From: hyde@cs.dal.ca (Bill Hyde)
Subject: Re: fischer-spassky
Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 16:46:41 GMT

To: 
Subject: Re: fischer-spassky - rec.games.chess #14630

In article <1992Sep9.224734.21830@leland.Stanford.EDU>, dkeisen@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dave Eisen) writes:
|> In article <BuBwxJ.1wv@cs.dal.ca> hyde@cs.dal.ca (Bill Hyde) writes:
|> >In article <1992Sep9.181559.28959@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>, bwatkins@nyx.cs.du.edu (The God of all machines) writes:
|> >|> Witness the USSR's players keeping fischer out of the championship
|> >|> in the 60's.  "The Russians Fix World Chess"
|> >
|> >	You forgot to include the :-)  Or are you really paranoid
|> >	enough to believe this?
|> 
|> 
|> I believe they did. It is easy enough, when 6 players from the same 
|> country are playing in the same interzonal,

	This doesn't help your case, I'm afraid.  They never
	succeeded in preventing fischer from qualifying from an
	interzonal.  Indeed, only fischer ever managed to do that
	(Sousse, 1967). 

	Perhaps you mean the Candidates events?  Then how do you
	explain the 64 and 67 cycles (both won by Spassky) which were
	elimination events?  Remember, the original poster said
	"in the 60's".

	Perhaps your case reduces to the era of candidates tournaments,
	(i.e. 1962 and earlier).  The '62 tournament did indeed have
	five (not six) Soviets (not russians, only one of them would
	live in what is now russia).  And how did these soviets do?
	Tal finished at the bottom (ill health), Kortchnoi in the
	middle (near Fischer), Geller third, Keres second and Petrosian
	first.  The top three were in a furious fight for the right
	to challenge Botvinnik.  Given Botvinnik's tendency to lose matches,
	victory in the tournament meant a very good shot at the
	championship.  Can you really imagine Keres coaching Petrosian
	or Geller in their games with fischer, depriving himself of the
	championship he'd been trying for for 25 years?  Certainly
	if either of them coached Keres, the results were insignificant.
	Keres would have qualified in both 59 and 62 if he could have
	amassed as good a score against fischer as his rivals did.

	Fischer was simply not mature enough as a player to have a chance
	of winning that tournament (not to speak of '59) and he refused
	to play in the next two.

	Insufficient evidence for a serious conspiracy against
	Fischer.


|> 
|> Go back 25 years to a much more repressive Soviet government in
|> a sport that is crucial to national self-esteem. And set it up
|> where one of the best players is from your sworn enemy, the US.
|> And 6 out of the next 10 or so top players are from the USSR. And 
|> Fischer didn't qualify.

	What is this last sentence supposed to mean?  You seem to
	be implying that the fact that he didn't qualify implies
	that there was cheating.  Even if all the soviets in the
	'62 tournament were slightly worse than fischer (and most of
	them were better) and even if they did not cheat at all,
	the odds would be against him winning.
|> 
|> And you really think the Soviets didn't cheat?

	I really think you don't make accusations against *people*,
	Keres, Geller, Tal, Petrosian, etc, without *evidence*.
	Accusations without evidence - the name for that is
	slander.
	
	All you have tried to establish is a motive to cheat.

	If they were so keen on cheating to keep fischer out, why was
	the format changed after 62 to conform with fischer's wishes?
	


						Bill Hyde
Department of Oceanography
Dalhousie University,
Halifax, Nova Scotia
hyde@Ice.ATM.Dal.Ca or hyde@dalac
Newsgroups: rec.games.chess