The Life and Chess of Bobby Fischer
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- In this lecture, given October 29, 2014, at Center64 (www.center64.com), Lucas Anderson provides biographical information about Bobby Fischer while FM Warren Harper analyzes three important games. Pulling details from several excellent books, including Endgame by Dr. Frank Brady, this presentation offers insight into Fischer's childhood, his meteoric rise, and his prolonged absence from chess.
This is part 7 of a 12 part series on former champions, with next month looking at Victor Korchnoi.
You do well to point out that 2785 was actually more impressive than most people now realize. You should also mention that the FIDE rating system is inflationary. It drives me insane to see people comment things like, "The players today are superior to the players back then it's obvious from the ratings."
Dan Kelly It's my opinion. There's no quicker way to start an argument than to state that FIDE ratings are inflated and that X would crush Carlsen if he still played/had access to the same training/the moon set in Aquarius. What I put forth, and will do so again in the Kasparov lecture, is that when Kasparov was in the 2800s, the only player in the 2700s was Karpov! It's not the same situation as now, where 2-3 players have ratings over 2800, and dozens are over 2700.
The ratings started a steep climb starting in 1985. So what was Kasparov in 1985?
Also remember that Fischer stopped playing after he won the WCC in 1972 he may have climbed more had he kept playing.
Dan Kelly
Perhaps it was a result of gradual and greater availability of computers for analysis of chess games.
StopFear You do realize how the rating system works? Rating points are not assigned to players from a vacuum. They are taken and given from player to player. This means that in a properly administered system the total number of points in the rating pool is supposed to remain constant. So even if every player improves the average rating remains the same.
Lucas Anderson You could make the same argument to support the premise that Fischer would be equal to today's best, (assuming he was given time to catch up on theory). I'm not sure based on your wording but anyway if you research it you will see that after Elo stopped being in charge of the rating system there was a corresponding increase in ratings across the board which was faster than before Elo was replaced. I'm sure you are aware that the FIDE rating system is not an absolute system and it gets tinkered with arbitrarily.
Bobby Fischer proved what can be done when a smattering of talent is fused with shear determination to win.
The videos are awesome but man, the noise is unbearable....
lemmingbcn I listened to the last lecture on headphones (for the first time) and I agree with you. Next week I'll be taking several steps to try to address this, including a powered USB hub for the mic and recording the audio in Audacity instead of Camtasia.
Excellent this is really interesting and well presented. Thank you.
Watched the video of Bobby on the Bob Hope show, just after he won the title (Bobby that is, not Bob!). He seemed finally at peace with himself and the world then, making cracks at his own expense. I loved the bit when he's at the chessboard, looks suspiciously around and asks if there are any cameras. So sad that he became the man who said all those dreadful things after 9/11 and all that.
Just want to say thank you for these lovely programmes. Lucas and Warren work together very well. The programmes are well researched and absorbing. Okay, there's no motion videos to watch, but that makes the achievement of Lucas and Warren in holding one's interest all the greater. Look forward to forthcoming episodes. Thanks again for posting.
Martin Mitchell We did try live video once, but I didn't feel it added anything to the presentation (and it made it a heck of a lot harder to edit). I may re-visit it though. Thank you for your kind words!
I'm going to be controversial and say I was disappointed in this lecture. It seemed to pick 2 games where Warren spent most of the time telling us how Fischer had made a mistake and his opponent could have drawn. In all the other lectures all the games picked were designed to show how skillful the player in question was. Instead we get told how Taimanov could have drawn his game several times, and that Fischer "thought this was crushing but black can save himself here," in the Larsen game. At times is was almost dismissive of his abilities.
You're certainly welcome to that opinion, and it's a fair point. What if, however, Taimanov missed the drawing opportunities because Fischer intimidated him? Part of his phenomenal winning streak was the anxiety he provoked in his opponents!
Lucas Anderson
Had the point about intimidation been made it would have mitigated somewhat. However if I was a novice I might have come away from Warrens analysis thinking "Fischer only won because of his opponents repeated errors, not great calculation or technique." There are plenty of exceptional games Bobby played which show why he is still so revered.
Wow this is amazing. I just finished your lecture on Morphy and I cant get enough! Im gonna watch them all. Thanks for taking the time to make these and post them for us random strangers to enjoy!
Pedram Mohammad yes Morphy was some player wasn't he so good for his time and playing over his games he makes it look so simple and natural whereas most of us struggle with planning and execution in your normal game of chess
Lucas, your lecture is amazing. well researched, well presented. i really hope you do a lot more. thanks for sharing this, Ian
ian grosskurth Thank you! So far we've done 13, and have many more planned.
