From: fry@zariski.harvard.edu (David Fry)
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
Subject: Re: Fischer being put to rest (LONG)
Date: 13 Oct 92 20:49:56 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Oct13.164959.16343
Organization: Harvard Math Department

In article <2621@devnull.mpd.tandem.com> rgp@mpd.tandem.com (Ramon Pantin) write
s:
>In article <1992Oct10.192127.16257@husc3.harvard.edu> fry@tara.harvard.edu (Dav
id Fry) writes:
>>In article <2611@devnull.mpd.tandem.com> rgp@mpd.tandem.com (Ramon Pantin) wri
tes:
>>>There have been LOTS of chess players with more interesting 
>>>chess production than Fischer's, quite a few of them never became
>>>world champions.  Players are remembered by their games, the number
>>>of tournaments that they completely dominated, the years where they
>>>had complete domination of the chess scene. 
>
>>I'd be interested to see your list of "quite a few" non-champions
>>who did this at all, let alone more than Fischer.  Please also include
>>the tournaments they dominated and the years in which they had
>>domination of the chess world.
>
>Read carefully!  There are two separate ideas in the original paragraph:
>       1.- There have been LOTS of chess players with more interesting 
>           chess production than Fischer's, quite a few of them never became
>           world champions. *** PERIOD ***
>       2.- Players are remembered by their games, the number
>           of tournaments that they completely dominated, the years where they
>           had complete domination of the chess scene.
>
>What is it that makes you think that I said that the "quite a few players
>with more interesting chess production than Fischer's" also had to have
>"domination of the chess world" ?  Please don't put words in my mouth !

I thought it because they were consecutive sentences in one paragraph
which usually denotes that they are contributing to the same idea.  If
you didn't mean that, it's not my problem.

>Point 1 is a fact.  

I think it's obvious that most of the chess community would describe
this opinion (that's all it is) as false.

>                   Point 2 are the characteristics that a player's life would
>have to have for the specialized chess public to remember him/her (not any
>Joe who happened to remember the publicity in the 70s and who might have seen
>Fischer in the "Now it Can be Told" TV program).  Certainly, if they had an
>incredible amount of publicity not related to chess, (like Fischer had),
>people will also remember them (yes the average Joe remembers Fischer,
>so what the everage Joe doesn't even know the rules for the game).

Are we talking about dominating, or remembering? The chess world 
remembers Janowski, but he didn't dominate anything.  

>Well, down to the question of players more interesting than Fischer,
>lets see Fischer's "important results" as REPORTED BY HIMSELF in:
>       "Los Encuentros del Siglo"
>       Robert Fischer, Dimitrije Bjelica
[partial chess record deleted]
>That's all!  The road to the championship shows domination.
>U.S. Championships are not mentioned in the orignal text
>and I also don't consider them "important results" because
>the level was below the level found in international chess
>(or in the U.S.S.R. championship).  Things are different
>know since the export of Sovit talent has started to revitalize
>the field in the U.S.A.

I don't care what Fischer himself wrote, because he also left out 
the Olympiads.  I agree the US Championships at the time were elite 
tournaments, but he certainly _dominated_ them more than anyone else 
could have expected, e.g. the 11-0 score in 1963-4.  

The strong tournaments of today are a function of the tremendous 
increase in the world total of GMs in the last 20 years, so Fischer 
can't be faulted for playing in weaker tournaments.  There weren't as 
many strong tournaments as today.  Similarly, the US Championship was 
weaker then.  Note that Fischer himself had the greatest impact on 
making the US Championship stronger in the 70s and 80s.

>
>So, fischer won 6 important tournaments in 4 years (67-70), do you
>think that he "dominated" during that period?  Larsen won 7, Stein won 6,
>Korchnoi won 6, Portisch won 7, all of them during the same (67-70)
>period!  

Yes, Fischer dominated.  Larsen also was very strong during that 
time, but everytime Fischer met the players you mentioned, he scored 
higher than they did.  How else would describe it them?

How do you determine which tournaments that these people won were 
important, anyway? 

>           During that same period Spassky only won 3 tournaments
>because he was on his way to the championship.  Fischer did not
>dominate between 67 and 70.  Fischer ran out of Sousse (Tunez)
>after having won over the players that finished in places:
>7, 8 and 17-20.  Larsen won that tournament, by winning over
>the players that finished in: 6-9, 11-13, 16, 18-22.
>Because Fischer ran out of Sousse some books misinform the
>reader by saying that Fischer was on "his way to the victory"
>when he left.  Fischer beat these known players:
>       Reshewsky, Stein, Barczay, Byrne, Cuellar,
>       Mjagmarsuren and Sarapu
>Not precisely elite players.

