Taylor Kingston wrote:
LiamToo wrote:
That Bxh2!! was the most brilliant move that Fischer ever made. It was
even a draw after that but, it had to be done. It was simply a stroke
of genius.

As far as I know, this interpretation is unwarranted by the facts. I
believe the final verdict is that objectively, 29...Bxh2? was a bad
move, one that turned a theoretical draw into a loss. Extensive
analysis by Olafsson and Timman, on pages 38-40 of "Fischer World
Champion" (New In Chess, 2002) demonstrates this. That Spassky later
erred, playing 36.a4 instead of 36.Kg4, does not change 29...Bxh2? from
a bad move to good.


Uh-oh. You are using logic here, and thus there is no
way they are going to be able to comprehend.


The path to a draw allowed by 36.a4 was as narrow
as a wasp's waist, and Fischer failed to find it, playing 39...f5?
instead of 39...e5, and so ultimately he lost.


Oddly enough, Fischer's diehard fans have little trouble
in admitting he lost this one game; where they falter is
in admitting he made any bad moves, except "deliberately".


If Fischer were a poker player, he could have been a great
one too. As they sat down to play, Bobby saw poker tells from Spassky.
He saw fear.

Highly debatable. Fischer himself said "I don't believe in
psychology, I believe in strong moves."


He lied. Fischer was a practicing psycho logist. Okay,
maybe not a logist.


What would a genius do to strenghten Spassky's confidence and make the
entire match interesting? Bxh2!! and then game 2.

I would instead tend to agree with Edmondson's assessment that,
psychologically speaking, it was 11...Nh5 in game 3 that beat Spassky,
if such a thing can be attributed to any single move.


I'm sorry, but that was just another weak move on Fischer's
part. The fact that Spassky failed to find a refutation OTB tells
us nothing about Fischer, only Spassky.

Several of Fischer's games against Spassky show him
getting strategically outplayed, so his dire need to win
was frustrated except insofar as he could do so by means
of inferior moves/plans. Tactically, Fischer was superior in
that match. And chess is 93.2% tactics....

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