I'm sorry for Bobby, a sad end for a chess genius...
Thanks for this! I enjoyed it very much. One thing though, in the interest of accuracy: The picture you show of Zita Rajcsanyi at 2:16:00 is actually a picture of a young Hillary Rodham Clinton! You can reverse search the image on Google to see that I'm right.
+John Trocke You are right. Wow. This image appeared prominently in Google Image searches, because several chess sites incorrectly identify this as Zita Rajcsanyi.
Frank Brady authored and published some disparaging and quite frankly insulting details about Fischer. His last book, Endgame is insulting and insinuates in the title that Fischer descended into insanity, for which there is not a shred of empirical evidence. I find it incredulous that you honour him in this way. He deserves to be tied to a whipping post soundly thrashed with a hardback edition of his deplorable tome! Apart from that the video is awesome.
I disagree. First, the title says "edge of madness", not "insanity". Those are two different things. Second, there is substantial corroborating evidence about Fischer's mental state--I'd highly recommend you read Dr. Ponterotto's book "The Psychobiography of Bobby Fischer", which I discuss in the presentation and which delves much deeper into Fischer's psyche. Third, Dr. Frank Brady knew Bobby Fischer personally, going back to at least 1960. With the possible exception of Russell Targ, Bobby's brother-in-law, there may be no one on the planet who knows Fischer's story better than Dr. Brady. This is someone who had countless conversations with Fischer, and knew almost everyone Bobby knew.
You're free to disagree with Dr. Brady, but don't impeach his credibility or advocate his abuse, please.
Lucas Anderson The title itself implies that Fischer descended into madness, how you interpret madness is your affair but to any rational thinking individual it is self evident that it infers a state of deteriorating mental health, otherwise you will explain precisely what he actually did mean when he used the term, madness, in not insanity? Secondly you have as yet not produced a shred of credible evidence other than an appeal to the authority of a third party which infers that Fischer was mentally ill and lastly the fact that Brady knew Fischer in this instance is entirely irrelevant, why? because Fischer would have nothing to do with Brady after he published blatantly false claims in his book, Profile of a chess prodigy, a reference to Fischers alleged Jewish faith which Fischer asked him to remove on reading the transcript, but which Bradys publishers would not acquiesce to. The implications of this are to refute the assertion that Brady new Fischer later in life, he most certainly did not because Fischer broke off all correspondence with him afterwards. Brady has in my opinion no credibility, he is just another person that has attempted to make money from Fischers name. If you think that is laudable then that is your affair, personally I find his conduct morally reprehensible.
He deserves what?! Someone, at least, is descending into insanity.
You are familiar with the use of hyperbole i take it?
MSK Chess Fischer always thought someone was out to get him. Some of this was somewhat substantiated, but much of it was not. He believed the USCF and the Jews that ran it (his thinking, not mine) conspired to promote Sammy Reshevsky over him. He believed that after he won the World Championship that the KGB would try to assassinate him. He believed that after he fled the U.S. in 1992 that they would arrest him abroad or kill him.
Consider Fischer's radio addresses in The Philippines. He constantly rants about the Jewish conspiracy and the U.S. government. You can see a progression in his pronouncements, particularly between the press conferences during the 1992 match and the radio interviews in the early 2000's. What is interesting is that Fischer seems to have tempered his pronouncements (and maybe his attitude) after moving to Iceland.
To me, all this is compelling evidence.
At 2:15:45 isn't that just a photo of a young Hillary Clinton?
Yes:( As I explained in response to similar comments, this is my (and Google's) mistake.
I think the game you spoke of which was very long and Fischer refused to agree to a draw was with Mednis?
I thought I was finally going to watch a fair video about Bobby Fischer - in the end it is another hit piece against Bobby at the end - he had unpopular opinions - therefore his reputation must be destroyed. Very dissapointing.
I think my presentation does a decent job noting which opinions I disagree with but respect (e.g. antisemitism) and which opinions indicate deeper problems (e.g. Bobby having his fillings removed). Bobby's fellow chess players at the Manhattan Chess Club had serious misgivings about Bobby's mental state before he was even 16 years old, but overlooked them because he was such a brilliant chess player. Many people still do this.
"Max Oi-vey"
heh
Such a terrible shame with this background noise but still a great sequence. Next up will be Tal in this series.
Greetings from Norway and tnx for the effort
Terrible audio hum....distracting.
Had he not had terrible psychological issues, he could have been undoubtedly the greatest chess player ever. Imagine if he kept playing after he won the world championship.
+Shawn C Without his obsessiveness & other neuroses, he may not have been as good at chess.
Love to hear the nerds laugh at chess jokes.........