Hey! I thought Stein won 6 important tournaments around then!  And 
Fischer's win over Stein was one of his best efforts.  Fischer's win 
over Byrne was called "arrogance on the chessboard" because of its 
originality.  Fischer left the tournament with a score of 8.5 out of 
10 and was generally expected to win had he finished.

>>As far as I can tell, there are only a handful of players who ever had
>>"complete domination", all champions: Morphy, Capablanca, Alehkine, 
>>Tal (very briefly), Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov.  I suppose Lasker 
>>might be added to this list, but I don't personally think so.
>
>Again, not necesarily talking about domination, talking about
>players with more interesting chess productions than Fischer's:
>       Nimzovistch, Tarrasch, Tchigorin, Rubinstein, Keres,
>       Bronstein, Korchnoi.

It's your opinion, but I disagree and I think most people would also.

>Sure Lasker didn't dominate, ha!  

I've already discussed this in email with some people, but it was 
just my opinion and I'm willing to say he did dominate.  

>                              Botvinnik and Smyslov are
>not fashionable anymore! anyhow they held the championship
>several times.  

It seems to me that holding the championship several times means you 
lost it several times, which implies a lack of domination.  And to 
say that Smyslov dominated is really a joke.  Bronstein drew 
Botvinnik, so why not add him to the list?

>                 Petrosian has been forgotten also, he at least
>was able to successfully defend his championship. 

I haven't forgotten him. I just don't think he dominated.
He was barely better than Spassky, Larsen, or Fischer during most of 
his reign.

>                                                   Fischer
>ran from Karpov because nobody was being affected by his
>bitching that time and he was going to get smashed (so he
>just chickened out), the same thing that he did when Fischer
>volunteered to play against Korchnoi (around 1978) and later
>simply chickened out.

On man's interpretation of history.

>Now lets see how he "really dominated virtually everything he
>participated in after 1966", those 6 tournaments:
>
>       Montecarlo, 1967
>               Fischer         7
>               Smyslov         6.5
>               Geller          6
>               Larsen          6
>       Fischer lost to Geller, but was able to collect more
>       points from the lesser players.  The points earned by
>       the first 4 players against each other:
>               Fischer         1.5
>               Smyslov         1.5
>               Geller          1.5
>               Larsen          1.5

What's this fascination with how people get points? It's common 
practice for GMs to defeat lesser players in more impressive style.  
Since Fischer has about the same winning percentage as Kasparov (last 
time I saw the figures), either Kasparov does the same thing or he 
loses to lesser players, which doesn't seem to the be case. 

Fischer lost to Geller (his life-long bete noir), but he beat Larsen.
Point?

>       Skopje, 1967
>               Fischer         13.5
>               Geller          13
>               Matulovic       13
>       Again Fischer lost to Geller.
>       The points earned by the first 3 players against each other:
>               Fischer         1
>               Geller          2
>               Matulovic       0

More of this who-beat-whom stuff.  Fischer won the tournament, didn't he?

>       Natanija, 1968
>       Fischer won by 3.5 points.  No elite players in this tournament.
>       The M. Geller that finished 12th WAS NOT "the" Geller.

Your book said it was an important tournament, not me.

>       Vinkovci, 1968
>       Fischer won by 2 points.  No elite players in this tournament
>       either.

I believe Hort and Matulovic qualified as elite players at the time.

>       Zagreb, 1970
>               Fischer         13
>               Gligoric        11
>               Smyslov         11
>               Hort            11
>               Korchnoi        11
>               Petrosian       10.5
>       Points earned among these players:
>               Fischer         3
>               Gligoric        3
>               Smyslov         2
>               Hort            2.5
>               Korchnoi        2.5
>               Petrosian       2
>       Fischer won over Gligoric.

I appreciate you typing in all this information. It shows how much Fischer 
dominated during this period. :-)

>       Palma de Mallorca, 1970, Interzonal
>               Fischer         18.5
>               Larsen          15
>               Geller          15
>               Huebner         15
>       Fischer won by 3.5 points, Fischer lost to Larsen.
>       Points earned among these players:
>               Fischer         1.5
>               Larsen          2
>               Geller          1.5
>               Huebner         1
>       Again Fischer was better against the players that finished
>       outside of the first places.  Again average results against
>       the top players, no domination.

