I live in Ukraine. I play chess (FIDE rating is 1959). I want to know your opinion about Fischer. Is he the only player you like? I wonder this because in english (I mean western countries) forums I read Fischer, Fischer, Fischer... You didn't know other players? There are a lot of wonderful chess players. As for me I like Karpov, Capablanca and Fischer also. Much peole like Alekhine, Tal, Petrosian, Topalov, Anand, etc.

 

So why do you speak mostly about  Robert Fischer?

 

P.S. Sorry for my English if there is something incorrect. 

In the United States, Fischer receives a lot of attention for two reasons.

 

The first is that he became a national hero in the 1970s by winning the world championship, which had been dominated by players from the Soviet Union. He used his fame and force of personality to promote chess in America, which greatly increased the popularity of the game over here. Many of the American chess enthusiasts on this site probably owe their interest in chess to Bobby Fischer, either directly or indirectly.

 

The second is his public persona since he retired. He regularly says controversial and offensive things about America, women and Jews (among others), and this leads everyone to continue paying attention to him. There's also a kind of mystique about him, since he never really declined while he was playing professionally and retired as the world champion. He claims that he is still the best in the world, and there's no way anyone can know if he's right.

 

For what it's worth, I'm American and I love Capablanca. 

Yes, everybody in the world knows this facts.

 

"Many of the American chess enthusiasts on this site probably owe their interest in chess to Bobby Fischer, either directly or indirectly."

Is this true? Thats interesting. So in US nobody knew about chess until  Fischer came?

 

So please tel me about chess in US. Are they popular? Your country begins to seem very strange to me.

People knew about chess, but there wasn't as much interest as there is now. Fischer's greatest contribution was to get Americans excited about the game. He wrote books, appeared on the radio and television, and got people to notice what much of the world already knew.

 

I don't know how to define "popular" here. Popular by what standard? I don't know how many people in Ukraine play chess, so I don't think I can give an answer that will be meaningful to you.

 

My country is very, very strange. I'm glad you noticed. 

By the way, Ukranian chessplayers Ivanchuk, Ponomaryov, Kariakin are among the

strongest in the world.

Yes, theese 3 are strong but not among the best I think. Anand, Kramnik, Topalov are stronger as for my opinion.

Dmytro wrote: Yes, theese 3 are strong but not among the best I think. Anand, Kramnik, Topalov are stronger as for my opinion.

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I meant among the strongest (sure among the 30 top players).

Yes, yes, I understood.

