R.I.P Bobby Fischer -we'll miss you.

[Liberal]

@Guinastasia

What was his comment?

See page 1 of the thread.

[Guinastasia]

Wow-what an asshat.

(A talented asshat, but an asshat nonetheless.)

ETA: I’m mourning Ernie Holmes, myself.

[glee]

@Shodan

You’re probably right - the story is apocryphal. And the guy who told me the story, an infinitely better chess player than I, I haven’t seen in years.

I put it forth because I thought it was funny, nothing more.

Regards,
Shodan

No worries - it’s certainly amusing.

@Malacandra

I’ve heard that story, except that it was Paulsen who sat there for hours and only then expressed surprise on learning it was his move. This was in the pre-clocks era when men like Elijah Williams routinely sat for hours on end over a single move.

I too had ‘heard’ it was Louis Paulsen. However I could find no support for that anywhere.

@Malacandra

As to what is inconceivable, it’s inconceivable that a strong player would inadvertently capture one of his own pieces, and it’s inconceivable that a World Championship contender should have to ask the referee if it is legal to castle if your rook is attacked (ceteris paribus, it is), and it’s inconceivable that a respected master and long-established commentator should remark twice in the same game that Black’s best move was to castle when Black had earlier moved his king. However, all of these inconceivabilities are cited in a book I believe you have on your shelf, glee - The Complete Chess Addict.

And what a fine book it is too.

There are many many instances of players making an illegal move when short of time (I agree that capturing your own piece is pretty special!). I remember a GM leaving his King in check for several moves - eventually I noticed and took it. Of course it was a blitz game.
There is only one ‘story’ of both players calmly sitting for 8 hours waiting for the other to move. Didn’t either of them want to go to the toilet? Didn’t either of them want to get a drink? Didn’t either of them want to stretch?

Korchnoi explains his castling question logically:
‘Korchnoi confirmed he did ask the question at that point, explaining that the Russian chess rules left the situation a little ambiguous, and it was the first time the situation had occurred in his games. Considering the levels of tension surrounding the match and this game in particular, Korchnoi thought it best to confirm with the match referee before making the move.’

http://www.chessvault.com/2006/04/29/victor-korchnoi-at-the-chess-bridge/

Was it Golombek who remarked that Black could illegally castle?
I suppose it’s a bit rude to remark that he was rather careless, but I will anyway. He annotated one of my games in his chess column and overlooked the win of a rook. Another time he adjudicated a game of mine as a loss. I sent in **one move ** as appeal analysis and he reversed his decision.

[glee]

@RickJay

I would think anyone involved in a competitive game or sport with spectators in attendance would have to put up with exactly that.

That’s true, but Karpov made sure that Korchnoi knew there was a ‘parapsychologist’ sitting in the front row for every session of play, staring at Korchnoi and trying to put him off.
There’s a big difference between a crowd generally looking at the players, then the demonstration boards, then analysing on their pocket sets, wandering out of the hall etc and one guy whose mission in life is to distract you.

I might add that as a lesser player, I would love to have anyone at all watch my games!

[glee]

@wolf_meister

I stated that Fischer’s odd behavior in his later life could be forgiven considering the chess brilliance he displayed in his younger days.
glee replied:
Considering Bobby Fischer’s declining mental state over the past three decades, should we really place that much weight on what he said during that time? I don’t think so.

Sorry, but I still don’t think Fischer’s brilliance at chess gives him a free pass to be incredibly insulting later on.

You can say that he was probably paranoid and that means we should ignore his rantings, but it has nothing to do with chess.

[glee]

@treis

Under his proposed first to 10 system, the only unfairness inherent in the competition is who gets white first. The champion, of course, would get that. However, the winner of the competition is the first to 10 wins. It shouldn’t matter if the score is 10-9 or 10-0.

No the unfairness is the extra clause of a 9-9 score in wins that meant Fischer won (he retained his title).
So the challenger had to win by 10-8 or better.

[glee]

@Liberal

Glee, with all due respect — and I realize that you are a FIDE master — I would hold your analysis of most chess positions to be reasonably sound, but your opinion of what is fair and what isn’t is just as open to challenge as anyone else’s. Yasser Seirawan, a FIDE grandmaster and, I believe, at the time a FIDE IM (international master) as well as Lev Alburt , at that time a FIDE grandmaster and recent defector to the US, both agreed with our group about the reasonableness of Fischer’s demands. They were both guests of ours, and I was priviledged to play a (brief) casual game with Lev as we waited for dinner to be served. (He crushed me, of course.)