How do you score over 80% in a tournament, and not dominate? Who won 
the contest by 3.5 points? Maybe they should have given it to Larsen 
since he beat Fischer again?  He only scored 65%, you know.

I was enjoying this. Why did you leave out Buenos Aires, 1970? Okay, 
it wasn't in your book, but Fischer won by 3.5 points with 15/17 = 
88%, going undefeated. It included players like Tukmakov, Smyslov, 
Mecking, Panno.  

>Fischer had 8 first places in "important tournaments" during his
>lifetime, Keres had 20, Korchnoi had 17 before 1973, all of them
>before reaching his peak, just to mention two who never made it to
>the championship and had better results and had lots of more interesting
>games than Fischer.

So Fischer had a career of beating and finishing higher than people 
who had better results and played more interesting chess than he did?  
You know, Fischer has a plus score against every player you've 
mentioned, except Geller, and the odd player like Huebner whom he 
only played once (and drew).

>Do you still think that Fischer dominated during the 67-70 period ?

I think you know the answer by now.

>Just in case, here you have more history from that period.
>When the U.S.S.R. against the rest of the world match of 1970
>was planned, Fischer accepted to play behind Larsen, Larsen played
>in the first table and Fischer in the second.  Fischer simply
>accepted this because he knew that Larsen had had better results
>during that 67-70 period.  As Larsen indicated when it was hinted
>that Fischer might wish to play in the first table (my translation):
>
>       "In these last years, I have won more important international
>       tournaments than Fischer in his whole life, and seven of
>       them in front of Soviet Grand Masters of first rank."
>
>Even Fischer agreed with this, Fischer knew that Larsen was the
>better player during that period, so Fischer quietly accepted the
>second table, remember that Fischer is not the type that simply
>accepts stuff, he certainly agreed with this.

Fischer had not played in 18 months, that's why he agreed to take the 
second board. Fischer agreed to this because Larsen had had better 
results recently: Fischer hadn't played!  Again, it's odd that the 
superior Larsen finished 3.5 points behind Fischer eight months 
later.

>Please, ignore all the publicity of the 70s.  Haven't you ever wondered
>why most of Fischer's games seem so dull?  

I hadn't even heard of Analtoly Karpov until 1980, so I have no idea 
about the publicity of the 70s.  And, no, it never occurred to me to 
think that Fischer's games were dull.

>                                          Why is it that most of his
>"smashing" wins where over unknown oponents?  

I don't think this is unusual, and you'll be able to find quite a few 
beautiful games against strong opponents. Most aren't even smashes, 
just masterful positional strangulations.   The readers of this must 
be tired by now, so I won't present a list. I'm sure they all know 
what I'm talking about anyway. 

>                                           Fischer happened to win
>the title because he was able to affect the other players with his
>bitching and was even able to affect Spassky.  Fischer caught the
>U.S.S.R. chess player production machine in a generational gap
>and was able to make it that time.  Everybody knew that Spassky was
>lazy, even Korchnoi had predicted that Spassky would only keep
>the title for 3 years.  Geller who had a positive record against
>Fischer was Spassky's "second", maybe Geller had his own plans for
>his future against Fischer and might have been more convenient
>for him if Fischer won over Spassky, maybe Geller didn't really
>helped Spassky as much as was expected from him.

Wild, man!  Very strange ideas.

>Fischer helped Chess because he brought publicity and money to the
>game (none of which makes Fischer's games any more interesting).
>He also became very popular in the U.S.A. because he was able to
>win the championship.
>
>By the way, did you know that Fischer *** NEVER *** won a single
>game against a world champion until his match with Spassky?

Why, yes, I did!

>He won against "ex-champions" he never won over a "current" champion,
>how could he dominate the chess elite if he could not even manage
>to win over _the_ champion?

Well, he only lost to the current champion once, also.  Truth is, he 
never met the current champion that often in competition.  For 
instance, at the 1966 Olympiad in Havana, Petrosian and Fischer were 
vying for the Best First Board title.  When the USSR played the US, 
Petrosian magically took a day off and Spassky played instead (Boris 
narrowly got a draw).  Petrosian won the title with a 11.5/13=88.46% 
score versus Fischer's 15/17=88.24%, even though Fischer played four 
more games.

>Do you still place Fischer in the same league as Capablanca, Alehkine,
>Karpov or Kasparov?

You bet!

David Fry                                  fry@math.harvard.edu
Division of Applied Sciences               fry@huma1.bitnet
Harvard University                      ...!harvard!huma1!fry
Cambridge, MA  02138            
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess