absolut_mac said:
Edit: Right from my earliest exposure to chess back in the early 1970's, the one thing that always stood out in my mind about Fischer - besides what an incredible player he was - is what an unbelievable whiner and cry baby he was. Maybe it was just part of his strategy to mentally wear down his opponents, or maybe it was just his personality, either way, this guy obviously never grew up.
Actually his whining was merited.
During his career he made accusations that the Soviet chess machine was colluding to keep Westerners from winning. He contended that in key tournaments they would play ea other to prearranged draws while saving innovations for Western players. This later was admitted to by many ex Soviet Players. It was also admitted that the Soviet Chess machine had a special hard on for keeping Fischer from qualifying for the candidates matches.
He never needed to mentally wear his opponents down his chess ability and genius spoke for itself. He was so far above the ability of ALL other players by 1970 that he was basically in a league all by himself.
Probably the Greatest complement ever offered about Fischer was from one of the most original attacking players of all time former World Champion
Mikail Tal. When asked about his lifetime plus score over Fischer Tal replied " When Tal beat Fischer Tal was Tal, but Fischer was not yet Fischer"
No one with the exception of Paul Morphy had ever routed the leading players of their day as Fischer had. His streak of wins culminating with the win of the World Championship in 1972 has never been equaled.
No one in history ever demolished a sitting world champion the way Fischer did Spasski. His winning margin is even more astonishing when one considers he didn't even show up for one of the games and just took a forfeit. The final score of the match was 12.5-8.5 Spasski conceded defeat because even if he was to win the remaining 3 games of the match he would still lose. Think about it Fischer was winning by 4 games, 5 games if the forfeit is removed. Normally World championships are won by a margin of 1 or 2 games. 4 games are completely unheard of especially in 24 game matches and theirs ended at game 21.
Fischers career was marked by many never before or never since accomplished feats. He won the U.S championship in 1963/64 by a perfect score. No one else in history has come close to winning by a perfect score. He won it all 8 times he entered.
Starting in the interzonal and going thru the candidates matches that gave him the right to play Spasski he won an incredible 20 wins in a row before losing a game to Petrosian(who he ended up defeating 6.5-2.5 which by the way was the worst defeat of Petrosian's entire career) These were not patzers he was playing two were former world champions.
He refused to play Karpov in 1975 which led to him having the Title stripped from him by F.I.D.E. and awarded to Karpov.
Fischer's refusal to play was based on wanting the Match rules changed so that draws were not counted and If the Challenger reached a 10 point win tie with the champion the match would be considered a draw with the champion retaining his crown. The Soviet controlled F.I.D.E. would not allow these changes while a Westerner controlled the Title because the Soviet School of play was based on draw if your playing black and try to win if your white. Karpov was a master student of this school and would have been at a serious disadvantage because his repertoire as black was a drawing repertoire. It's funny that as soon as the Soviets won back the title(by forfeit) they changed the rules to almost exactly the way Fischer wanted them for the next 3 World championship matches.
I still consider him as probably the strongest player to have ever played the game. His disdain for draws and his preference for fighting chess make him stand out from all the rest. Especially when one considers the lack of fighting spirit exibited by todays players.
Yes he became a recluse and a nut case, but that never detracts from the beauty and genius of his games. I never tire of playing over many of his masterpieces. Are van Gogh's works of art diminished by him being a nut?
No.
Nor are Fischer's.
