# Bobby Fischer is being deported from Japan to US for 92' match in Yugoslavia. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 20, 2004, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047 "2004-07-20T18:56:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/21 "2004-07-21T09:57:11Z")
> [@Clairobscur](#): > > Err…Nope. From what you said, they wanted to keep the rules as they were. Fisher wanted the rules to be changed for Fisher’s advantage. No. From what I said, Fischer wanted the rules to be changed because they would be better for chess. The Soviet chess cabal had dominated FIDE for many, many years. The communists did not care about what was good for chess; they cared about what was good for themselves. They liked draws because they had practised drawing for a generation. That was how they cooperated amongst each other to infiltrate, permeate, and dominate qualifying tournaments and candidates matches. But even when doing this, Fischer had gone through them like they were bowling pins. The notion that he was afraid of losing to Karpov is simply ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/22 "2004-07-21T10:01:16Z")
> [@Chunky Bum](#): > > The guy may have been the best American chess player of all-time, but who cares. Besides, Kasparov, Anand, and Krammnik are better than he ever was anyway. In Kasparov’s own words: “Despite his short stay at the top there is little to debate about the chess of Bobby Fischer. He changed the game in a way that hadn’t been seen since the late 19th century. The gap between Mr. Fischer and his contemporaries was the largest ever. He singlehandedly revitalized a game that had been stagnating under the control of the Communists of the Soviet sports hierarchy.” [http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/6014](http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/6014) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/23 "2004-07-21T11:37:40Z")
Suggesting rules changes to the game’s governing body is an entirely reasonable thing to do. Refusing to play unless the governing body implements those changes is, in my view, not reasonable - I think the appropriate word is “petulant”. Bobby Fischer is a loon who’s let his ego get in the way of his talent. One of many such, unfortunately. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/24 "2004-07-21T11:40:53Z")
That is an outrageous lie. Fischer did not have an ego. As he said himself, “When I have White, I win because I’m White; when I have Black, I win because I’m Fischer.” Those are not the words of an egoist, but of an artist. He gave deference to the game — to the aesthetic. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/25 "2004-07-21T11:44:25Z")
Errr… huh? Close that bottle of White-Out on your desk, Lib. Fisher may have been a fantastic chess player (for all I know, the best that ever lived), but I don’t think you’ll find too many people disagreeing with the notion that he is an egocentric bastard. As well as a complete anti-Semitic loonie. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/26 "2004-07-21T12:24:59Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > That is an outrageous lie. Fischer did not have an ego. As he said himself, “When I have White, I win because I’m White; when I have Black, I win because I’m Fischer.” Those are not the words of an egoist, but of an artist. He gave deference to the game — to the aesthetic. If he “gave deference to the game”, he would have played it, instead of quibbling over the tournament rules. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/27 "2004-07-21T12:43:24Z")
How can he be anti-Semitic? He is Jewish. And he _did_ play the game. He won it by their unfair and ancient rules. As champion, he offered a way to make the game better. He did not refuse to play chess; he refused to play Sovietism. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/28 "2004-07-21T13:02:57Z")
I don’t care if your father was King Solomon and your mother was Mary of Nazareth, if you say shit like in the quote below, you’re a fucking loonie, and yes, an anti-Semite. > [@](#): > > [The Atlantic, 2002](http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/12/chun.htm) > > For the most part chess people have for years downplayed the importance of his outlandish outbursts, explaining that Fischer’s raging anti-Semitism, acute paranoia, and tenuous grasp on reality are hyped by the media and misunderstood by the public. In the early 1990s Fischer’s girlfriend at the time said, “He’s like a child. Very, very simple.” A friend who spent a lot of time with him in the 1990s says, “Aside from his controversial views, as a person Bobby is very kind, very nice, and very human.” Another friend, asked how he could stand by someone so blatantly anti-Semitic, replies, “A lot of people wouldn’t care if Michael Jordan was an anti-Semite if they could play a game of Horse with him.” > > Many Fischer apologists argue that Bobby Fischer is in fact deranged, and that as such he deserves not public castigation but psychiatric help. They are quick to point out that he was raised in a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, has had close friends who were Jewish, and in fact had a Jewish