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Bobby Fischer Is Dead At 64
A number of readers wrote in to make sure we know that former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has died in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he had lived since 2005. No cause of death was given.
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Regardless where ever he went in his after life, I hope he's forced to play checkers. Or at reincarnated as a marble in a Chinese Checkers game. :D
That and a few other choice comments attributed to him make me want to say, good riddance. It is such a travesty to see such greatness overshadowed by blantant and raving bigotry. I don't care how good at chess he was anymore, the world doesn't need to celebrate assholes like this just because "they were once great"
It really sounds like he succumbed to hate and had to disappear at times simply because he knew he couldn't exist in the real world
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Checkmate!
I am by no means an expert or historian on Bobby Fischer's life. I once admired him. Sadly, for Mr. Fischer, I always wished that his past caught up with him and he would forget his new found convictions.
... usually.
From an admirable chess player early on, he showed signs of mental instability. But really, who hasn't from time to time? He made absurd demands to move Moscow closer to the ocean or make the sun set sooner for his convenience when he appeared at the famous game. I've read accounts that make him sound borderline autistic. Although he seemed to have much more cognitive powers
I wish I could erase the last half of Bobby Fischer's life from history. I wish he never touched a radio station's microphone. His proclamation that the September 11th attacks were "wonderful news" and calling for the US to be destroyed, his several radio aired remarks against Jewish peoples and other disparaging remarks. Was this for attention? Was this really what he believed? I'm not sure what personally made him feel this way but living in Iceland under political asylum was not the way I wanted to see it end.
Unfortunate that he died. Even more unfortunate that he never came around to apologize and promote chess in schools and everywhere. We'll miss the young Bobby Fischer and always be a little confused about what happened to make him cross that fine line between ingenuity and insanity. Rest in peace, Bobby Fischer.
My work here is dung.
So as a Go player, he would've lived for 297 more years?
He died from complications to his kidneys. He'd been ill for some time.
-THE END-
http://home.att.ne.jp/moon/fischer/
mental illness is sad. 1 beer a day will not cure dementia.
Fischer was truly epic in his takedown of the Russian "machine". Then the American politicians screwed him for playing the immortal game during a temporal war.
In chess you don't have to die young to leave a good looking corpse you just have to get out of the spotlight while you're ahead. (Britney Spears take note.)
Well we have his radio rants happy about 11-9 but at least no bad chess games out of his prime.
If you need text styles to communicate then you don't have a message.
The latter day Fischer was a raving lunatic. His "politics" do not merit rebuttal or even serious consideration. I choose to remember the Fischer of my youth -- which was quite pleasantly misspent in the 70s. No single player has ever so completely dominated chess like Fischer. His play is a model of simplicity, logic, creativity, and elegance. I would say that he will be missed, but, in truth, we in the international chess community have already missed the real Bobby Fisher for many years.
"Checkmate", from the Persian "shah mat" meaning, "the king is dead".
Did anyone else see this under "Games," read "64" and automatically assume it was Nintendo related?
Yes, I know I'm pissing my Karma away posting this.
I just pooped your party.
Fischer's ability to analyze quickly and precisely the complexities of chess in all its applicable levels at any given type made him very special and gave him so much to offer the world. The defunct psychosis that he suffered from rendered him completely useless for the greater good that his abilities offered.
Bobby Fischer was a great man of nothing.
Well, with every other over 60 moving to warmer areas it would only make sense for Fisher to move to a colder area and confuse his opponents, No?
His death, is a loss to the chess world but every time someone does the King's Pawn opening we will be paying a slight homage to the man.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Maybe this is just the 'proof is in the pudding' to use an old saying to comment on another old saying: 'there is a thin line between genius and insanity'. And sometimes, genius looks like insanity because the 'normal' people don't have the capacity to understand the genius. Granted not necessarily in the circumstances referenced by you.
He died last Knight and apparently a Bishop gave him last-rites
He was just a Pawn in the struggle between Kings and Queens
thomasdz
Seems appropriate somehow.
MHNATY.
If he was merely a 'hatefilled asshole of the highest order', I'd agree. But the fact is that he was mentally deranged. He obviously didn't have complete control of his mind.
Mourn the passing of his younger self, and feel free to despise his older self.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Mourn the passing of his younger self, and feel free to despise his older self.
Fans of the Highlander series are especially adept at selective memory such as this.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
anybody else glad that fischer can't write his own press release re: his death? b/c you know he'd blame this fictional jewish conspiracy for it...
ed
Just because you don't like someone doesn't mean you should be happy they died. Some folks might think you're an asshole, but would that stop people you love from being hurt when you died? Of course not. Just be glad he's at peace, that his hatred has left the building.
and then the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards.. CHECKMATE!
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
It's checkm8! He's p0wn3d!
Kevin Smith on Prince
The machines have turned! Deep Blue murdered him in his sleep! Checkmate.
Godwin FTW: Hitler was a quarter Jewish.
My blog
Ludwig Wittgenstein
This was a man of great genius, and like many of his talent was prone to highly idiosyncratic behavior, if not in some way pathological. It is sad that such a disturbed man was given a forum (esp. radio) to disgrace himself so thoroughly; however, due to his reclusiveness the public could never know the details of any mental issues he may have suffered from toward the end. Regardless this is a man who should be remembered for his talent, and his contributions to the game of chess.
To those many Americans who will dismiss him for his unfortunate and terrible comments: Give the guy a break - you should be proud of this man's accomplishments on behalf of the US, who inspired your children to learn the game and who's story captured the world.
RIP Bobby Fisher
When a mind possessed of analytic capacities such as Fischer's turns those powers on the world, the result is inevitability some kind of psychosis. The world simply requires a more synthetic approach. While the content of Fischer's diatribes is certainly controversial, let's be wise enough to see they likely stem from the fact that he was a man trapped in his mind, unable to escape the analytical powers of his mind and live more holistically in the world. Even if the content of his politics had changed, it wouldn't change the fact that they were based in a mental misappropriation of the world.
Lets not remember the man for his faults, which boil down to misapplied genius if not true biological mental illness. Instead, let's remember the man for the great intellect that he possessed, and let his later political endeavors serve as reminder to us all of what can happen when we analyze the world from too great a distance instead of simply living inside of it.
Vivere in pace, Mr. Fischer, wherever your soul now resides.
A sad loss for the world of chess and original and critical thought.
As for Fischerandom Chess, I had a similar idea years ago where each side arranged their first row into their own preferred order, which was then revealed to their opponent at the commencement of play. It was a combining of Chess with Stratego that I called Modern Chess. Of course, my idea never caught on since, unlike Bobby Fischer, I Am Not A Chess Grand Master.
I'm sorry that his views over the later years became so hard to justify, or even understand in any rational sense, but I'll always remember my first contact with his name.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
In chess you don't have to die young to leave a good looking corpse you just have to get out of the spotlight while you're ahead. (Britney Spears take note.)
I think Britney Spears' chess career isn't over by a long shot. Remember that brilliant opening she made in her first game in last year's USCF championship?
He came out of obscurity once, in 1992, to play Boris Spassky. Obviously Spassky was a grandmaster (once you've earned the title you don't lose it) but he wasn't "the" grandmaster (whatever that might mean - did you mean "world champion"?). Spassky was not a particularly strong GM by 1992 (at least by elite chess standards). There is no compelling reason to believe that Fischer was the best player ever - it's certainly possible but not "probable" by any definition which includes the Elo scale.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Yeah. Too bad that never happened, though. He played two matches after 1972 and neither was against a top player. Spassky had long since retired and Polgar may be a grandmaster, but has never been a serious world champion threat.
Terry Layne
Portland, OR
but since you brought up spitting in the context of bobby fischer...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjbaSVXUq5c
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
We are *noting* his demise. Because he was notable, in a scale that many people around here just don't understand.
He beat the Soviets at their own game in the middle of the Cold War. Think Jesse Owens and you may understand how massive was his victory (and before some idiot even suggests it, I am not comparing both men, but I am certainly comparing their respective achievements and what they meant on the day).
To sit down and replay some of his games is pure magic, and that is why chess is so magnificent, because anybody can touch the minds of geniuses with a chessboard and a few lines containing the notation of a good game.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
wasnt he lurking on the yahoo chess sites?
Ah. I guess someone did an apt-get remove Fischer, then. No word on whether "--purge" was used, too.
On behalf of the International Zionist Conspiracy, allow me to be the first to say: Checkmate!
While that may be true, I'm much more interested in matches between two humans rather than a human against AI.
