sympathy for them. It's just so easy for everyone who grew up with a somewhat normal childhood to act like it's so easy to become a functioning member of society. But to receive no love during your formative years is truly destructive. They're responsible for their own actions, but I wholeheartedly believe their parents should be just as much to blame for turning them into monsters.

 

And if I were Fischer, I'd hate the US too. Everyone in his life used him, his mother and the US most of all. People published books in his name and made an enormous sum without him ever seeing a penny of it. Chess is the only thing he had in life and people stole that from him for their own gain. Why not question their actions?

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Mods are quick when they want, and only when they want.

  

Ok, use LadyMisil is a crazy conspiracy theorist and most likely a nazi herself. Disgusting. It is an intellectually lazy and a plain factually incorrect response to say "victors of any war usually change historical facts."
It is so wrong and it is demonstrably false among historians. History research and writing aren't a vague subject that allows anyone to write anything they feel like writing. It is a science that has a set of methods that are specifically there in place to check whether anyone's claims are true or false. You can literally see when someone's historical claims are objectively demonstrable or whether they're assumptions or unfounded conclusions.

The ignorance and views of some people on these forums are very disturbing and disgusting.

Well, primary sources for example can look pretty different from other primary sources, e.g., a primary source from one nation vs. a primary source from a different nation involved, about the same event. And primary sources are generally somewhat of a foundation so the authors of those sources very much have influence.

So, come on Drawgood, geez, it's not to say that that's all that matters, but have a bit of nuance. You do still want to consider the source, and that can play a role. I think the problem is more the extreme to which LadyMisil is taking the idea, rather than the idea itself.

I'm a Nazi? I wasn't even born when Germany surrendered. As for modern day Nazis, closest I came to one was watching them in a school documentary. I don't know the first thing about being a Nazi. But if you insist I am, well Drawgood, you seem more knowledgeable on the subject than moi.

Speaking of ignorance, Dragwood, I think the point she was attempting to get across is "the victors write the history books". That is a fact, you win a war and you tell every body how it went. Take the "history" of Native Americans, or Indians (haha) for example....In these great United States, for 200 years, we have celebrated Thanksgiving and it has been taught in public schools that Thanksgiving is to commemorate the occasion when Pilgrims and Indians had a glorious dinner together. Today we know what the Europeans really did.

The Native Americans is a case in point, yes. It is kinda sad how naive I was when they taught me Thanksgiving in first grade. It was all one happy family. Haha.

Strangely enough I've heard that Native Americans themselves prefer the term "Indians."