mother (information he has gone to great lengths to deny). It seems hard to imagine that his hate-filled rhetoric isn’t an unfortunate manifestation of some underlying illness. > > But even the Fischer apologists had to throw up their hands when he took to the Philippine airwaves on September 11, 2001. In an interview broadcast this time by Bombo Radyo, a small public-radio station in Baguio City, Fischer revealed views so loathsome that it was impossible to indulge him any longer. Just hours after the most devastating attack on the United States in history, in which thousands had died, Fischer could barely contain his delight. “This is all wonderful news,” he announced. “I applaud the act. The U.S. and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians, just slaughtering them for years. Robbing them and slaughtering them. Nobody gave a shit. Now it’s coming back to the U.S. Fuck the U.S. I want to see the U.S. wiped out.” > > Fischer added that the events of September 11 provided the ideal opportunity to stage a long-overdue coup d’état. He envisioned, he said, a “Seven Days in May scenario,” with the country taken over by the military; he also hoped to see all its synagogues closed, and hundreds of thousands of Jews executed. “Ultimately the white man should leave the United States and the black people should go back to Africa,” he said. “The white people should go back to Europe, and the country should be returned to the American Indians. This is the future I would like to see for the so-called United States.” Before signing off Fischer cried out, “Death to the U.S.!” Yeah, he’s quite the charmer all right. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/29 "2004-07-21T13:04:04Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > How can he be anti-Semitic? He is Jewish. As for that sort of logic: what about the notion that Adolf Hitler was 25% Jewish? Surely, a nice boy like that can’t grow up to be an anti-Semite! ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/30 "2004-07-21T13:04:46Z")
Holy crap, **Lib** , have you not read _anything_ written about or said by Fischer during the last 20-odd years? We’re not talking one “hatchet-job” article, we’re talking multiple articles by respected journalists over the course of decades. We’re not talking about a few slip-ups by Fischer, we’re talking about several calculated anti-Semitic tirades. The comments Fischer made about September 11 on Philippine were reported not just in _The Atlantic_ but in _The New York Times_ and _The Wall Street Journal_. Are _all_ these sources lying? Even the opinion piece written by Kasparov and linked to in the GD thread alluded to Fischer’s anti-Semitism. Is Kasparov a partisan hack as well? Look, I know Fischer was a great chess player. _He’s also a human being with all too human_ (and many would say close to inhuman) _failings_. Recognizing his failings as a person does not mean that we discount his success as a chess player; but, at the same time, no serious discussion of Fischer can discount what can only be described as his descent into madness, just as no serious discussion of Morphy can be complete without his withdrawal from the game and self-imposed isolation. Nobody plays chess (or football, baseball, basketball, etc.) well enough to put them beyond all reproach. Not Bobby Fischer, not Pete Rose, not anybody. That is the story of Fischer in a nutshell. It is a tragedy what happened to Fischer, yes, but that doesn’t mean he is inculpable. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/31 "2004-07-21T13:07:14Z")
All right, a quick google action tells me I was perpetuating an Urban Legend there. So scratch the Hitler comment. Point still stands: if you talk like Fisher, you’re an anti-Semite. Period. ---
**Author:** ![Chunky\_Bum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Chunky\_Bum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chunky_Bum)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/32 "2004-07-21T13:11:46Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] In Kasparov’s own words: “Despite his short stay at the top there is little to debate about the chess of Bobby Fischer. He changed the game in a way that hadn’t been seen since the late 19th century. The gap between Mr. Fischer and his contemporaries was the largest ever. He singlehandedly revitalized a game that had been stagnating under the control of the Communists of the Soviet sports hierarchy.”[/QUIOTE] All true. It still doesn’t change the fact that Kasparov, Anand, and Krammnik are better chess players than Fischer. > [@Liberal](#): > > How can he be anti-Semitic? LOL! You have got to be joking, right? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Chunky\_Bum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Chunky\_Bum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chunky_Bum)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/33 "2004-07-21T13:14:22Z")
Let’s try that again… > [@Liberal](#): > > In Kasparov’s own words: > > “Despite his short stay at the top there is little to debate about the chess of Bobby Fischer. He changed the game in a way that hadn’t been seen since the late 19th century. The gap between Mr. Fischer and his contemporaries was the largest ever. He singlehandedly revitalized a game that had been stagnating under the control of the Communists of the Soviet sports hierarchy.” All true. It still doesn’t change the fact that Kasparov, Anand, and Krammnik are better chess player than Fischer. > [@Liberal](#): > > How can he be anti-Semitic? LOL! You have got to be joking, right? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/34 "2004-07-21T13:29:13Z")
