GREG FINALLY AGREES WITH US

Greg Kennedy has reached dulcet accord with us.
He also now appears to agree with John Hillery.

Namely, if as Greg argued, FIDE's title is that
organization's property to dispense and dispose of,
then Bobby Fischer was indeed still world champion
in 1975. Larry Evans' account and, indeed, his use
of the term "selfmate" was both accurate and
contained a nice referential, low-key pun.

It is fine that Greg is now in agreement with
yours truly and John Hillery. He required a bit of
prodding, and he never knew that FIDE still considered
Bobby champion even after his letter of resignation.
History, which is Greg's much-hated great conspiracy
of knowledge, has stabbed him in the back once again.

Finally, Greg has been going on and on about the
Karpov-Polugaevsky game from Tilburg. Juergen and he
dislike the on-the-scene testimony of Yasser Seirawan.

I warrant that most of you realize that Seirawan
was not discussing a single move made by Polu but
the evident disdain and facial gestures and Karpov's
weasel-like embarrassment during the entire endgame.
In short, Polu was doing his duty but letting everyone
who watched know what was happening.

As for Spassky, he was punished by Soviet
authorities after finishing ahead of Karpov in a
Spanish international tournament. Polugaevsky more
or less acted as ordered; Spassky, whom Fischer beat
badly, finished ahead of Tolya at a time when such a
result was deemed anti-Soviet. He received sanctions
and eventually moved to France and became what
wascalled a one-legged dissident -- one foot inside
Russia and one foot outside..
..
Yours, Larry Parr





help bot wrote:
On May 4, 4:34 am, wrote:

You can argue this one either way. In June of 1974, when FIDE wouldn't
agree to his match conditions, Fischer wrote the letter resigning his
"FIDE title." In September of 1974, Karpov won the final Candidates
Match. In that sense, Kennedy's quibble is correct. However, in May-
June 1975, FIDE held another meeting and agreed to _almost_ all of
Fischer's conditions. They then sent Fischer a request to play, more
or less ignoring the "resignation" letter. When Fischer refused to
rely, Karpov was declared the winner by forfeit. Looked at that way,
Evans's account is fairly accurate -- by declining to play, Fischer
"gave" the title to his (known) opponent.


In 1975, Bobby Fischer was not in possession of
the FIDE title, so he was in no position to do any
such thing. The FIDE title, you see, is controlled
by *FIDE* (go figure), and it is *they* who do the
giving (or not). There is a thing called a "world
championship cycle", and so you see, the old
days wherein a single person gives "his" title or
refuses to defend it, are over and done with.

The real reason the Larry Evans account tries to
involve Anatoly Karpov is self-evident; Mr. Evans
has for decades been bashing AK as a supposed
villain; he seems to know only the mystery-
suspense-thriller genre, and no other. (IMO, this
was more of a Dr. Strangelove style tragi-comedy.)


-- help bot