Well, Robert James Bobby Fischer needs no introduction.He is a Chess legend and rightly so.
But Baseball never held any attraction to this youth in his hometowm who's obsessed with chess.
Fischer's games exhibit great strategy as well as great tactics. From the evidence of his
games, his technique in all three phases of the game, the opening, the middlegame and
the endgame is excellent.
His style was "universal"-he didn't go out in every game for an attack. He simple played
the position. If the position called for a brilliant combination, then he was able to deliver
that, for example in his celebrated game against Donald Byrne - dubbed the "game of
the Century".
Fischer's opening game is almost always open with 1.e4 as white, and favors the Najdorf
variation of the Sicilian Defence or King's Indian as Black if opponent's white open with
1.d4.
Fischer disdanes draws. He was the consummate fighting player with a demonic will to
win that overwhelmed his opponents. He tried to extract every last resource from the
position, in order to keep the game alive and played to the very end - the King.
He was like a force of nature on the chessboard - sometimes a tornado,sometimes an
earthquake and once in a great while a fog.
Fischers' records are astouding; He won the US Championship at the tender age of 14
and subsequently won that title 6 more times, including the 1963-1964 championship
with a perfect score of 11-0.
In the early 1970's Fischer went from great to incredible as he topped one amazing feat
after another. His 12.5 - 8.5 win over Boris Spassky in the 1972 Reykjavikn title bout was
his crowing achievement, but somehow seemed eclipsed by his incredible results of the
year before.
In 1971 Fischer climbed the heights of chess immortality by defeating GMs Mark
Taimanov and Bent Larsen in successive matches by the incredible scores of 6-0.
These spectacular victories led to a match with ultra-solid former world champion Tigran
Petrosian to determine a challenger to Boris Spassky; the reigning world champion at
the time. After a slow start, Fischer ended up crushing Petrosian 6.5 - 2.5 by winning
the final four games to set up his famous title match with Spassky.
There was great interest in the staging of the match. No match in the history of the
game received more world-wide publicity and chess playing was given a tremendous
impetus everywhere.
The match was for the best of 24 games. Fischer as challenger required 12.5 points to
win the title while the defending champion Boris Spassky required 12 to retain it. Fischer
was the first westerner since the 2nd world war to seriously threaten the Soviet
dominance of the game. Fischer won the championship and was the first American to be
crowned the World Champion.
Fischer having become World Champion proceeded to turn down millions of Dollars of
endorsements and appearance fees. When challenged by Anatoly Karpov in 1975,
Fischer developed a reputation for being difficult by insisting on numerous specific
playing conditions many of which were accepted. Fischer however required all conditions
to be met. FIDE stood firmly despite intense lobbying from the US. Fischer declined to
play and Karpov was declared champion by default. Since then, Fischer became ever
more reclusive. He leaves his country, moving to east and is rumored to be living in
Europes.
Still, much of the world continued to regard Fischer as the undethroned chess champ, a
unique circumstance in that he eschewed tournament and match play thereafter. In fact,
when he chose to play MIT's Greenblatt Computer chess program in 1978 (which he
beat three times to none), he made no attempt to publicize the encounter and even tried
to keep it private. This, of cause was impossible, for Fischer had achieved the status of
folk hero.
Ever since he became a recluse, two of his prized records had fallen. Garry Kasparov
surpassed his highest F.I.D.E rating and Judit Polgar became the youngest grandmaster
of all time. Other stars have emerged too, not mentioning theirs names.
Then last fall, like the phoenix rising from its own ashes, Bobby Fischer announced he
was going to play in public for the first time in twenty years ! This happen very so when a
Yugoslav entrepreneur organized a rematch with Spassky for $5 million( $3.35 million to
the winner and $1.65 million to the loser). This was dubbed the World Chess Champion-
ship(this time in Yugoslavia) but was not officially recognized by F.I.D.E., for both
players had been inactive for years.
And so he did, picking up where he left off in Iceland in 1972, defeating his old rival Boris
Spassky (yet again) with a scoreline 19-13 over 32 games.
Soon after winning the 1992 Unofficial World Chess Championship, he once again
vanished from the public eye…probably forever.
But beyond the speculation about Fischer's future intentions in chess, there is one
certainty: his games will live forever. Fischer last published rating is at 2780 ELO in FIDE rating lists.

Why have you written this? I know this facts. I asked if he is popular and why he is popular.

 

We can describe carrer of any Champion and his chess game would be as wonderfull as Fischer's game.

For example, Karpov. He is also World Champion, aslo has a lot of titles and so on...

Or you, Americans divide players according to nationality? If so, it is very unclever. 

What you have to understand is that the game of chess is viewed a little differently here in North America than it is over where you're from.  Mostly here, the public perception is that chess is played by introverted brainiacs who, for lack of better words, are eccentric. 

Fischer continues to capture people's imaginations for a couple of reasons.  The first is the hype surrounding the Fischer-Spassky matches of 1972.  Any competition of the US vs. Soviets was bound to create hype.  The western media gave a lot of coverage to this challenge that normally wouldn't have received attention, because the US had a possibility of breaking the Soviet domination of chess, and winning another theatre in the Cold War.  People who had never played before, or only played casually, followed the games and cheered Fischer on.  When he won, he was a folk hero in America, and led to the so-called 'Fischer boom' where membership in chess clubs increased due to Fischer's win and publicizing the game in America.  Thousands of people who simply thought of chess as a board game started picking up on why it is so challenging.  It was the promotion of chess in the US in the early 70s that is attributed to Fischer's win, that still makes him the most recognizable figure in chess in North America.

