On Dec 6, 10:42 am, " wrote:

Bobby's most important strength as a competitor was his fierce killer
instinct. "Each day I go in like an unknown to prove myself," he said.
And he did. He was uncompromising, he hated draws and fought most of
his games to the bitter end. His greatest weakness probably was using
the same openings over and over.

I'm often asked whether Fischer or Kasparov was the better player.

At the time this comment was made, GK was still
playing chess, so it's not exactly clear why the past
tense was chosen here.


That's a tough one, but I must pick Kasparov because he has a greater
body of work over a longer span of time. Bobby, however, did it on his
own without coaches or subsidies. "If I win a tournament, I win it by
myself. I do the playing. Nobody helps me," he proclaimed.

Kasparov was rated number one for nearly 20 years, an incredible feat
in any sport. Most champions have a period when they are virtually
invincible and Fischer's reign was brief, almost meteoric. He burned
out when he reached his peak, whereas Kasparov kept improving. I think
all we can say with certainty is that the gap between Fischer and his
rivals in 1972 was greater than the gap that exists now between the
world champion and his rivals.

Larry Parr neglected to note the date referred to
above as "now", but a bit of research would no doubt
debunk the claim in any case.

At his very peak, BF was FIDE rated 2785, about
85 points or so ahead of rivals like Boris Spassky
and Mikhail Tal. By comparison, Gary Kasparov
at his peak was about that same distance ahead
of his closest rivals.

That's the trouble with being objective: you have to
live with the facts instead of always tweaking them
to suit one's every whim.


Chess is different today. Now players have vast databases at their
fingertips and openings have been analyzed so extensively that master
games often begin in earnest after a dozen moves instead of move one.

One description of how certain GMs used to
prepare in the old days had a remarkably similar
scenario; the key difference was in the use of
computers, which are more efficient at this type
of work and which afford a much larger database
of games.


Over 30 years ago Bobby saw the writing on the wall. "Someday
computers will make us all obsolete," he told me....

In one of his radio rants, Bobby boasted: "I object to being called a
chess genius, because I consider myself to be an all around genius who
just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of
garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he is like
an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing. He and Karpov are
criminals who have been ruining chess with immoral, unethical, pre-
arranged games. They are the lowest dogs around."

That nonsense speaks for itself. Part of the problem is that Bobby
surrounded himself with lackeys and bootlickers who stroked his ego by

A practice later adopted by a close associate of
BF, as we have seen.


egging him on in all those damaging radio interviews that elicited the
wrath of the American government.

Let's not forget about the spitting incident from
1992; the arrest may not have occurred until years
later, but the indictment was already handed down.


I agree with what Kasparov wrote several years ago in The Wall Street
Journal: "Fischer demolished the Soviet chess machine but could build
nothing in its place. He was an ideal challenger - but a disastrous
champion."

The Soviet chess machine is still chugging
along, thank you. What will finally "demolish"
it is Fritzrybka, in an attack of blinding speed
and [CPU] power!


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