(Louis Blair) wrote in message . com...
Wlodzimierz Holsztynski wrote (2004-02-01 14:00:24 PST):
Karpov avoided "succesfully" a championship match against Fischer.
_
If Wlodzimierz Holsztynski wants to blame Karpov for failing to agree to a
requirement that he would have to try to finish two or more points ahead of
Fischer, it seems to me that he should be explicit about this instead of
using vague language like, "avoided 'successfully'".

Dear Mr Blair,

I concur with you that Wlodzimierz Holsztynski could be more explicit in
his language about why he blames Anatoly Karpov. But it seems to me that
Mr Holsztynski already has been clear enough in expressing his vehement
opinion that Bobby Fischer's demanded "two point margin of victory" condition
was a fair one, and that Karpov was wrong, stupid, cowardly, dishonest, and
unfair to Fischer not to have accepted it.

"Karpov could easily make a statement that 9:9 clause is no big deal (indeed,
it was not). He could say: I want to play. Instead he chose to cooperate
with the Soviet Federation in avoiding ther math (sic). He chose not to play."
--Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (7 December 2003, in this thread)

On the other hand, if Anatoly Karpov had been the champion and Bobby Fischer
had been the challenger, then would Wlodzimierz Holsztynski have regarded
the "two point margin of victory" condition as a fair one that Fischer should
have accepted?

As far as I can tell, Wlodzimierz Holsztynski's judgment of the merits of the
proposed 1975 Fischer-Karpov match conditions seems to be distorted by his
strong personal partiality or prejudice toward each of those players.

Here are some statements by Wlodzimierz Holsztynski about Fischer and Karpov:

"All chess players and people interested in the modern chess history have
plenty of examples of how sharp, how profound is Fischer's mind is in general
(outside the chess board), except for his sick, degenerated racist nonsense.
He goes straight to the core of issues."

"Fischer's great intellectual ability goes way beyond chess.
It is scary that such a wonderful mind can degenerate so bad."

"Anatoly Karpov is the SHAME of world chess."

"(Karpov) doesn't deserve any true friendship, he's good at the most
for some dirty pacts."

"Yes, Karpov is a very strong player, while he is a very low creature, a
poor excuse for a human being. That's how he will always be remembered
by the chess history."

"I have never insulted anybody, and certainly it hardly possible to insult
Karpov."
--Wlodzimierz Holsztynski

--Nick

"Bobby Fischer had sent in a number of demands ... Some
of these were conceded ... But two demands were rejected.
... Numerous telegrams had been sent to the Congress by
Fischer via his spokesman, Fred Cramer. The last one said
that, in the light of FIDE's decisions, he was resigning his
FIDE world-championship title. ... Another attempt was
made to bring the FIDE and Fischer into complete accord,
when Colonel Edmondson (U.S. Chess Federation) asked
for the summoning of an extraordinary meeting of the FIDE
Congress. There being a sufficient number of countries in
agreement, it duly assembled at Bergen-aan-Zee in the
Netherlands from 18 to 20 March, 1975. It was an
extraordinary congress in every sense of the word, and
eventually, after much heated discussion, one of Fischer's
demands was conceded: the match was to have a limitless
number of games. But Fischer's other demand - that a
draw be declared when the situation reached nine to nine
- was rejected by a majority of three. Fischer's words on
hearing this were, 'It's all over then.' No match took place.
Fischer ignored the request to say by 2 April whether or not
he would play, and Karpov became the new world champion"
- Golombek (1976)

"Many have rather cynically described [Fischer] as
engaging in 'gamesmanship.' It seems more likely
that the capture of the title led to an emotional
upset of serious proportions. His conditions for
the match with Karpov seem motivated more by inner
fantasies than anything else. Thus so far he has
not played a serious game of chess since he became
champion. There is the grave danger that he may
never play again." - Fine (1976)