Taylor Kingston wrote:
LiamToo wrote:
That Bxh2!! was the most brilliant move that Fischer ever made. It was
even a draw after that but, it had to be done. It was simply a stroke
of genius.

As far as I know, this interpretation is unwarranted by the facts. I
believe the final verdict is that objectively, 29...Bxh2? was a bad
move, one that turned a theoretical draw into a loss. Extensive
analysis by Olafsson and Timman, on pages 38-40 of "Fischer World
Champion" (New In Chess, 2002) demonstrates this. That Spassky later
erred, playing 36.a4 instead of 36.Kg4, does not change 29...Bxh2? from
a bad move to good. The path to a draw allowed by 36.a4 was as narrow
as a wasp's waist, and Fischer failed to find it, playing 39...f5?
instead of 39...e5, and so ultimately he lost.

If Fischer were a poker player, he could have been a great
one too. As they sat down to play, Bobby saw poker tells from Spassky.
He saw fear.

Highly debatable. Fischer himself said "I don't believe in
psychology, I believe in strong moves."

What would a genius do to strenghten Spassky's confidence and make the
entire match interesting? Bxh2!! and then game 2.

I would instead tend to agree with Edmondson's assessment that,
psychologically speaking, it was 11...Nh5 in game 3 that beat Spassky,
if such a thing can be attributed to any single move.

Have you read the opinion of Karpov on this move? If not, then research
it.
It's similar to mine.

LiamToo wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
LiamToo wrote:
That Bxh2!! was the most brilliant move that Fischer ever made. It was
even a draw after that but, it had to be done. It was simply a stroke
of genius.

As far as I know, this interpretation is unwarranted by the facts. I
believe the final verdict is that objectively, 29...Bxh2? was a bad
move, one that turned a theoretical draw into a loss. Extensive
analysis by Olafsson and Timman, on pages 38-40 of "Fischer World
Champion" (New In Chess, 2002) demonstrates this. That Spassky later
erred, playing 36.a4 instead of 36.Kg4, does not change 29...Bxh2? from
a bad move to good. The path to a draw allowed by 36.a4 was as narrow
as a wasp's waist, and Fischer failed to find it, playing 39...f5?
instead of 39...e5, and so ultimately he lost.

If Fischer were a poker player, he could have been a great
one too. As they sat down to play, Bobby saw poker tells from Spassky.
He saw fear.

Highly debatable. Fischer himself said "I don't believe in
psychology, I believe in strong moves."

What would a genius do to strenghten Spassky's confidence and make the
entire match interesting? Bxh2!! and then game 2.

I would instead tend to agree with Edmondson's assessment that,
psychologically speaking, it was 11...Nh5 in game 3 that beat Spassky,
if such a thing can be attributed to any single move.

Have you read the opinion of Karpov on this move? If not, then research
it. It's similar to mine.

I would guess you are referring to pages 343-345 of "Russians versus
Fischer (2nd edition, 2005), which has extensive comments on this move
by various Soviet players and officials: Botvinnik, Bondarevsky,
Krogius, Spassky himself, and Karpov. They contradict each other to a
great extent, and I see no reason to give more credence to any of them,
including Karpov, over Fischer himself or those close to him. Karpov's
analysis sounds more like an overly dramatic after-the-fact concoction
from a Hollywood screenwriter, or a TV psychologist trying to sound
omniscient, than anything that actually went through Fischer's mind
when deciding to play 29...Bxh2.
While I can't rule out Karpov's scenario, Occam's Razor inclines one
toward simpler explanations, like "Fischer miscalculated."

Taylor Kingston wrote:
I would guess you are referring to pages 343-345 of "Russians versus
Fischer (2nd edition, 2005), which has extensive comments on this move
by various Soviet players and officials: Botvinnik, Bondarevsky,
Krogius, Spassky himself, and Karpov. They contradict each other to a
great extent, and I see no reason to give more credence to any of them,
including Karpov, over Fischer himself or those close to him. Karpov's
analysis sounds more like an overly dramatic after-the-fact concoction
from a Hollywood screenwriter, or a TV psychologist trying to sound
omniscient, than anything that actually went through Fischer's mind
when deciding to play 29...Bxh2.
While I can't rule out Karpov's scenario, Occam's Razor inclines one
toward simpler explanations, like "Fischer miscalculated."

Well, William Ockham was a lazy nominalist. If he does know how to
solve a problem, he uses the lex parsimoniae. That's very dull.

