I used to play seriously, now I just play at it.

The romance of chess is gone-now it's just about money. In my time, the handfull of GMs (many of whom I played and some that I got to know) that existed then got all the prize money and we got none but we did not care as we loved chess and loved to play a game to the best of our ability. I was quite fortunate to win over a dozen class trophies in my time in open sections but trashed them in the 1980s. Commemorating a game is just the dead past-one must look forward to the next battle and then forget it. Morphy got that quite right as did Fischer.

This site is a wonderful resource and training ground and I'm very glad to have found it.

Chess is not dead as claimed by Fischer-it's just adjusting to life as it is now. Yes there is too much chess theory and it does stifle the creative genius of a Morphy or Fischer, et al but everything changes and chess theory is based on played master games-so the more games, the more theory.

On the development of USA chess (to which Fischer contributed NOTHING after 1975) Bill Goichberg (a personal friend with whom I worked)) is a tireless devotee of chess who blazed the trails on the 1960s that eventually brought chess to kids and to the population at large in this country and opened our eyes to the Soviet School of Chess that has created our very young (and not so very young) American GMs.

Old people, like me, talk too much.

Ciao!

CHESSUSA39