Whatever else he was, he was probably the best chess player ever. I liked how he would come out of obscurity to beat whomever was the current Grandmaster, then disappear again.
This isn't correct. From 1963-68 for a variety of reasons (some of them relating to his religious beliefs at the time), he rarely played, but he played well when he did play. Then in 1969 he got serious about competing for the World Championship and returned to full time active play. After winning the championship in 1972 he essentially permanently retired from chess by simply refusing to play again, coming out of retirement only in 1992 to beat Spassky (the guy he defeated in 1972 for the championship) again in a rematch. Spassky at this time had long stopped being a top notch player and was probably at best in top 70 or so chess players, possibly even lower than that. So to say that Fischer "would come out of obscurity to beat whoever was the current Grandmaster" is completely inaccurate, but he certainly did disappear again.
By the way, there are many "Grandmasters" in chess. While compared to average guy on the street they are chess playing geniuses, there are at any time multi-hundreds of grandmasters in chess. I've known of US ones who were quite good on the US scene and absolutely nothing in terms of their international standing.
While many Americans would love to believe that Fischer was the greatest chess player ever, certainly it was really Garry Kasparov. If some thought that Anatoly Karpov (the man that Fischer lost his title to in 1975 by refusing to play) was better than Fischer, I wouldn't argue it. Karpov was a truly great player. Fischer was truly excellent, but he only played a very limited number of openings with both the white and black pieces. Kasparov and Karpov excelled at all openings with white and black. One of Fischer's favorite defenses with black, the Benoni, has been mostly discredited since his championship title in 1972. The Benoni basically is a losing defense for black if white plays what is called the "Four Pawns Attack" against it. This method of attack by white has never been successfully answered by the black pieces. In fact, this attack is so fearful that most Benoni players will transpose into the Benoni from other openings only after it becomes impossible for white to use this method. No grandmaster is brave enough to start the Benoni from the first move for fear of white adopting the Four Pawns Attack against it. Fischer was a specialist in a very limited repertoire of white and black moves and Karpov and Kasparov could play anything. I'd personally place him 2nd of all time behind Kasparov.
I grew up with stories of his games though I was never into chess myself.
I wonder what he was like as a person and what his legacy will be.
Did he write any books or teach anyone or found any institutes or foundations?
Did he have any children?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
you don't defend one person's bigotry because of someone else's bigotry, real or imagined
you simply attack all bigotry, in all its forms
bobby fischer spewed hate. therefore, he is worthy of censure. it really doesn't get any more complicated than that. any other hate spewed anywhere else by anyone else does not excuse him
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
CHECKMATE.
Actually, the man succumbed to mental illness. Hopefully you're never in a position to pass any meaningful judgment on people who have these kinds of issues.
Every four years I vote in the American presidential election.
is more important than their ability to play a game
look at michael vick, or oj simpson: because they played well at a game they should be excused for their character issues?
that's what i hear in your statement to me about bobby fischer
his chess playing ability, no matter how genius, does not eclipse the judgment that must be passed on his hate and bigotry
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I wonder if the same thing has been happening to Pat Robison. Many Christians I know have noted how drastic and extreme he's been getting over the past decade or so.
And it seems every year more so...
My wife, who is a nurse, made a comment about wondering if he might be suffering from mental illness.
I think that was not the reason. It was something related to 64 squares in a board.
find -name "*base*" -exec chown us {} \; ; ln -s
Stop me if I'm wrong here, but a chessboard is square with 8 board positions on a side. A chess king tips over at age 64 and you guys rant about politics??? This is a clear sign that in fact god doesn't play dice, he plays chess, and he's got quite a sense of dark humor too!
could it have been sean paul's music?
oh wait that was a diff article my bad.
Fischer's greatest legacy was probably his amazing winning streak of 20 consecutive games, during the Interzonal tournament and Candidates matches leading up to the world championship match with Spassky. This may never be equalled at such a high level, especially in a game where draws are so common. Presumably Tom Brady will never wind up in a Japanese prison fighting extradition to the US for consorting with arms dealers in Yugoslavia.
Have you read my blog lately?
"Haaretz, this is Nevuah. Come in, Haaretz. The gambit has been played. Need to castle. Over."
