People claim that Fischer is crazy and does not have a sense of
reality. I guess there are radio interviews that support this.

so what is Fischer's prognosis; what mental condition does he have? Is
it bipolar disorder, alzheimer's, or something else?

Fischer could not have been crazy if he became world champion. crazy
people can't do things like that.

People claim that Fischer is crazy and does not have a sense of
reality. I guess there are radio interviews that support this.


People claim that Scam Sloan is crazy and does not have a sense of
reality. I guess there are Wilipedia articles that support this.

so what is Fischer's prognosis; what mental condition does he have? Is
it bipolar disorder, alzheimer's, or something else?


So what is Sloan's prognosis; what mental condition does he have? Is
it bipolar disorder, alzheimer's, or something else?


Fischer could not have been crazy if he became world champion. crazy
people can't do things like that.


Sloan must be crazy for stating that the 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3, f6 is a sound opening
for black. Crazy people do things like that.

Maybe he's like that Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie Rainman?

People claim that Fischer is crazy and does not have a sense of
reality. I guess there are radio interviews that support this.

People claim that Scam Sloan is crazy and does not have a sense of
reality. I guess there are Wilipedia articles that support this.

so what is Fischer's prognosis;


Terminal idiocy?

what mental condition does he have? Is
it bipolar disorder, alzheimer's, or something else?

So what is Sloan's prognosis; what mental condition does he have? Is
it bipolar disorder, alzheimer's, or something else?


I think Sloan may have a bad case of
I-need-to-be-the-center-of-attention disorder.


Fischer could not have been crazy if he became world champion. crazy
people can't do things like that.


It depends on what the definition of crazy is.


Sloan must be crazy for stating that the 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3, f6 is a sound
opening
for black. Crazy people do things like that.


Did he write "sound"? I thought he wrote that this opening is
playable from the Black side, against a certain level of opposition. I
often hang pieces in the opening or middlegame, yet find this to be
quite playable against a certain level of opposition.

Maybe he's like that Dustin Hoffman's character in the movie Rainman?


Who, Fischer? Actually, Fischer started out as a poor chessplayer,
which doesn't jibe very well with the theory that he is an
idiot-savant.
And Sam Sloan just isn't good enough to be classified as a savant.

This doesn't rule out the idiot part, however.

wrote:
People claim that Fischer is crazy and does not have a sense of
reality. I guess there are radio interviews that support this.

so what is Fischer's prognosis; what mental condition does he have? Is
it bipolar disorder, alzheimer's, or something else?

Fischer could not have been crazy if he became world champion. crazy
people can't do things like that.

He has a severe case of Oedipus complex. He hates his Dad, who was
Jewish and abandoned the family.

wrote:
People claim that Fischer is crazy and does not have a sense of
reality. I guess there are radio interviews that support this.

so what is Fischer's prognosis; what mental condition does he have? Is
it bipolar disorder, alzheimer's, or something else?

A moot question at this point. To my knowledge, Fischer has never
submitted to any accredited medical/psychiatric/psychological testing
that could formally determine what "mental condition" he has. Nor does
he seem likely to in the near future. Absent that, we mainly have just
armchair diagnoses based on anecdotal evidence and his public
statements. He seems disturbed in certain ways, and his
racial/religious bigotry is highly offensive, but to speak of a
prognosis when you don't even have a proper diagnosis is rather a
stretch.

Fischer could not have been crazy if he became world champion. crazy
people can't do things like that.

Sounds rather like a circular semantic argument. In fact, some rather
strange (highly neurotic, if not outright psychotic) individuals have
risen very high in chess. Akiba Rubinstein and Aron Nimzovitch, both in
the world's top 5 in the 1920s, suffered from severe persecution
complexes. Paul Morphy, strongest player in the world in the mid-1800s,
suffered what appear to have been occasional psychotic episodes after
retiring from chess, as did Carlos Torre, a very promising young
Mexican-American player in the 1920s. Wilhelm Steinitz, (1836-1900,
world champion 1886-1894), was briefly confined to a Moscow asylum in
1897 (though perhaps on dubious grounds).
To a certain extent, paranoia is a realistic outlook in chess, so
chess greatness and "craziness" may not be so mutually exclusive as you
believe. On the other hand, many world champions have been paragons of
sanity: Lasker, Capablanca, Euwe, and others.

writes:
To a certain extent, paranoia is a realistic outlook in chess, so
chess greatness and "craziness" may not be so mutually exclusive as you
believe. On the other hand, many world champions have been paragons of
sanity: Lasker, Capablanca, Euwe, and others.