Others have opinion and I tend to agree with Karpov. If Karpov were a
poker player, he could have been great one as well. Great poker players
tend to see the psychology behind everything. They like to paint a
story, ala Hollywood screenwriters, in order make a great decision on
the hand at play.

Nobody knows exactly what Fischer was thinking at that moment, however,
great poker players can tell, but not Ockham.

LiamToo wrote:
Someone wrote:
or maybe he was flat out lying, or highly exaggerating what happened, and
their were no crimes to bring anybody to book for?

You can call Bobby anything that you like. However, one of the things
that Bobby is NOT, is a liar. Nope, he was not lying.

This was the start of his hatred with the government.


You need to look deeper.

In fact, when Fischer was first approached on the street
by the Passadena police, he automatically went into his
psycho mode, indicating his issues with government went
back even further than indicated above. Fischer's refusal to
even give his name was symptomatic of deep psychological
issues -- very deep.


-- shrink bot

LiamToo wrote:
help bot wrote:
Bobby Fischer, exagerate? No way! Those guys at the Passadena
jailhouse are as busted as the King's Gambit. Bobby's got them in
a virtual full Nelson, like when he played Bxh2!! against Spassky.

That Bxh2!! was the most brilliant move that Fischer ever made. I


I have Bobby on Wednesdays and Fridays, but I may be
able to work you in on say, Monday afternoons. My
secretary will handle the details.

Let's start by rooting out the reason you fail to accept the
reality of Fischer's non-infallibility, his few but very real
blunders OTB. This should prove very interesting.


-- shrink bot


PS: I golf on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and yes it does
take the entire day for me to get once 'round the course,
because some %$*&%$# put ponds and sand traps in the
way to make my life miserable. Okay, that's not the real
reason he put them there, but it often *seems* like it.

Taylor Kingston wrote:
LiamToo wrote:
That Bxh2!! was the most brilliant move that Fischer ever made. It was
even a draw after that but, it had to be done. It was simply a stroke
of genius.

As far as I know, this interpretation is unwarranted by the facts. I
believe the final verdict is that objectively, 29...Bxh2? was a bad
move, one that turned a theoretical draw into a loss. Extensive
analysis by Olafsson and Timman, on pages 38-40 of "Fischer World
Champion" (New In Chess, 2002) demonstrates this. That Spassky later
erred, playing 36.a4 instead of 36.Kg4, does not change 29...Bxh2? from
a bad move to good.


Uh-oh. You are using logic here, and thus there is no
way they are going to be able to comprehend.


The path to a draw allowed by 36.a4 was as narrow
as a wasp's waist, and Fischer failed to find it, playing 39...f5?
instead of 39...e5, and so ultimately he lost.


Oddly enough, Fischer's diehard fans have little trouble
in admitting he lost this one game; where they falter is
in admitting he made any bad moves, except "deliberately".


If Fischer were a poker player, he could have been a great
one too. As they sat down to play, Bobby saw poker tells from Spassky.
He saw fear.

Highly debatable. Fischer himself said "I don't believe in
psychology, I believe in strong moves."


He lied. Fischer was a practicing psycho logist. Okay,
maybe not a logist.


What would a genius do to strenghten Spassky's confidence and make the
entire match interesting? Bxh2!! and then game 2.

I would instead tend to agree with Edmondson's assessment that,
psychologically speaking, it was 11...Nh5 in game 3 that beat Spassky,
if such a thing can be attributed to any single move.


I'm sorry, but that was just another weak move on Fischer's
part. The fact that Spassky failed to find a refutation OTB tells
us nothing about Fischer, only Spassky.

Several of Fischer's games against Spassky show him
getting strategically outplayed, so his dire need to win
was frustrated except insofar as he could do so by means
of inferior moves/plans. Tactically, Fischer was superior in
that match. And chess is 93.2% tactics....

-- help bot

LiamToo wrote:

If Fischer were a poker player, he could have been a great
one too. As they sat down to play, Bobby saw poker tells from Spassky.
He saw fear.

I remember that there was a commentator who made the comment that
Spassky had the same deadpan expression whether he was mating or being
mated, or at least I think I do.

I think Spassky was a ball of conflicting ideas and emotions, and this
heightened during the match, which makes speculation difficult. But I
am not sure if Spassky gave anything away by facial expressions or body
language.

Again, this is the product of an aging memory, but I always thought the
most appropriate thought was that at some point in the match Fischer
"smelled" victory - and I use that term deliberately, almost like an
animal that tracked his rather conflicted and sometimes lazy prey.

One of my favorite and most fruitless what ifs is what if both players
had been clicking on all cylinders - the popular vote goes to Fischer,
but I still think Spassky could have won....