You know, if Fischer knew he might die there, he could at least have had some fun by writing on his hand something like:
Fischer B
Was Hijacked
In Rekjavik ICL
16.1.08, 21:00
Came to ICL
by fly BA 504
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Should is a strong word, almost universally implying subjectivity. I believe it's normal to be happy when someone, you don't like, dies. It's a logical biological reaction.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
fischer struggled throughout his life with being jewish himself and his anti-semitic harangues are pretty well-documented.
ed
hitler was mentally ill
if a guy stabs you because he is a racist, or a man stabs you because he is a paranoid schizophrenic, you still bleed. the knife weilder is still a threat which must be removed from society and confined. it doesn't matter WHY you committed a crime, just that you committed a crime. your punishment will be different, but you will still be punished
likewise, bobby fischer is not absolved of his hate just because of mental problems. he said hateful words, therefore, he is cansured. doesn't matter WHY he said hate filled words. he doesn't get a pass
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm a moron, you inconsiderate clod.
Uh. wait. That didn't come out right at all.
The hateful things he said are still hateful and offensive, but I think it's a mistake to take a crazy person's ravings at face value, rather than as symptoms of mental disease. Of course, he may very well have been a jerk, too -- mental state notwithstanding.
Despite his handicap, he was a great chess player, and it's sad that he died untreated and presumably in pain. He had a gift that the world couldn't benefit from since it was trapped in his mind.
I am not a crackpot.
Heh, I guess you haven't seen his homepage.
I fail to see how dying improves a bad personality.
If anything dying removes any chance of apologizing for being an asshole and making amends.
Fischer left plenty of hate behind. It's not left the building. It's recorded for posterity.
I'm not happy when an asshole dies, but I'm not going to pretend that someone was not an asshole when they die.
http://www.chessthemusical.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_(musical)
Fischer's quick descent into madness was repellent and so very, very sad.
$ emerge -C Fischer
He took that poison pawn back in '72, and it was slowly killing him ever since.
1986
Seen it? That's MY homepage!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Grim Reaper wins.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Actually, the man succumbed to mental illness. Hopefully you're never in a position to pass any meaningful judgement on people who have these kinds of issues.
His mental illness absolves him of any legal responsibility for his actions, but it doesn't make him a good and wonderful person.
I still wouldn't want to be friends with a raging bigot regardless of why he's a raging bigot. I mean, the shape of his mental illness is partially shaped by the sane portions of his mind -- it's not like there's a magical Jew-hating portion of the brain that got damaged.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The "he" refers to the father.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I remember a line from that movie where the mentor guy tells the kid not to end up like the chess-playing bums in the park.
They left out the part where the kid turns into one of them.
Bow-ties are cool.
Seems to me a part jewish guy can make comments like that just like a part black guy can make nigger jokes.
It's one thing to make jokes about the flaws of your own community, a la Chris Rock or Jeff Foxworthy.
It's another thing to call for the detention of an entire people, the execution of hundreds of thousands of its leaders, and the destruction of its places of worship, a la Bobby Fischer. He was a Holocaust denier, and an advocate for a new one, and if you think that's equivalent to making jokes about trashy people within your own community, then you're completely mad.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
One of the things that makes Fischer so special is that he was bigger than chess. I.e. people who had never played chess, and had little interest in doing so, would still be interested in Fischer. He really did promote chess that much.
As a comparison, among American sports players, there were only three in the 20th century that were bigger than their sport: Babe Ruth, Mohammad Ali, and Michael Jordan. (People would go to see each of them, even if they had little interest in the sport.) As a different example, Wayne Gretzky was easily the best hockey player of the century, but he was not bigger than hockey. Fischer is up there with Ruth, Ali, and Jordon. Quite an achievement.
Aww, I can't help myself. I keep posting this story whenever chess comes up. It's a short story he did once for putting an extremely shot story on a post card. Being slashdot, the majority have probably read it, but for the few it's a good quick read:
http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/learn/html/e.8.2.shtml
This story deals with there being more unique chess games than atoms in the universe.
And, funny, I just watched searching for bobby fischer last week. It's one of those kinds of movies I watch every couple of years. Just a classic.
compare any speech by osama bin laden with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_fischer
the source of osama bin laden's hatred is fundamentalism, while the source of bobby fischer's hatred is a mental problem
how the hell can you tell?
how the hell can anyone tell?
in other words, it's bullshit: mentally ill seems to be a label you and other people apply to a**holes they want to forgive for some reason or another. it has no basis in a sound psychiatric examination
it seems to me then that "mental problem" in your mind is shorthand for "some guy i don't want to stop admiring even though he's a hate filled puss bag so i'll give him a pass"
when you shouldn't
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's a pity that so many here seem only to recall him for his hate-filled tirades. Yes, for the last decades of his life he was filled with venom. He was, I believe, quite insane. It's not only a matter of his public statements. He turned on his supporters and friends as well.
