HE COULDA BEEN A CONTENDAH

Note to imbecilic "projectionists": my view is
that chess is a horrible *waste* of the human
intellect. As such, the weaker you may be
(and I expect you are mediocre, at best), the
better off you are, for you will be less likely to
get sucked in and waste your pitiful lives away
on a silly board game. -- Greg Kennedy

When you can't excel at something, put it down. By his own admission
the Indiana Kid coulda been a contendah if only he had lived in
Brooklyn like Bobby.

THIS CRAZY WORLD OF CHESS by GM Larry Evans (page 292)

"Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find
outside of an advertising agency," sneered novelist Raymond Chandler.





help bot wrote:
On May 9, 2:02 pm, "Chess One" wrote:

It seems likely that this particular blather was a
response to the innumerable attacks "on Karpov",
but by others.

Sorry, that sentence doesn't parse.

One of these others was of course,
Gary Kasparov, who continued to belittle his
adversary until he signed a contract forbidding it,
not very long ago.

'these others'? Did you announce your own topic yet?

Got issues with not always being parroted or
your speculations not just being swallowed whole,
every time? Then this is not the place for you, my
friend; why not go to the USCF forum, and hire
"moderators" to shield your speculations from
sunlight?


What I wrote is that Karpov fessed up to things he did as world champion,
that he later was not proud of, and that he is the first I know to have done
this in writing.

Indeed. And what I wrote is that I believe he
wrote that /in response to/ the innumerable
attacks on him. In sum, I don't buy it, any
more than I "buy" the lies and fabrications of
Mr. Karpov's nemesis, Gary "I never touched it"
Kasparov. (At least, I don't think I touched it.
Somebody else must have moved it! You can't
prove anything. Top of the world, Ma!)


Fischer had no especial financial woes [laugh]

Alas, the nearly-an-IM legend-in-his-own-mind
Phil Innes has forgotten that Mr. Fischer -- who
one poster asserted was likely a fine investor
and manager of money -- was swindled out of
much of his 1972 winnings... like a child.

As I recall, Mr. Fischer desired a big house,
built in the shape of a Rook. He wanted to be
paid big money, like Muhammed Ali was. But
he was too scared to write books, on account
of everyone being out to get him, see?


As far as the public was concerned there was no Fischer-the-person, there
was only the chess hero.

You are talking about the mindless fans here
in the USA. But there are others who read
English... who were not so obsessed, or
deluded about BF. In fact, David Levy wrote
a book about Mr. Fischer, which, far from
going over the top, was as they say on the
Fox TV channel, /fair and balanced/.

Some subjects upon which BF might have
"safely" written were the Sicilian Defense, the
"Roy" Lopez, and the endgame. None of
these entail /personal/ issues, nor even hero
worship. People would buy them because
they believed BF to be a very strong chess
analyst (think of GM Huebner or Fritz-- two
powerful analysts who never made it to the
pinnacle).


And when heroes don't compete any more for us, we
the public resent the fact, and want to punnish the Hero.

Even so, it is possible for the "hero" to help
promote chess -- and make lots of money from
it -- by writing books and such without having
to compete. (Think of how many Raymond
Keene hack-jobs the world could have been
saved! Eric Schiller could have been a taxi
driver or something, and we would all have
/real/ chess books to pore over.)


The fate of abandoned-celebrity is to be treated just as you have done here
with Karpov and Kasparov. You can no longer fantasize yourself into their
situations

I keep getting the feeling that some of the hacks
here in rgc are a tad frustrated; that they feel a
need to /project/ upon me their hearts' greatest
unfulfilled desires of greatness in chess. (Why
me, I wonder? Is it my innumerable wins at
GetClub? My good looks, or amazing charm or
wit? Who knows... .)


neither can you get there by you own efforts - intolerable
situation! - [for fantacists] so you 'kill' him still, even though Fischer
is dead.

More ad hom. stuff, as always.

Note to imbecilic "projectionists": my view is
that chess is a horrible *waste* of the human
intellect. As such, the weaker you may be
(and I expect you are mediocre, at best), the
better off you are, for you will be less likely to
get sucked in and waste your pitiful lives away
on a silly board game.

Now then, what constitutes something more
worthwhile? The easy answer is the field of
medicine, or science, or even sharpening
pencils for that matter. What might be worse
than wasting one's life away on chess? Well,
there is politics, lawyering, the advertising
business, and the /ad hominem/ trade.

Now, I hope you learned something from all
this. Stop your puerile projections, and face
your "issues" head-on, like men. (Well, just
*pretend* to be men then.)


-- help bot