ditzel@ssc-bee.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel) (02/25/85)
>Big deal. This is just a match for the title of second-best >chess player in the world, anyway. You can't possibly believe that Fischer could fare well against Karpov or Kasparov. (Especially in his current rusty condition.) Fischer is dead as far as chess goes. He died in 1972 when he played the 2nd or 3rd best player in the soviet union (Spassky). Spassky played very poorly and was psyched out. If you study Spassky's prior games with Fischer and his decline in 1970 and 1971 you should conclude that Spassky was in sharp decline (just look at the Fischer-Spassky games from Reykevik and then compare them to Siegen 1970). In addition many experts believe that Fischer was VERY lucky to get by Petrosian...that match score could have been reversed. Study games 1 through 5. There is no doubt that Fischer was a super -grandmaster, but so are Karpov and Kasparov. ...and it should be noted so are a few other players. An excellent book ... Jan Timman's book, THE ART OF CHESS ANALYSIS has an excellent section on Fischer-Petrosian 5th match game. The question was how Fischer ever survived the first part of that match.
dpb@philabs.UUCP (Paul Benjamin) (02/28/85)
> You can't possibly believe that Fischer could fare well against Karpov > or Kasparov. (Especially in his current rusty condition.) Undoubtedly it would take a period of practice to get him back into match shape. Noone said it would happen today. What I was saying was that he won the title of world champion perfectly fairly, and has yet to be displaced as champion. There is no reason to believe he could not recover his past form. After all, he is still much younger than Korchnoi, who can obviously still play. > In addition many experts believe that Fischer was VERY lucky to get > by Petrosian...that match score could have been reversed. Study > games 1 through 5. How about the USSR vs the rest of the world? Fischer beat Petrosian the first two, then contented himself with two draws. One could say in the same vein that both Karpov and Kasparov were lucky to survive Korchnoi. > There is no doubt that Fischer was a super -grandmaster, but so are > Karpov and Kasparov. Although the rating system is imperfect, it is still a fact that Fischer's rating is higher than either Karpov's or Kasparov's has ever been. > ...and it should be noted so are a few other players. At the time, so were Larsen and Taimanov. Fischer humiliated them. > An excellent book ... Jan Timman's book, THE ART OF CHESS ANALYSIS > has an excellent section on Fischer-Petrosian 5th match game. The > question was how Fischer ever survived the first part of that match. If Petrosian was so much stronger than Fischer, why didn't he win? The bottom line is that Fischer won not only some games, but the match. There is no nondeterminism in chess. The winner of a match is the better all-round player. Psychology is part of chess, (ask Fine or Botvinnik).