But, and it's an important but, he also created some of the finest games of chess to ever have been played. To my mind, they are every bit as great as other works of art.
He also, by winning the world championship, fostered an entire generation of American chess players.
I know. I'm one of them. His play up to, and including beating Spassky for the crown, inspired me into becoming a serious player. While I never became a master--darn it!--I also never would have fallen as deeply in love with the game as I did. Today, I play chess for fun and very rarely play in tournaments, but when I play well, when I read over a game and I can see the beauty of the contest of ideas over the board, then I realize I still owe a debt of gratitude to Fisher.
I am sorry for him, and for us, that his last decades were spend in the squalor of madness. On his best days, he really was chess' greatest player.
Good-bye Mr. Fisher. I wish it could have turned out otherwise.
Steven
i don't view it that way, but i'm sure he did.
ed
64 is 8 times 8 the tiles of the chess plate. Doesn't means much still a nice co-incidence!
Codefile Defected to another Hexadimal Range refresh your CHAOSTACK.NLM file with a new copy
There's a wonderful and somewhat tragic tale from Bobby's youth that I think explains so much. (I'm sorry I don't remember which book I read it in, so I can't give credit.)
Bobby was living in New York City as a teenager and playing chess at an amazingly high level. He was also, clearly, a mentally troubled young man, and many of his chess playing friends noticed the instability as well as the genius. A number of friends convened a meeting and discussed taking up a collection to try to get Bobby some professional psyciatric help, which it was clear he needed even then. The meeting is going along, and most agree to encourage Bobby to get help.
Towards the end of the meeting, someone asks "What if Bobby gets well and stops playing good chess?" The meeting then breaks up and nothing ever came of it.
In many ways, Chess is about black versus white. My former chess teacher always prefered that we use the terms "light" and "dark" squares, rather then black and white, and I think it makes a very apt metaphor for Bobby's life. He lived some of his life on the light squares, accomplishing one of the greatest mental-athletic endeavors of all time. For this, he is rightly lionized as one of the great geniuses of the 20th century. He also led many of his years on the dark side of the board as well. Homeless in Los Angeles. Travling around penniless and without recognition for over 20 years. Finally reaping considerable financial rewards in Yogoslovia at the cost of his freedom.
Finally, people note that Bobby in his later years was an anti-semite and said some truly disturbing things. Yet that's not how I see it. Rather than spiteful, his ramblings should be chalked up to the mental illness that clearly ravaged his brain throughout his later life. Just as the deranged homeless man on street should be pitied, so should Bobby. He lived in the largely Jewish chess community of New York for years, and while he may have had issues, his hatred of Jews only reached full blown proportions as his mental health declined. Clearly, he did not suffer fools. But I see no evidence that his dislike for stupid people was anything other than color/creed blind until later in life. Truly, these were the untreated manifestations of the illness that his chess colleagues recognized all those years ago in New York.
RIP Bobby, and I hope that you find the peace in the next world (whether that be in the big chess board in the sky or simply as worm food) that eluded you in this one.
Bobby Fisher's mother was a Jew. His father was not -- although apparently (ahem) there's some dispute over who his father actually was.
Breakfast served all day!
It's one of the common causes of death I guess... but does anyone else find it significant that he died at age 64, the number of squares on a chessboard?
Spooooooooky...
No matter what, he's got one last chess game to play. Will he go for victory or stalemate?
It's semi-offtopic, sure, but this is the kind of detailed dissection which truely makes Slashdot worthwhile. Thank you!
17. ... Be6!!!
Barely out of the opening, Fischer, 13 years old, offers a queen to one of the best US players. Mate in 24.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Come on, no American is going to know Mordecai Vanunu
as if someone can spew hate and vitriol for years
and they are helpless innocent victims of mental illness, with no intent to say what they say or act the way they act
he's not hereing voice, he's not changing personality, he's being himself, and divulging the content of his soul
he's a bigot
and you say you he "can't help the way he is"
what incredible bullshit
do you even know what intent is? how it forms? you're a pretty poor judge of human beings and their motivations
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You can see a version with commentary or an interactive chessboard version.