Look, I understand that Fischer has said some weird shit. I mean, we’re talking about a man whose mother chained herself to the White House fence when he was a child. But great artists say weird shit all the time. Fischer was driven to madness by myopic politicians in the USCF and FIDE who abandoned and disrespected him when he needed them most. And now he is being used once again, this time by politicians in government. But for a bit of insight and the teeniest smidgin of vision 30 years ago, we would have more of his breathtaking masterpieces to enjoy. Can you not find it in your hearts to cut him the least bit of slack? ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/35 "2004-07-21T13:33:04Z")
I’d be willing to cut him _some_ slack. Just not enough to cover for that _“Death to the US”_-shite and such. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/36 "2004-07-21T13:39:51Z")
No one’s denying that Fischer has talent - immense talent. That’s _why_ it’s a shame that his behaviour has prevented him from exercising it to its fullest extent. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/37 "2004-07-21T13:48:29Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > But for a bit of insight and the teeniest smidgin of vision 30 years ago, we would have more of his breathtaking masterpieces to enjoy. You can believe that, but I highly doubt it. I know you dismiss _The Atlantic_ article, but it and other sources note that even in the 1960’s Fischer was already complaining about there being “too many Jews in chess.” He almost pulled out of the 1972 championship match–the one thing he’d always wanted to do in the chess world–with Spassky, and had to be talked back into it by Henry Kissenger, of all people. The signs were there long before “myopic politicians” in the US chess world (IMHO) decided they’d had enough. > [@](#): > > Can you not find it in your hearts to cut him the least bit of slack? Hasn’t he been already? If Fischer had never picked up a chess piece in his life, would **anybody** be defending him? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/38 "2004-07-21T13:56:31Z")
The most surreal part of this little discussion is that Liberal is Fischer’s defender here. In his linked post, Liberal details how he and his compatriots drafted a letter promising, basically, to suck Fischer’s dick non stop for the remainder of his life, if he would only return to active play. Insurance, stipend, generous salary, recognition as champion, all for playing chess. His response to Liberal’s offer? > [@](#): > > It said simply, “He will open your letter if you send him $10,000”. Somehow, Liberal seems to think this was something other than Fischer spitting in their faces, and that they should have sent the money. If he crapped in a box and mailed it to you, would you proudly display it on your mantle? I can understand admiring his chess, but as a person, he seems to be pretty damn low on character. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/39 "2004-07-21T14:22:02Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > . But great artists say weird shit all the time. Salvador Dali said weird shit. Fischer says alternately hateful and flat-out tinfoil-hat paranoit shit. Besides “great artist” does not immunize from consequences of our words and actions. > [@](#): > > Fischer was driven to madness by myopic politicians in the USCF and FIDE who abandoned and disrespected him when he needed them most. If he suffers actual mental illness he needs help and attention from a support network of family and friends and from trained health professionals. The Federations are not there for that purpose. If he doesn’t, acting out like this because stick-in-the-mud political bureaucrats will not see things your way is suggestive of a serious problem with emotional maturity. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2004, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047/40 "2004-07-21T14:27:01Z")
Emotional maturity? Why is that relevant? There have been artists who cut off their own body parts. It is about the _art_, the incomparable aesthetic. As far as the 10 grand to open the letter, I don’t blame him a bit for that request. Suppose you received a letter from an organization that not only had failed you, but had humiliated you, disowned you, and ignored the fact that you were its very foundation, and that you were the reason it went from obscurity and financial struggle to popularity and financial success. You might be suspicious about its contents. What is it? An invoice? A condemnation? A threat of some kind? He should have demanded $20,000. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bobby-fischer-is-being-deported-from-japan-to-us-for-92-match-in-yugoslavia/256047.md?page=3)