Who is this man of action?
Posted by Nicholas Gruen on Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Well boy anyway. It’s the 13 year old . . .Well here’s another clue – the whole picture.
It’s the most prodigious chess player that ever lived – the amazing and now pretty much certifyable R. J. Fischer.
This picture was taken in 1957, the year Bobby burst onto the international scene with a game so extraordinary that it was called ‘the game of the century’. Look at the pictures and you tube exerpt here and play through the game here just for fun. The net is a great way to play through a game and play out the various competing possibilities in the game on line – then click the right place and the pieces bounce back to where they should be and you can play on to see what really happenned.
Thanks to David for the link. Bobby’s poor opponent Donald Byrne, got it bad from Bobby. A few years later he got beaten – again as black and in another ‘game of the century’. Fischer (as I recall) also sacrificed his queen and at the end of the game Bobby was a huge amount of material down, and didn’t have a single piece or pawn beyond the third rank of the board. As in this game above Grandmasters commenting on the game in analysis rooms for the public were pronouncing the game lost for Fischer. Byrne thought and thought. And then resigned. Bobby was devastated that he could not – as in the game reported above, follow the game through to mate.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 9:39 PM and filed under Sport-general.
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I beat Bobby Fisher in chess in a half serious game once. I didn’t think he was that great.
Posted on 18-Oct-06 at 10:39 pm | PermalinkSomeone once said that to Bobby – told them that they beat him in a simul in a shopping centre ten years before. Bobby thought for a while and then said something like “no you didn’t – you left your kingside overexposed and then castled into a mating attack.”
Posted on 18-Oct-06 at 11:28 pm | PermalinkNo No, not this Bobby Fischer. i’m talking about the terminal drunk i used to go to uni with
Posted on 18-Oct-06 at 11:52 pm | PermalinkBut seriously he remembered the exact moves from 10 years back. Shiiiite. It’s funny how minds work. I can barely recall my wife’s birthday, but I recall trades I did 10 years ago- the rates and the P&l on those trades.
Posted on 18-Oct-06 at 11:59 pm | PermalinkI’d love to see Bobby F. at the height of his powers go up against Kasparov or Capablanca.
T’would be like Laver, Borg or McEnroe. Three utter masters with utterly unique styles and powers.
Check out Bobby Fischer Goes To War”.
Pretty low on actual game analysis but a excellent study of the times and personalities involved. And includes the fascinating factoid that Bobby had so pissed everyone off before the first move that the only person to sincerely wish him luck before the clocks were punched and knocked on his hotel door the night before to say so was Boris Spassky. In fact, according to this particular account, Boris comes out of the whole match rather well as one who genuinely liked and respected Bobby and as a bit of a sly refusenik in his own right.
Posted on 19-Oct-06 at 2:15 am | PermalinkBoris was a scholar and a gentleman and we owe the Fischer-Spassky extravaganza entirely to him. Other Soviets would have walked. I think Kasparov says that he (Kasparov) thinks that Spassky was weakened psychologically by the concessions that he made. Spassky actually played pretty well in the match when from behind he pushed with great skill and verve very hard for a win in about seven games in a row in the second half of the match. Bobby drew them all.
Posted on 19-Oct-06 at 3:02 pm | Permalink