If the challenger is ahead by 9-8, then he ought to have to win one more game to seal the championship. However, if the champion is behind by 8-9, then he too ought to have to win one more game to retain his title. These were not just rules that Fischer designed for himself. He designed them to unseat the Soviets from domination of FIDE. It was common knowledge (and Lev confirmed) that they cheated with regularity whenever they played important matches against foreign players.

The suggested rules cannot be compared one to one with the past rules involving draws. Draws were, as you are aware, just another tactic in the Soviet arsenal. Their players were trained (and told) to play for draws. That kept their ratings artificially high, and it forced others to play for wins because drawn matches fell to the champion. Fischer simply sought to eliminate that strategy. And no one will ever know whether it would have taken longer or shorter because it was never tried. And even besides, what the fuck. If it takes six months, so what. If the Soviets were in a hurry, they could play to win.

I appreciate your courtesy and I hope I can match it.

Yasser Seirawan is a great bloke (I met him in Holland once), who has made huge efforts recently to get the World Chess Championship back on track and Lev Alburt knows the Soviet system from the inside.

Fischer had to win one more game than Spassky in a total of 24 games. Tha’s a clear advantage to the Champion. (It used to be worse - Botvinnik insisted on a return match if the Champion lost :eek: :rolleyes: )
However Fischer’s demands meant that the challenger would have to win 2 games more than the Champion. (10-8 at the minimum.)
If Fischer had simply said “Draws shouldn’t matter- first to 10 wins is Champion”, I am confident it would have got through FIDE. (There would have been real logistical problems about the uncertain length of the match, but no doubt money could have sorted those out…)

[Arnold_Winkelried]

Words of wisdom from my five-year-old: today I showed him the picture in the Los Angeles Times where Fischer was playing 50 opponents in Hollywood in 1964. I explained to him that a great chess player had died. He said “well now he’s a skeleton and he can play with the other skeletons underground if they have a chessboard!”

Regardless of his faults, I still think he deserves respect with a capital R for his chess skills. Happy trails, Bobby.

[Liberal]

@glee

Yasser Seirawan is a great bloke (I met him in Holland once), who has made huge efforts recently to get the World Chess Championship back on track and Lev Alburt knows the Soviet system from the inside.

Although we may disagree on a lot of things, we completely agree on this. I don’t believe I have ever met a nicer man than Yaz, inside or outside of chess. If you would indulge one more personal story…

I was the tournament director for our state’s Open Championship when he graciously accepted our invitation and pittance of an offering to play. It was a great risk to him, since a freak loss to one of our minor masters or experts (it was a Swiss pairing system) would have damaged his rating. But it was our work to bring back Fischer that had attracted him to us, and so he came.

It was my practice always to consult the high player of board one in Swiss systems about where he would like to play, and then all other pairings would fall off from that. For example, if the high player wanted to be in the corner, I would place him there, and then board two beside his, and so on.

Yaz, of course, was the high player of our tournament, and as I escorted him into the room, I asked him where he would prefer to play. With almost no hesitation, he exclaimed, “Oh, look at that view! I love that view!” The view he referenced was behind the TD’s long bank of banquet tables, where we officials sat to look important and be useless. Accomodating him basically meant rearranging the whole room.

“No problem,” I responded instantly, and set about to drag the tables away, motioning for my assistant to help me. But guess who else pitched in? That’s right — Yaz. He was young and in excellent physical condition, and moved two tables to our one all by himself, and guided us in the most efficient way to accomplish it by moving only the necessary ones. We were finished in five minutes.

And then, as if that weren’t enough, he thanked me for asking him where he prefered to play. He said that no one had ever rearranged a room to suit him before, and he broke out a big wide smile. I almost wanted to bow to him. What a great “bloke” indeed.

[Liberal]

@Arnold Winkelried

Words of wisdom from my five-year-old: today I showed him the picture in the Los Angeles Times where Fischer was playing 50 opponents in Hollywood in 1964. I explained to him that a great chess player had died. He said “well now he’s a skeleton and he can play with the other skeletons underground if they have a chessboard!”

Regardless of his faults, I still think he deserves respect with a capital R for his chess skills. Happy trails, Bobby.

A beautiful story, Arnold. Thanks for sharing that with us.

[treis]

@glee

No the unfairness is the extra clause of a 9-9 score in wins that meant Fischer won (he retained his title).
So the challenger had to win by 10-8 or better.

