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Bobby Fischer Online?
talilee writes "This story from AP (but I found it at SFGate.com) suggests that Bobby Fischer is playing online chess anonymously against champion level players. I'm glad to see that he has an opportunity to express his genius without having to deal with the overwhelming attention (and without exposing his, um, "eccentricities".)" The BBC has a slightly more informative story.
I dont know if its naive but i find it a bit depressing that someone with bobby's intellect has to exist anonyomously to avoid the public limelight and scrutiny just to survive - witness the media attacks that form against any succesful person in the public eye these days - depressing that freely available information means a loss of any right to privacy.
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
Maybe it's an American Fischer fan who learned all the "Fisher-related facts." The only evidence against that is just the quality of play.
Still--can we rule out it was a very powerful experimental chess computer or a very talented and reclusive chess star? Maybe Kramnik or Kasparov has an odd sense of humor and was making all the moves while his American buddy was doing all the typing.
Unless it's one of the current greats incognito, this story is interesting even if the opponent really isn't Fischer. It sounds like there's someone out there with an incredible chess talent!
Any chess experts want to comment on this unconventional play?
Why does Short think this guy is Fischer? Because he whipped Short's ass and because he's familiar with obscure players from the sixties? Look, I'm really into computers from the 80s and late 70s. I could rattle off a large amount of obscure stats about Colecos, a bunch of z80 machines, early apples, including file systems, bus speeds - does this mean I'm Steve Wozniak or Bill Gates? I don't think so. Neither are all the other hundreds of people on /. with the same interest.
As for this guy being a good chess player - good for him, it doesn't mean he's fischer. I'm sure there are people of world-class quality at chess who choose not to go pro for a variety of reasons - again, it doesn't make them bobby fischer.
I'm the stranger...posting to
Just b/c his typing, his use of language, knowledge, etc reminds you of someone that does NOT mean it is.
From bbc :
Despite his misgivings, Short eventually arranged to play the unknown opponent, and in October last year lost the first of their four confrontations 8-0.
Now, my question is, how many people in the world can beat Short 8-0, and who can they be?
Short's full story was posted on usenet. A bit more information than in either of the press stories.
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled - R Feynman
Moderators, please read the articles before you do your thing..
The articles both seem to say Short bases his theory on online conversations with the mysterious player, not on playing style. I'm not saying that makes it less shaky evidence, but let's at least stick to the facts of the article.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
When a Computer is playing chess, its not going to play games like that, at blitz speed.
No computer ever has started with the kinds of openings seen in the movelists, and if its a blitz game theres not enough time for a human to be using the computer in the backround to help him.
Not to mention this annoymous fischer has played fischer random chess as well and that style of chess no computer can properly play.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
You: If he plays like Bobby and talks like Bobby it probably is NOT Bobby.
Huh?
I wanted to test my antagonist further so I thought of a number of tricky questions as we gossiped. For example, I asked him: "Do you know Armando Acevedo?" Senor Acevedo is an obscure Mexican player, not remotely of Grandmaster strength.
My opponent's reply came instantly, if cryptically: "Siegen 1970". Now if you look in the tournament book of the Siegen Chess Olympiad of 1970 you will find that Bobby Fischer played a certain Armando Acevedo in a preliminary round. He was obviously trying to tell me something.
Typing "Fischer Armando Acevedo" into Google turns up a reference to the 1970 Siegen match on the 3rd link. (The 2nd link is a consequence of Short's article.) It's in Spanish, but the exact phase "Siegen, 1970 appears explicity next to the first occurrance of "Fischer". See for yourself. The point is that one need not have access to a thirty year old tournament book, as Short suggests, to quickly generate the reply that he received. Thus this particular piece of evidence is a lot weaker than it appears.
You're kidding right? This player beat Short a lot worse than Short has been beaten anyone in the world including Garry Kasparov. The likelihood that there is someone out there able to defeat the best players in the world who happens to be so good he plays up to 8 bad moves at the beginning of the game and still defeats them who has never revealed himself is so unlikely as to be absurd.Maybe you'd feel better if you saw exactly what Short had to say about the incident.
This is from Thomas Pynchon, when CNN tracked him down and filmed him--and maybe, sort of, in a way, "threatened" to show the film.
And this from a reporter who previously stalked him:
http://www.cnn.com/US/9706/05/pynchon/
Just because someone's not in the news, doesn't mean he or she is a shut-in. Of course, this may be different for Bobby Fischer, but it's a perspective we need to keep.
That's a joke, right? The program played chess; it was the operator who answered Nigel's questions.
My wife's adviser for her PhD in geology was called to testify on global warming to some government committee a few years ago. In this, he was questioned by a number of respected individuals in the science field, many of whom were geologists (although not of the same specialty as my wife's adviser). At the end, Gore came in for a short 5-minute Q&A period. My wife's adviser said that the questions Gore put forth were the most intelligent and thought provoking of the bunch. Obviously he had been well briefed by his aides, but my wife's adviser says that it was clearly his own thinking (follow-up questions to his answers and such). He would most surely disagree with your opinions about Gore.