Reuben Fine claimed there were two kinds of world champions: A) those
who weren't interested in anything except chess (Fischer was a classic
example); and B) those who had other interests as well. He said type
A were generally crazy and type B were not. He discussed this in
detail in his book "The Psychology of the Chess Player". On the other
hand, that book seemed pretty crazy itself in many ways.

Paul Rubin wrote:
Reuben Fine claimed there were two kinds of world champions: A) those
who weren't interested in anything except chess (Fischer was a classic
example); and B) those who had other interests as well. He said type
A were generally crazy and type B were not. He discussed this in
detail in his book "The Psychology of the Chess Player". On the other
hand, that book seemed pretty crazy itself in many ways.

Yes, I have that egregious little book (if at 74 pages it can be
called a book). Written in 1956, it does not mention Fischer, but
surely would have were it written later.
The actual terms Fine used for his two types were "heroes" (among
whom he numbered Morphy, Steinitz, Capablanca and Alekhine) and
"non-heroes" (Staunton, Anderssen, Lasker, Euwe, Botvinnik). For the
latter chess was merely one of several important interests, for the
former it was pretty much the only interest.
Fine says his four heroes all entertained "fantasies of omnipotence"
and showed "considerable emotional disturbance" either during their
chess careers (Capablanca, Alekhine) or soon thereafter (Morphy,
Steinitz). Frankly, I'm not at all persuaded about Capablanca; to my
knowledge, his troubles stemmed more from physical sources (high blood
pressure) than psychological. Much of what Fine says about the others
is anecdotal, without supporting evidence, and some of it is now known
to be apocryphal. The amount of factual error and worthless hearsay in
Fine's little tome is amazing.
As far as hero types generally being crazy, again I don't think Fine
had much of a case, Fischer notwithstanding. Other great masters who
(as far as I know) have been pretty much obsessed with chess included
Pillsbury, Marshall, Blackburne, Janowski, Spielmann, Tal, Korchnoi,
Portisch, and Kasparov, and while many of them had their quirks, I
don't think any is considered psychotic.
He might have made a case for the hero type being at least more prone
to "emotional disturbance," but the sample he uses is too small to have
statistical significance, and too selective to be logically valid.

I love the way this guy (tkings) switches back and forth between
demanding a *formal* diagnosis and settling for casual observation,
depending on his needs. LOL!

Dr. Fine apparently had no trouble rendering an opinion, despite not
completing a battery of psychological tests on Fischer. Unfortunately,
his comments are not held in high regard so the fact that he was a
trained shrink in no way settles the issue of Fischer's mental
problems.

Listed among the purported "paragons of sanity" is Jose Capablanca,
who *died* arguing over a chess game -- wake up! You want to know the
saddest part? In all my years of reading chess books and magazines, I
have never seen the position in question published; maybe it is
automatically assumed that Capablanca was right, so why bother. In any
case, I don't have and cannot produce the *formal* death certificate,
so it is "a stretch" for me to question the cause of Capablanca's
death, which I cannot even prove ever happenned.


"Akiba Rubinstein and Aron Nimzovitch, both in the world's top 5 in
the 1920s, suffered from severe persecution complexes."

Actually, Rubinstein was constantly harrassed by an invisible fly,
who insisted that he play for a draw in every game. And Nimzowitch had
a style of play which was so hideously ugly, the other players couldn't
help but persecute and ridicule him. So you see, they were both
perfectly sane -- though they gave the superficial *appearance* of
being crazy.