Thank you so much for this wonderfully interesting and entertaining talk about Bobby Fischer. I heard you say at 53:48 that Bobby attended Erasmus High School in Brooklyn, a private school. I believe that although it started way back when as a private school, it was a public high school by the time Bobby went there.
Peter Roemer You're right--thank you for the clarification!
+Peter Roemer "Thank you so much for this wonderfully interesting and entertaining talk about Bobby Fischer."
Agreed!
Also at the 48-min. mark Anderson speaks of Fischer's wanting to play Botvinnik in blitz in Moscow. He fails to mention that Botvinnik *never played blitz* -- avoided it entirely, on principle. This Anderson is a dilettante, not a real chess scholar at all.
porcospino289 I cover Botvinnik's distaste with blitz in the Soviet School of Chess lecture. I will also touch on it somewhat in Kasparov Part 2 later this week.Again, I do not claim to be a chess scholar. I created this series with Warren for our local chess club, and our intended audience includes the 15 people or so who attend the live lecture. We put the videos online in case others find the material interesting--if you do not, that's fine. If you want to put your own lectures online, I would welcome it.
I've added it to the "Watch later" section and I hope to "feel" the Life of Bobby.
I think the players today are the greatest in the history of the game. Not because they are more talented but because they are standing on the shoulders of their great predecessors. Chess understanding grows as time goes on.
ConsensusReality You're right that modern players benefit from their predecessors (and computer analysis). But I think this just makes the accomplishments of people like Fischer even more special. When Fischer entered the World Chess Championship match against Spassky, his rating was 125 points higher (2785 vs. 2660). I don't think that feat will ever be equaled.
Lucas Anderson Modern computer analysis suggests that in his peak years (67-72) Fischer played more "optimum moves" than any chess player in history. Obviously they have to ignore opening theory that would be unfair. Does not mean that Fischer was better than Kasparov but clearly "food for thought"
One could make a reasonable argument that the two most talented Chess players of all time were both American. And both were mentally ill. Fischer has repeatedly heaped the highest praise upon the boy genius from Louisiana (Paul Morphy) , btw. So sad.
LarryRickenbacker You could make that argument; but then again, there are so many talented players. I'm editing the lecture on Capablanca right now (trying to fix that audio issue), and you could make the case he was the most talented. I'm preparing a lecture for late June on less-known players who displayed remarkable talent.
Fantastic video!!!! Lucas Anderson has such a crisp, clear voice
Thank you. I've taught English outside of the U.S., and I credit that with forcing me to articulate clearly.
Lucas Anderson very good documentary
I would be interested in hearing of a professional psychological person who would be able to cast light on Bobby Fischer s behaviour after 1972 and why really did Bobby not defend his title in 1975
That was a big disappointment for us fisher fans in 1972
Have there been any professional reports written on him apart from people's opinions who may not be a professional in that field
Why didn't they talk about him playing in Washington Square Park in N.Y.C. as a kid and homing his skills against the chess hustlers and the black guy in the park who he was friends with
Darnell Branch Your thinking of someone else, Josh Waitzkin, the kid portrayed in the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer, which was about Josh not Bobby.
Joe Joeseph wow! i play their and i always heard the story he play'd their from the old timers....my mistake, thanks for the correction Joe.
***** I always heard that he play'd there
Darnell Branch You guys are right.... I since learned Fischer did it too...
thanks
Thankyou so much for this - its brilliant! A must for Fischer fans.
i liked the Frank Brady book and din't find it offensive to the great man.
I never thought i would be so enticed to chess history content. You clearly have a talent in this. I hope you will upload many more lectures, not only about the champions but other remarkable chess personalities also.
We hope to! If you have any requests, let me know.
Lucas Anderson Paul Morphy is an obvious candidate for a lecture. Like Fischer, he was a self-taught American who followed a meteoric trajectory. (Unlike Fischer, however, he had to invent modern chess himself.)
Wilhelm Steinitz, who transformed the Romantic chess of the 19th century into modern chess, is another candidate.
Lucas Anderson
Morphy, Lasker, Rubinstein, Capablanca, Efim Bogoljubov, Paul Keres...
Whoever you pick, it will be interesting
thanks
american chess? i commend the guy who mentioned Paul Morphy who pre dated Fischer by just about a century. although im from Brooklyn, N.Y. as Fischer was.
Brady's "Endgame" is a rehash of his earlier book "Bobby Fischer: Profile of a Prodigy" Even though I am an avid chess player when it comes to the life of a chess player I am really more into them than into their games. I am more into who they are and what drives them, nuances,personality,etc. If you have looked at the overall picture now of Nakamura vs. Carlsen in 2015 his record is much better against him now. The speaker keeps mentioning matches instead of game(s).