Oh, yes. My wife's adviser is a conservative southerner from Alabama. Most definitely not a Gore supporter.
You can be quite intelligent and now be an excellent orator. In fact you can be quite intelligent and not be very good at English. Don't put down Gore's intelligence. In fact, all the democrat presidents (and Gore) from the last half century stack up as wonderfully intelligent. However, most of them performed as president very poorly. Intelligence is not strongly correlated with the quality of one's presidency.
--Be human.
After looking at some of the games, I, for one, think it's him.
As Bernoulli said on seeing Newton's solution to the falling body problem (in which he also invented the calculus of variations): "On reconnaît le lion à son coup de patte", "One knows the lion by the stroke of his paw." This lion definitely has struck some great players.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
> Fringe murmurs hit the major media this weekend when Nigel Short declared that he believes he has been playing Bobby Fischer online. (Another report of the report here from AP.) Rumors of Fischer playing internet chess have been going around for months now and have caused a furor amongst the usual fans and foes. Most of these stories go as follows: 1) Mr. X insists that both players log on as guests and all communication is handled by way of an intermediary. 2) Mr. X plays crazy openings, often moving his king back and forth to intentionally waste time. 3) Despite this, Mr. X destroys top GMs in these blitz games, making virtually no errors. 4) The games are never published, Mr. X never says he is Fischer or makes comments suggesting he is. 5) Mr. X occasionally answers trivia questions about Fischer's life.
You don't need to be Johnny Cochran to know the difference between concrete and circumstantial evidence, and what we have above is a wheelbarrow full of the latter. Nigel Short, speaking in the Sunday Telegraph Review article that is also devoid of substantiation, says that he is "99 per cent sure" he has "been playing against the chess legend." This is based on four sets of games, none of which are given or commented on, other than to say that Short lost the first set 8-0. (The article also says Short went 6-6 in a blitz match with Kasparov in 1995. From the context of Short's actual words these were apparently casual games.) The Telegraph doesn't call the evidence circumstantial, it calls it "overwhelming." Johnny Cochran would be proud.
Short was also impressed by Mr. X replying "Siegen 1970" when the Englishman asked him if he knew Armando Acevedo. Well, I not only know of him, but I met the simpatico Mexican master in the flesh 10 years ago. But that's another story. Acevedo lost to Fischer in the 1970 Siegen Olympiad. That many a Fischer fan and anyone with a database would also know this seems to have been overlooked in this latest continuation of the rampant desire to believe Fischer is not only alive and well, but just biding his time before coming back to take his rightful crown at the age of 58. (It is not as if the person playing these games, Fischer or not, would be unaware of the intense speculation that has been ongoing in the chess community. Fischer was the only Grandmaster the Mexican faced, at least as far as his published games are concerned.) Who is qualified to ask Fischer a question that only Fischer would know? Not many people, and probably not Nigel Short. (Here's one for Bobby: Buenos Aires, 1996. What did you say Mickey Kantor was too busy doing to protect your rights? The rude comment the interpreter wouldn't translate, but you caught her and repeated it several times? But most people at that press conference would know this one...)
Personally I have no problem at all believing Fischer plays online anonymously. Despite the obvious decline in his mental health, he was still very animated by chess when I met him in 1996. I do not doubt that if he played into shape he would be a tough opponent for the top 10 today and more than a match for Armando Acevedo. But acting as though he would be an invincible demigod after 30 years of almost complete removal from competitive chess is silly. He played a few dozen games against Spassky in 1992 and the rare flashes of brilliance only glimmered brighter due to the thick layers of rust on his game. His knowledge and insight helped Peter Leko several years ago when the two would meet in Hungary, this we know. We cannot imagine a Fischer who has left chess behind.
As I said above, if you have good arguments you don't need junk. A master playing with strong computer assistance would have little trouble demolishing a top GM in blitz, we know this from experience. Even in rapid games humans make too many mistakes to compete successfully against CPU power on a consistent basis. I'm quite willing to believe that Bobby Fischer is "out there" and playing blitz online, but it will take published games, and more than just a few, to make this into anything more than a rumor.
Note how he gives an excuse as to why he will not be able to acquire additional evidence in his original article because Fischer will probably not play him anymore.
Several times in the article Short teases us with amazing evidence which he wishes he could share with us, but alas
I think Short is having a bit of fun with us, chess GMs can have a sense of humour you know.
Common, time yourself and find a meaningful answer to the question using whatever tools you have. How long didi it take you? 10 sec? 15 sec? (I tried several times, gave up after 30 sec).
We are talking about 3 minutes matches.
Perhaps having a complete database with all the biographic details (all of them including games against unknown players) of Fisher would help, but still, how long does it take you to type "Acevedo Mexico" and copy a meaningful answer to the chat program while at the same time thinking how to defeat a GM that can stand his ground against Kasparov in blitz games???
IANAL but write like a drunk one.