Garry Kasparov’s gushing over Hikaru Nakamura’s recent victory in Wijk seems a bit self-serving to me. Kasparov’s main criterion for valuing Naka’s win above anything by an American in more than 100 years seems to be based on the fact that Fischer never won a tournament ahead of a world champion.
Ha!
It’s well known that world champions were not always the strongest players of their day. Take Lasker-Capablanca, Capablanca-Alekhine (controversial, but why did A.A. duck Capa for so long?), Euwe-Alekhine, and Fischer-Botwinnik. A good argument could be made that Sammy Reshevsky was the strongest player in the world during the mid-1930s, yet he did not come close to winning the world championship.
Fischer’s score of 8-4-1 at the Siegen Olympiad, and 15-7-1 at the Stockholm Interzonal are awesome scores against the best players in the world at the time. Not to mention his crushing victories in the candidates matches.
While Nakamura is stronger than Fischer ever was, we can only evaluate competitors against the competition of their day. On that basis Hikaru’s result is remarkable, but not unprecedented.
Why does Mr. Ego make such an outrageous claim?
Kasparov, that sore loser, is eager to cement his status as the world’s greatest player ever. His only two “competitors,” really, are Karpov and Fischer. Karpov is pretty much an afterthought as Kasparov replaced him, and by the fact that AK is today quite a weak player, relatively speaking. Note their “anniversary” match, in which Kasparov showed he’s a full class ahead of his older rival. Rival no longer!
All that is left is to disparage the memory of RJF.
Fischer won, then his psychosis took him over, then he died. Fischer is an icon, but American chess really should get over this “Fischer won the cold war, he is the greatest ever” stuff. Fischer won because he was crazy; playing to win is the only thing he ever knew. And once he won, he quit so he wouldn’t lose anymore.
GK, on the other hand, won…then he won again…then he won some more…then he kept on winning…and now he still works with the best players in the world and many of the not-so-best players in the world (e.g. GK School). As it stands now, Kasparov is the Champion of World Champions. And yes, has an ego the size of Vaalbara.
Incidentally, the article does mention Kamsky’s win in a KO.
Now…back to reading My Sixty Memorable Games that my darling wife got me for Christmas .
“Fischer won because he was crazy” seems wrong. Better to say that Fischer won in spite of his mental illness.
However exaggerated Darrach’s account of Fischer’s pre-match hysteria in Bobby Fischer Vs. the Rest of the World may be, the basics of the account ring psychologically true, and are consistent with RJF’s patterns of behavior in the Reshevsky match, in Sousse…
But he conquered his fears, he played brilliantly, and he won. A different kind of courage was required: compare DiCaprio’s portrayal of Howard Hughes in The Aviator.
Babe Ruth was a womanizer who ate too many hot dogs and drank too much bathtub gin. We remember him as one of the two greatest baseball players who ever lived. (My other choice is Willie Mays; feel free to substitute.)
After Morphy, no one was ever as far ahead of his peers as the Fischer of 1970-72. I suspect that no one will anyone ever be that far ahead again.
I don’t agree. A mental illness that promotes fixation and singular focus is more like an enabler than a detriment. But hey, opinions abound. Glad to see you’re surviving Blizzard 2011!
Is there a causal connection between Asperger’s-like focus on detail and the potentially “useful” paranoia (“the other player is out to get me”) of a paranoid-schizophrenic? Not that I know of… But your point is taken. The DeLucia collection of Fischeriana has some amazing details: we all know he was one of the best in the world at the fifteen game, but did you know he studied “fifteen theory” as a child?
Before leaving the office, I told a client that I felt like Mubarak: I knew it was time to go, but I didn’t want to leave just now. Walking two blocks was an adventure.
Was Fischer mentally ill? I’m not aware of a competent diagnosis to that effect. In my opinion (as I gain more familiarity with how public elementary schools work) diagnoses are made for some purpose.
My personal definition of mental illness has little to do with DSM IV. I think someone is mentally ill if they have a condition that inhibits them from doing mentally what they want to do. (I would not presume to say what “wants” are ill and which are healthy, at all. At the same time, some wants are criminal and I am not opposed to punishing criminals for their acts.)
By that standard, Fischer was a lot less mentally ill than most anyone else. He had many peak performances in his life, moments of towering mental achievement.
PS: Anyone who would presume to classify his religious views as mental illness is simply attempting to put into the asylum people with whom they disagree. They have no right to do that.
PPS: I’m Jewish. Through my mother’s side of course.
Brady obviously shares your concern: thus, “…to the Edge of Madness,” but not over the edge.
World-class players tend to have a healthy ego. But they also know that losing is part of the game. After Fischer lost two games in a row after game five of the 1992 rematch, he famously said, “That’s chess, you know. One day you give a lesson, the next day your opponent gives you a lesson.” That’s psychologically healthy. But Spassky was worried that if he converted his winning position in game six, Fischer might abandon the match!
When Fischer returned to tournament play in 1970, he trounced Petrosian 3-1 in the USSR vs. Rest of World match and displayed a surprising (to the Soviets) mastery of blitz at Herceg Novi. Immediately after, he plays in the Rovinj/Zagreb “Tournament of Peace,” and scores a phenomenal 6½-½ in the early rounds. In round 8, he loses the famous game to Kovacevic (perhaps aided by Rona P’s unsolicited advice). In round 9, he’s scheduled to face his first Soviet GM, Smyslov. Fischer doesn’t show! Smyslov had to go to Fischer’s hotel room to coax him into playing. Compare Fischer’s sojourn at the Saidy household in 1972 (per Darrach’s account) or his going to great lengths to avoiding a Karpov match. I suspect (pure speculation) that when Fischer saw the games of Karpov-Spassky, he realized he was in for a new challenge and did everything he could to avoid that challenge.
Even more speculatively, I would suggest that many of Fischer’s irrational rants could be seen as projections of self-hatred: antisemitism, anti-Americanism, perhaps even anti-communism, given his mother’s political history. I don’t know what to say about the “valuable cardboard boxes” or the UBS affair.
Only to the extent that a particular Jewish American (later Icelander) who was raised around some communists identifies himself primarily by those associations. If I hated the USCF, would that be self-hatred?
I’m about 1/3 into Brady’s new book. It is questionable just how metntally compromsed Fisher was up until he refused to defend his WC tile. Before then, he was certainly quite neurotic with that neurosis fitting nicely with the needs of succeeding at top level, pre-computer era chess.
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