Lucas Anderson , Take a look at the games and history of Charousek ,Hungarian guy ,nicknamed "the comet" facsinating games and player , maybe worth considering as well.
Buzzbox3rd Thank you for the recommendation--I hadn't heard of Rudolf Charousek before, so I was very interested to learn more about him. Perhaps I could do a lecture on players lost in their prime (such as Pillsbury).
Lucas Anderson Yes ,because , it kinda adds to the mystique and even romance about the game we all love .I for one hope you do more of these Lucas as you put these together rather well ,i look forward to watching your work . Charouseks peers of the day used to laugh at him even ridicule him calling him names like "country bumpkin" they soon stopped that after he went into deep study with his close friend (fellow countryman and GM) his name has slipped my mind .You will learn that if you look into the guys amazing but short history cut down in his prime. Take care mate and good luck in all you do.
I think nobody mentioned that so far:
You know how to handle Powerpoint.
;-)
***** Thank you! I use it a fair bit in my work as a teacher. I prefer interactive smart boards, but PowerPoint suffices for drawing attention to key images, statistics, and quotes.
these series are so wonderfull. i am really interested in chess players life and biography etc. cuz there is so little knovledge around there on the net . if i want to find their games i can find anywhere its so easy .but biography and those kind of things very very rare o i apreciate it very much. keep up the good work- u are wonderfull thanks :D
Botvinnik said Taimanov would win. Could he say anything else?
Great lecture series - thank you. A smaller budgeted but well casted movie was completed on the 72' match entitled Pawn Sacrifice. It should be hitting theaters fairly soon. Hollywood didn't do too bad with John Nash or Alan Turing and I'm hopeful it will take some chances given the Cold War era/Fischer's complexity.
dkmangum1970 I've been following the development, but honestly I'm not sure if I will see it or not. I'm the type who does not watch movie adaptations of books I have loved. In this case, I feel like I know Fischer, Spassky, and the 1972 WCC very well, and I will be very disappointed if they get things wrong.
Fisher had a "genius " IQ but lacked common sense.
eg He was a Jew who hated Jews. Moreover on reading "Mein kampf" in 1967 he told Reshevsky a fellow Jew that it was a great book- much to the latter's bemusement and no doubt horror.
Still Fischer was a great chess player. Maybe the best of all .
Keith Bate Fischer vehemently denied being a Jew (ruclips.net/video/px2PoGr0AkE/видео.html). I see several different ways one could label themselves (and be labeled) Jewish: culturally, religiously, and/or ethnically. What we can say is that Fischer's mother and biological father (Paul Nemenyi) were both Jewish, but that Bobby was not culturally or religiously Jewish. He could rightly claim he was not a Jew (and you could rightly claim he was). Personally, I defer to his preference.
Also, Fischer somewhat hated Reshevsky and likely said that to provoke him. Bobby felt that Reshevsky was favored by the (largely Jewish) New York chess establishment and this granted him favorable tournament invitations.
Lucas Anderson Thanks for your kind reply and interesting points (not aware of most of these either)But re being a Jew. I think he and his family would have ended up in a Nazi concentration camp if they had lived in continental Europe during the Nazi era.
Very interesting, thanks for posting
These are amazing videos! I can't wait to see your work on Kasparov!
Anthony DiRenzo I'm working hard on the Kasparov lecture, in an attempt to do him justice. Already we're taking the exceptional move of dividing it into two parts so that we can devote time to the split from FIDE, his matches against IBM's computers, his political activity, his valued work as an author, etc.
Lucas Anderson Thanks! I hope you also do one on Pal Benko too. When I was a young teenager, Mr. Benko would occasionally visit the Jersey City YMCA and give us puzzles to solve over the board. I watched him play at the New Jersey open too.
This & the others are interesting & good, though i would prefer more chess games & a bit less personal life. The Soviets were professionals before Fischer btw.
tubewatcher38 There are many RUclips channels which do a great job of taking you through games by these players (notably Kingscrusher). We set out to do something else. You can always skip the biographical part if you don't enjoy it.
This was awesome. Thank you. Shared.
Informative...Appreciations
Nice video even though I do not like Bobby Fisher out side of his chess.
The reason you can't enjoy him outside of his chess, is because Bobby is chess. His life was dedicated to it. He worshiped it.
I said I like Bobby for his chess just all the other BSI find that I do not like. I fought in three wars and I do not think that his views are in the majority nor are they even remotely normal (but again can I call anything normal). I would die so he can speak his mind.