Yeah, we are saying the same thing. Declaring that 9-9 should result in the champion retaining his title implies that a 10-9 victory for the challenger isn’t really a victory. Which, of course, is bupkis.

[BarnOwl]

@glee

Do you mean Reykjavik?
The mental telepathy is probably a reference to Karpov-Korchnoi in Bagio City, where Karpov hired a bloke (a ‘parapsychologist’) to sit in the front row and stare at Korchnoi.
There’s no evidence of telepathy, but who wants anyone staring at you for hours at a time.

I couldn’t remember that game, so checked the match here. No Fischer-Spassky game ended with just a couple of pawns left. :eek:

Thanks for the reference, Glee!

But I do remember this happening. Perhaps each player had a piece or two, but the focus was on the pawns. And when Fischer made his move it astounded Shelby and everyone else in the studio.

Nevertheless, I’ll treasure the link you so thoughtfully provided.

Thanks again.

[Liberal]

@treis

Yeah, we are saying the same thing. Declaring that 9-9 should result in the champion retaining his title implies that a 10-9 victory for the challenger isn’t really a victory. Which, of course, is bupkis.

But it isn’t saying that at all. 10-9 is a metaphysically impossible score. What it’s saying is that the challenger should have to win 10 games and the champion only 9. Let me splain…

Let’s say that Fischer were to win 9 straight. If that happened, then he could forfeit the next nine games and still win. In fact, there would be no way for the challenger to win, and so he could resign and the match could be called by the director — thus shortening the time significantly. But if the champion can win only 8 games, then there is no way for the challenger to lose.

So the whole 10-9 thing is just a red herring. And I’m confident that Fischer intended to win 9 straight. With these rules, there is incentive for both players to play for wins. And once again, nullifying the Soviet drawing machine was the whole point.

I think people don’t realize how badly they cheated. Not only did they communicate in subtle and sophisticated ways during play, but they caucused during adjournments and put their heads together to work out possible lines when play was to continue. That particular practice was as much a violation of the rules as communication during play, but FIDE never seemed to be able to “verify” that the Soviets were doing what everyone knew the Soviets were doing. As Lev put it, all a FIDE official would have to do is put his ear to the door to hear a “bunch of drunk Russians” arguing loudly about chess moves.

[Liberal]

@BarnOwl

Thanks for the reference, Glee!

But I do remember this happening. Perhaps each player had a piece or two, but the focus was on the pawns. And when Fischer made his move it astounded Shelby and everyone else in the studio.

Nevertheless, I’ll treasure the link you so thoughtfully provided.

Thanks again.

You might be thinking of game 13. The final moves and positions for all the games are here.

[BarnOwl]

@Liberal

You might be thinking of game 13. The final moves and positions for all the games are here.

I really can’t say, Lib, but thank you for the linky.

[treis]

@Liberal

But it isn’t saying that at all. 10-9 is a metaphysically impossible score.

What does this mean?

@Liberal

What it’s saying is that the challenger should have to win 10 games and the champion only 9. Let me splain…

Let’s say that Fischer were to win 9 straight. If that happened, then he could forfeit the next nine games and still win. In fact, there would be no way for the challenger to win, and so he could resign and the match could be called by the director — thus shortening the time significantly.

How does this work? If Fischer wins the first 9 straight, the challenger can still win the match by winning the next 10 straight.

@Liberal

But if the champion can win only 8 games, then there is no way for the challenger to lose.

Well, yeah. If the conditions for victory are winning 10 games, and the champion can only win 8, how could the challenger lose?

[Liberal]

@treis

What does this mean?

A metaphysical impossibility is a negation of modal possibility. Like a real number square root of a negative number, for example.

How does this work? If Fischer wins the first 9 straight, the challenger can still win the match by winning the next 10 straight.

When the challenger has won his 9th game, the score will be 9-9. The champion wins at 9-9.

[treis]

@Liberal

A metaphysical impossibility is a negation of modal possibility. Like a real number square root of a negative number, for example.

Only because you’ve defined it to be so without any reason. 10-9 should be a victory in a first to 10 match.

@Liberal

When the challenger has won his 9th game, the score will be 9-9. The champion wins at 9-9.

Again, only because you’ve decided it to be so. There’s no reason for the winner of a first to 10 wins match be the person that is first to 10 wins.

[Liberal]

I didn’t decide or define anything. Those were Fischer’s demands. I’m only analyzing them. If we are to analyze something other than what we’ve been talking about for the past two days, that’s fine, but let’s not conflate the two.

[treis]

Funny, I though we were discussing the fairness of Fischer’s demands.