ChessBanter - View Single Post - Bobby Fischer has been reinstated in the USCF

**help bot**

wrote:

Bxh2?!?

The first match game against Spassky in 1972 wasn't
the only time that Fischer tried to win a drawn position
and lost. He refused a draw against Florian Gheorghiu
at the 1966 Chess Olympiad in Havana, which cost
Bobby the gold medal on board one.

A mixed up jumble of verbiage from Mr. Parr; it would have
been far more *rational* to write that Fischer turned down a
draw offer and went on to lose. The suggestion that the game
with Gheorghiu was "a drawn position" is absurd -- even by
Larry Parr's standards. In fact, from the get-go, both players
(not just Fischer) played for the win, and although Fischer
gave it the old college try, his plans backfired on the board.

There was, however, one striking similarity between this
game and the one with Spassky; in both cases, Fischer
fought hard in an inferior ending, but still lost in the end.

Another similarity with the Spassky match is Fischer's
tendency to all too often play his Knight to the rim of the
board, for tactical reasons. In the game with Gheorghiu
(that's a bitch to spell, ain't it?), Fischer's Knight was soon
seen to be out of position, his intended attack having failed.
But in the match with Spassky, an inferior Knight-to-the-rim
led to a decisive victory in one game for our hero.

Ignorant speculations aside, the real reason Fischer lost
the Gheorghiu game was that he was outplayed. The real
reason he lost the game to Spassky was that he overlooked
a move; he miscalculated. In the first game White appeared
to be playing passively, and this Fischer attempted to "refute"
with sharp play. In the Spassky game, Fischer simply played
the "correct" move, Bxh2, correct that is, if it weren't for his
miscalculation. Had Fischer's calculations been correct,
White would have been inflicted with a slight pawn weakness
after Bxh2, and thus, any decent player would have done
precisely the same thing. IMO, had this worked, the idea
that the inferior side can easily hold would not have occurred
to Fischer fanatics; on the contrary, they would have found
some "winning line" to explain away the draw. It is very,
very hard for some people to accept that Spassky made no
mistake in the opening, created no weakness for our hero
to pounce upon. They simply can't accept that no matter
how good Fischer may have been, he can't win by force of
willpower alone!

-- help bot