Interesting article. I see no reason to think Fischer would not have used computers to his advantage and that his memory would have served him well. Would he dominate today…Hmmmmmm.
theguardian.com/sport/2015/f … by-fischer
Prior to his streak of crushing wins in the Interzonal and the Candidates matches between 1970-1972, Fischer’s rating was around 2740. That was 60 points higher than #2 Spassky and 80 points higher than #3. He was a class above, but not on a stratospheric level until those matches. IIRC, he lost 5 rating points in beating Spassky. Around that time in 1972, Mikhail Tal was also making a tournament run which was overshadowed by the Match of the Century. Tal quietly raised his rating to 2705, becoming the #2 player.
At that time to be in the 2600’s was to be in the super elite. 2500+ rated GMs populated most of the big round robins. Today, being 2600+ gets you no invitations to the super elite tournaments. 2500+ rated players toil to make a living as professionals in Open events in crowded halls, much like the rest of the amateurs. They have to have side jobs or work as teachers, coaches or trainers for the people they see pushing pawns on weekends.
In 1992, for his second match with Spassky, Fischer requested some stuff to brush up on theory. He wanted a computer, database, and Informants. Crude compared to today, but Fischer seems to have had no problem using the computer technology to study openings and whatnot. He was always, according to stories about him, a zealous reader of anything chess. He worked harder than everyone else. He pushed the bounds of opening preparation deeper and broader than his colleagues. He was obsessed with improving his technique. Fischer knew his own games and those of his opponents better than they did. Imagine if he was in his prime today, high IQ, phenomenal memory for patterns and games, and all of the whiz bang computer tech. Facing an obsessive, hard working monster who works alone and is trying to win and smash you would be no fun for the elite. With the rating inflation of today, we would not be talking about 2800, but crashing the 2900 barrier and beyond. That is, if he could overcome his personal demons.
He would’ve played differently I’m sure.
Fischer as a player was interesting. He sort of bridged the space between old school and new school chess.
Karpov was more new school than old school, but Kasparov was undoubtedly the face of the new generation.
The new generation being that play was based on solid positional play, often grinding out wins in endgames fraught with nuanced play. The romantic days of chess were over. Fischer would have had a lot more draws to him name if he was in his prime today, and of having been born say, in the late 80’s to early 90’s.
Fischer might have taken chess to a new level of science, but still loved the chase, the thrill of a tactical victory from an amazing combination.
I have no doubt that modern top 10 or 20 players, assuming Fischer played like he did in the 60’s and 70’s, would shut Fischer out of making constant brilliant plays and force him to grind out his wins in a more nuanced way.
I suppose in the end, it’s fruitless to compare a player who’s dead, who was in his prime decades ago, to a modern player. If Fischer lived today and was in his prime, he’d play like a more modern player, and he’d most likely be a top 10 player, and maybe even hold the World Champion title at some point.
You could add Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine to the list of champions who would probably fair very well today against the world’s elite. Lasker was playing a version of the Berlin Wall about 100 years(!) before it became popular. Science, math, and computers would have been second nature to him if he lived today. The fast pace style of today would suit Capablanca perfectly. His endgame technique would be devastating in the fast time controls. Alekhine would likely remain on the cutting edge of theory, both researcher and player, if he was around today. Imagine him with access to Chessbase and a computer program to test his ideas. Fischer learned and incorporated their styles into his. Carlsen is now studying those old pros to do the same.
Fischer would eventually write a new book “My 60 Computer Prepped Games” or similar
Lol. I think it is ultimately impossible, but still fun, to compare champions in any endeavor from one generation to another. Some of the comments here brought to mind Victor Korchnoi who certainly has lived and played through the two eras doing quite well in the latter right up to the present time despite age. My gut feeling is that a top player/world champion would fare well in any age, though the degree of success is unknowable.
Hypothetically speaking, Fischer would not play chess today because he could not possibly be The Authority concerning the game. Robert Fischer’s world was one of absolutes, he would not be able to make pronouncements when a cell phone could refute them, I doubt if his ego could handle such blows. In fact, he probably wouldn’t even have picked up chess in the first place, preferring some field that was more amenable to his persona. Maybe he would have played a musical instrument.
Interesting to contemplate. He may well not have played chess, but might have played a computer game involving strategy at a very high level. Then again, one will never know.
You can only kill so many orcs, assassins, or aliens before the basic premise of most video games start to become stale. Fischer’s sister Joan tried many games on her brother to keep his mind occupied. The only one he took to was chess because of the variety of problems he had to solve. He likely stuck with it also because it provided a social outlet for what was probably a pretty lonely kid whose family bounced from place to place. If he was a kid growing up today, he would have probably played chess rather than the expensive video games his family could not afford. Finding a friend and mentor like John Collins would be what he would seek and enjoy.