 

Second, is Fischer's increasingly erratic behaviour since he won that title 35 years ago.  It solidified many people's perceptions that chess is a game for eccentrics and weirdos.  Mostly, it is not Fischer's chess playing that receives attention, but his comments and rants. 

 

It is not so much Fischer the chess player that people are interested in, it is Fischer the fallen hero.  And although Fischer was one of the most brilliant players ever, most casual fans will remember his rant against Jews and the US more than his achievements.

 Fischer is known here by so many to be a chess god.

Even  chess Titans such as  Morphy, Pillsbury, Akiba Rubenstien, Capablanca, Alekhine, Lasker ,Tal ,Keres, Kasparov, Karpov ,Kramnik,Smylov, Bronstien  all pale in comparison!

Fischer outranks them all.

So why wonder that he recieves so much attention and praise? -SIX

 

 By the way I am a big fan of Ivanchuk and Anand also -as well as Rossilimo and Charoseuk.-SIX

He is popular beacause he is a great player solid yet imaginative and his antics only increased his fame. I personaly loved the way he played he truly is one the great players of the 20th centry ,but i hated the man to be honest what a jerk. At the same time but we owe him things like the big money put in tournaments to start with, he made a big fuss on that and they increased the amount chess players could get that might have helped. It truly is a shame though he didnt play Karpov i believe he had the ability to beat him......

Well, in 1975 Fischer could beat Karpov, I think. In 1975 Karpov was not is his best as he became in the begining of 1980-ies.

 

And now... Now the life continues and, as Bobby once said, "Chess is life". 

Even Tal once said "Fischer is the greatest genius to descend from the chess heavens" , high praise indeed and from a man who bested Fischer more than most. However, Fischer himself said : "perhaps Morphy was the greatest genius of them all". Fischer also liked Capablanca a lot but strangely seemed to think little of Lasker. I began playing chess due to the 72 Fischer/Spassky match so guess who my favorite 2 players are?  Of the active players I like Anand and Carlsen most.

Reb wrote: Even Tal once said "Fischer is the greatest genius to descend from the chess heavens" , high praise indeed and from a man who bested Fischer more than most. However, Fischer himself said : "perhaps Morphy was the greatest genius of them all". Fischer also liked Capablanca a lot but strangely seemed to think little of Lasker. I began playing chess due to the 72 Fischer/Spassky match so guess who my favorite 2 players are?  Of the active players I like Anand and Carlsen most.

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 That's true early on Fischer didnt rate Lasker that highly. Years later he reappriased Lasker giving him very high praise and  very high rating.-- Even Fischer failed to see Lasker's genius until Fischer matured as a chess player.

I believe many top players have rated Morphy the greatest chess genius  even Capa thought so!

I rate chess geniuses in this order, Fischer, Capablanca, Paul Morphy

 , Akiba Rubinstein , Rudolf Charousek and Samuel Reshevsky.-SIX

Well Six, if both Fischer AND Capa thought Morphy was the greatest genius of them all that pretty much settles it in my book. 

I also think many more players than just Fischer are appreciated in the "West". But I think for many "Westerners" Fischer is/was part of their introduction to chess... so he will always be appreciated.

I own a number of chess books, and I remember buying most of them because there were sections (if not the entire thing) on Fischer. As my chess interests increased, nationalities blurred and I started to appreciate players for their play, and NOT where they came from.

I have recently been studying Nisipeanu's games. He may not be in the top 10, but his play is certainly some of the most interesting right now. Tal like sacrifices, amazing combinations, super solid play.

As far as Fischer is concerned, there may be a Fischer fixation in the west, but players from all over the world are still talking about the man. His play was simply that inspiring.

I would imagine there ia a Capablanca fixation in Cuba.