Fischer was a great player...the greatest in history up to his time? I'm not convinced about that. Personally, I would have liked to see him compete in the Soviet Championships and the USSR supertournaments of the day, but I know that would have been impossible.

I think Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, and Smyslov achieved at least as much as Fischer did, and maybe Tal too: Fischer only won 10 international tournaments.

Fischer reached the highest level in 1971-1972 and brought the game to new heights, and for that we should thank him.

Oh, yes........

Fischer reached the pinnacle of his life's purpose by winning the title, and as he saw it, there was only one way for his career to go from the top of the mountain.

Great a player as Fischer was, his psychological frailties drove him away from the object of his devotion.

My thought also. And it seems to be the most common opinion.

As good as Karpov was in 1975 he wasn't at his peak. A motivated Fischer would have won then but probably not in 1978.

In a first to win 10 match, it would be close for about 15 games or so, then a long series of draws before Fischer racing ahead with 2-3 wins and the Soviets would pull Karpov out of the match, claiming unfair conditions and their man being exhausted.

Quite right. The notion of a "draw" when you play for a fixed number of wins is an absurdity. And that's why in the first Karpov-Kasparov match (set to 6 wins) nobody ever suggested there should be a 5-5 "draw" rule. Had that been the case, the match would have been over when the score reached 5-1.

Likewise.

http://www.chessbanter.com/rec-game... [...]
As you might be able to tell, I think very little of Kalme's work. He massages, fudges and tosses out data so freely as to make his conclusions worthless. And his attempts to prove that 2 is less than 1 simply don't fly.

Besides, the whole argument is beside the point anyway. What difference does it make even if we could prove that Fischer's system is less unfair than the Best of 24 system? Fischer promised to eliminate the champion's advantage, not reduce it. Believe it or not, Kalme does consider this point:

<"Even if one wanted to do away with the champion's advantage, it is a question that deserves a careful consideration, and at the very least such action must be projected to a future date when it would be directed against an abstract champion and not against a specific one...">

He seems to be singing a different tune here. A minute ago he had no problem whatsoever in advocating a sweeping and unprecedented change in the system without careful study.

But he was ignoring history. What he suggests is precisely what HAD been done already. The champion's advantage was eliminated at the FIDE Congress in Vancounver in 1971 where they voted <at Fischer's behest> that the 1975 match would be an unlimited one. No tie clause, and no evidence that Fischer had ever asked for one. Remember that as challenger he opposed the champion's advantage. And it was done against an abstract champion, just as Kalme suggested.

Comparisons of Fischer's system vs. the Best of 24 are therefore improper from the get go, as that system had been discarded for 1975 before Fischer even became Challenger. The system on the table for 1975 was 6 wins, no tie clause. Fischer wasn't trying to reduce the champion's advantage, he was trying to re-introduce it after it had already been abolished. When Fischer asked for 10 wins instead of 6, FIDE granted it, but put a 36 game limit on it (subtly re-introducing the champion's advantage, since there was now an 18-18 tie clause).

But Fischer wanted it both ways. He wanted not only to re-introduce the champion's advantage after it had been eliminated, but to keep the unlimited match format as well. He could have had one or the other, but not both. Seeing as how he'd wanted the unlimited match for years, and also said for years that the champion's advantage was unfair, I think he should have taken the 10 wins no tie clause option.

5. GM Evans agreed with Graeme that nobody knows if Fischer would have played Karpov in 1975 even if FIDE accepted ALL of his conditions.

Yes, I don't know if he would have played. He might have done so if he had felt he would have looked too bad by refusing. In fact, I think FIDE crossed him up. Remember, that he resigned the title in 1974 the day after FIDE limited the match. If he was trying to get out of playing, walking out over the Unlimited Match would gain him a lot of sympathy. A lot of people believed in that format and wanted to see it tried in modern chess. But at the end, when FIDE finally granted the 10 Wins unlimited match, Fischer had nothing to walk out over except the 9-9 clause, which a lot of people even in America thought was unfair. It wasn't his original intention to walk out over that, and he'd probably have preferred not to.

Sad but true. But all this talk, who would have won, we forget the rules themselves ...

A long grueling match where Fischer was in his element, and a Karpov who could have used it much as Kasparov did in his first match with Karpov and grown.