I doubt we would see Fischer playing with an iPhone or any other smartphone. Given his sensitivity over privacy, he would not have liked the fact that he and his phone could be tracked everywhere. Likely he would not have been interested in Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or any other social media. Using a computer to do research or to learn to code seems to be a more likely introduction to being a techie. Doing e-mail or making people aware of what he was doing every second, not so much.
Fischer is actually alive and well and to maintain his privacy is sharing a secret apartment with Elvis, thank you very much.
Elvis just called from the Jungle Room to say that he’s very annoyed with you for letting the secret out.
It’s also possible that in today’s world he might have been dead before the age of 25 from any number of causes. Part of why he survived was due to the relative safe haven that Brooklyn was in the 50s and early 60s.
Don’t forget that he also came up with Fischer random chess, in an attempt to get back to player on player with no MCO to fall back on etc. Maybe he was ready to abandon chess as we know it.
Such conjecture is fascinating. Chess has had about 8 or 9 players who have dominated their era, from Morphy to Carlsen, and the question is did they dominate because of more talent, more drive, or did they have a unique innate skill that placed them ahead of the rest? In Fischer’s case, it was his excellent memory and the ability to absorb so many more games than all of his contemporaries. I remember an anecdote, where Fischer beat a Soviet player with an idea he had gleaned from a game played in a Soviet U18 Girl’s Championship that his “Russian” opponent was not familiar with.
The issue is if chess databases were available 50 years ago, would Fischer’s advantage in assimilating hundreds of games each week have been neutralized? Or would have his innate skill allowed him to assimilate thousands of games each week and enhance his advantage? Certainly, Bobby wouldn’t have had the same run of victories with the Sozin vs the Sicilian, but he also would have had been able to explore and develop new ideas in a fraction of the time. And I also think the practical, non-dogmatism of “computer moves” would have appealed to him, and maybe he wouldn’t have spent 10 years trying to prove that the French Winawer was positionally unsound.
These kinds of questions are unanswerable but irresistible, just the same. (Kind of like he old Saturday Night Live skit, “What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly?”) I wonder if today’s chess databases would have allowed Sammy Reshevsky to “cure” his weakness with opening theory and enabled him to win the World Championship.
Jack Martin
,
and maybe he wouldn’t have spent 10 years trying to prove that the French Winawer was positionally unsound.
are you implying that is is?
I doubt he was. In his annotations to a Winawer game in “My 60 Memorable Games” Fischer said something to the effect of “I may someday be forced to admit the Winawer is sound. But I doubt it!”
Hey if Bobby says it’s unsound, than it must be!
In 1992, Fischer was given databases of information. He was also familiar with Informant and its system of cataloguing novelties. That started around 1966 as he was starting his climb toward the championship. There are pictures of him reading Informant the way most would read a novel. He had no need of a board.
Keeping up with the latest theory was second nature to him. Fischer wolfed down any bit of chess information from magazines and books. The use of Chessbase would have been no big deal, just another tool. He had a phenomenal memory of his own games and those of the top players. Fischer also had done an extensive study of older games. The real problem would have been keeping up with him, if he had stayed motivated to play tournament and match chess. But he lost his way.
As for the French, if push came to shove, he liked to play the King’s Indian Attack against it. His record even in the Winawer was not bad. He gave Bent Larsen high blood pressure trying to defend.
You missed my point. The issue was not whether or not Fischer would have been able to work with chess databases, but whether chess databases would have neutralized his advantage over his contemporaries, since they would have much easier access to the obscure games that Fischer unearthed, as well as the computer evaluations of good moves introduced (in obscurity) but which were not executed properly. The early informants (introduced in 1967, with games from 1966) were nothing like the tomes produced today – maybe 1000 games a year, many of which Fischer probably knew beforehand from receiving the tournament bulletins months before. They did not include the games from obscure events like, say, the Soviet Girls Championship. Fischer received and pored through all the Soviet chess periodicals of that time, and had the remarkable ability to sort the wheat from the chaff – something that any good chess database does for me.
And yes, after a decade of being dogmatic about some things, Fischer became a more practical player around 1970, and his essaying the King’s Indian Attack vs Larsen is one more indication of that. With Chess software, he may have arrived at the decision well before.
It’s quite possible that if Fischer was of a modern player, he would’ve been more inclined to contribute to theoretical novelties and new openings. Even with all the computers and everything else, humans are still finding new lines to delve into.
Although I’m sure engines have come up with some new lines, I think it still takes the creativity of a human mind to explore stuff that computers might otherwise ignore because it isn’t the fastest line of play, or doesn’t rate as high as more explored lines since the end result would be far beyond the horizon of an engine’s analytical capability. -In other words, humans are more than happy to play stuff just because it’s different and has, at best, it might only achieve the effect of offsetting a human opponent. (Say it leads into a endgame situation that’s no better than more explored lines, yet for a human, it would force them to burn time figuring the best line of play compared to something they might already be familiar with.)