Dave Kearns I understand, and I totally agree. Yea, something about the mind when it comes to this kind of attachment to a universe of it's own; in this case he lived himself out on the chess board. That kind of obsession really warps the human mind to the point that there be such a struggle for him to relate to the universe we live in, which is just normal life. It's interestingly correlated how the pain in his childhood gave him this game as an addiction, a way to escape reality. I'm afraid that if he was to put the chess pieces down at any point it would have taken intensive therapy to restore this guy to rationale thinking again facing reality off a chess board. He couldn't turn the switch off, nor did he ever want to I presume.
Spitting Image
Hans Fischer was jewish? I think he is german
Throughout my lectures, I've tried to be sensitive to the fact that "jewish" is both a religion and an ethnicity. At some times, being "jewish" was considered mutually exclusive with being "german" or "russian". Yes, Hans Fischer was both German and Jewish. I make sure to establish this because Bobby Fischer later renounced his jewish heritage, even though both his mom and presumed (but not actual) dad were jewish.
I have a big defect - i always tend to point all the errors and not give praise. So take this with a grain of salt. And i dont know if somebody has already pointed this:
- In The game with Byrne, Bobby choose to give the mate with the rook (and not with other piece), based in a previous discussion that he had with someone (dont remember who), that claimed that it was impossible, in a real game, to give checkmate with that specific pattern.
- At 44.20 You have a table pointing that Fischer won the US Open Championship, 8 times. Probably someone already pointed that, but those are NOT hts results in the US OPEN. Thats the US Chess Championship. A closed round-robin tournament with the best US players, that is nowadays played in St.Louis and is the most prestigious tournament in US (like in almost all countries in the world). The US Open is a Swiss system tournament that is also played every year, where everybody can play (even foreigners). He played twice in the US Open (56 - finished 4th-8th and 57 he won it)
Now the good part - Thanks for posting all these videos for everybody have some more knowledge of chess history.
Fischer was an amazing player, but, and I've said this before, if I knew then what I know now, I would have rooted for Spassky.
very listenable presentation
+goldeneffect
you beat me to it, I also wanted to compliment the uploader with the pleasant drone humming around A 440 in the back..sorry ...foreground C O N T I N U O US L Y.. Very much in the spirit of what B. Fischer himself would probably approve.
+TICETOCAR If you listen with headphones, you will hear that sound in earlier videos--sorry. You will not hear it through your computer speakers (which is how I missed it when editing). In newer videos, I use a noise reduction algorithm when editing to remove this.
+Lucas Anderson
Thank you for addressing the issue! When watching your earlier talk on Alekhine, the odd throbbing background suggested a large UFO hovering over the building, no doubt listening keenly... ;)
A little later, "Anand" is mispronounced. *Many* blemishes in this video.
porcospino289 There are certainly some mistakes. If you wish to critique the video, use one comment instead of several and keep the tone civil. Regarding the pronunciation of "Anand", I've heard it different ways. I usually try to copy Daniel King's pronunciation.Understand that these presentations are given live, without a script and with very little editing. I make no claims of being an expert or historian. I do not present these as "professional". You may have noticed ads are turned off, as it is not my goal to derive income from this. Many have found these presentations interesting and even enlightening. If you do not, you are welcome to leave constructive criticism and/or move on.
Lucas Anderson
You are right that some of my tone was not civil. I apologize for that. My input is more corrective than "constructive criticism". The video is already made; there is nothing to construct. There is much to correct, as I indicated. I should also have put all the corrections in one comment. Daniel King is better than most commentators for pronunciation, but he makes mistakes. AH nuhnd (accent on the first syllable) means "happiness" in Hindi. Ask any of the tens of millions of Hindi speakers who also speak English. Anand is one of the greats of chess; one should learn the pronunciation of the names of such people, before saying them in a video seen by potentially tens of thousands of people on the internet. Some of the other errors in the video are even more basic -- those listed in my comments. Anyone who can read can easily find the date of an important match, so why publish wrong dates in a video? There were other errors I did not mention; I wearied of listing them. One was the fact that the FM presenting games was at a loss to explain some moves of a Fischer-Larsen Dragon for several minutes -- this should not happen even for an audience of 15, let alone one of tens of thousands. One doesn't waste people's time like this.
At time mark 1:38 you talk about Fisher being principled in not accepting the endorsement deals. I believe that maybe it was because he was nuts, but hey that is just different take on the same subject!
Perhaps it's a bit of both. Fischer didn't want people making money off of his name--he expected that money to go to him. However, even when he was offered crazy amounts of money (by some reports, up to $5 million), he still turned it down. Considering that he would later spend most of his life living in poverty, that's quite a statement.