Reguardless there is going to be alot of questions about his exile.
The fact that the United States labeled him as a traitor just for playing Chess in Yugoslavia may have lead to his anti-Semitism. Sort of like saying "Well, f*** you, too!" after being told to DIAF.
Fischer did see the world for what it is and not some doctored sob story fabiracted by the media to side with the creation of Israel.
Yes the Holocaust was horrible, and yes it did happen. But did it justify the creation of Israel? NO! If it is anti-Semetic to say that Israel sucks, then fine.
I'm tired of this world-wide suicide game.
--W.O.P.R. Wargames (1983)
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
Standard: Portable Game Notation Specification and Implementation Guide
...
...
Revised: 1994.03.12
Authors: Interested readers of the Internet newsgroup rec.games.chess
Under Tags for termination of games:
9.8.1: Tag: Termination
This takes a string that describes the reason for the conclusion of the game.
While the Result tag gives the result of the game, it does not provide any
extra information and so the Termination tag is defined for this purpose.
Strings that may appear as Termination tag values:
* "abandoned": abandoned game.
* "adjudication": result due to third party adjudication process.
* "death": losing player called to greater things, one hopes.
* "emergency": game concluded due to unforeseen circumstances.
* "normal": game terminated in a normal fashion.
* "rules infraction": administrative forfeit due to losing player's failure to
observe either the Laws of Chess or the event regulations.
* "time forfeit": loss due to losing player's failure to meet time control
requirements.
* "unterminated": game not terminated.
RIP Bobby Fischer, "death" is a horrible way to lose a game of chess.
The Four Pawns Attack has not exactly killed off the Benoni for Black - in fact a Benoni was played in a recent top-level tournament (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1482102), and White even passed up the chance to play 7. f4, which would not be likely if it was indeed a sure win. But in any case, most Grandmasters can and do evolve their opening repertoire as times change. Fischer was quite capable of finding something different to play if necessary.
But I agree that Karpov was very, very good in 1975 and would have had a good chance against Fischer. Many people would have wanted to see how a Karpov-Fischer match would turn out. We'll never know now.
You have to appreciate the limitations of the medium of chess. Then, you have to play through his games. Only then can you appreciate that he was one of the greatest artists of all time. He produced some of the most beautiful works ever made. He contributed immensely to the art of chess during his brief career. He was foremost a great American singlehandedly bringing down the Russians stranglehold of the chess world while inspiring many to practice the beautiful game that makes people think. I mourn the loss of the great artist!!!
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
no-one ever says Reykjavik in a song.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I remember the hype around the first Fischer / Spassky meeting in 1970....and it was probably the beginning of the end of my confidence in the mainstream media. It's just a game for chrissake......yet you'd think the fate of the world hung on the outcome judging by the press at the time. Even though i was only 13 then, and living in a small city in northern Ontario, Canada, this seemed more than weird to me.
Only boring people are ever bored.
about osama bin laden, does that excuse him in your mind?
of course, you'll tell me you know all about his mental health too, right?
the point is very simple: if someone spwes hate, they are to be punished. the genesis of their hate may be anything, but it doesn't matter the cause, because the effect is the issue
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://db.chessmetrics.com/CM2/PeakList.asp suggests that whether Fischer or Kasparov was the greatest ever depends on what time window you average over, but if you take a 3-year average as an indicator of peak performance, Kasparov has a tiny edge.
I stand corrected.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
If you find joy in anyone's death, you've got some serious problems. Do you like the thought of people enjoying the pain your loved ones might feel when you die? Does the mental image of strangers smirking and smiling at your grieving relatives make you feel happy? If not, then you've got some serious hypocrisy going on. If it does make you happy, then you've got a serious lack of empathy for those around you.
Probably living in hell because someone they loved was horribly mentally ill and not in control of his faculties. Clearly something you don't give a rat's ass about either. Nice humanity, there.
This is a subjective statement as humans are wired to be competitive and there is a mechanism for enjoying the end of struggle. The idea that everyone should be loving, caring, and nurturing is a "Politically Correct" AMERICAN ideal, not reality.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Are you kidding? Antisemitism is all the rage again in Europe.. Old fashions always come back into style..