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| Dec-26-09 | | talisman: who said this about Korchnoi? "....but he has no chess talent."? |
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| Dec-26-09 | | Winter: <who said this about Korchnoi? "....but he has no chess talent."?> The man seated opposite him, Boris Spassky. |
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| Dec-26-09 | | talisman: <Winter> Bingo baby! |
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| Dec-27-09 | | Red October: I heard a different variation of this, it goes something like this.. Spassky while giving an interview says I know the one thing that Korchnoi lacks to become World Champion, the journalist almost leaps out of his chair asking "What? What!? What is the one thing Korchnoi lacks" and Spassky calmly replies "Chess Talent"... |
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| Dec-27-09 | | Octavia: It's really nice that Fide arranged this match for them - and nicer still that they drew! |
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| Dec-27-09 | | Petrosianic: Wow, if even Korchnoi can wimp out with a Petroff Defense, what's the world coming to? |
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| Dec-27-09 | | The Rocket: Spassky is one of the biggest chess prodigys of all time, in fact probably as talented as kasparov, kramnik and fischer, but he was lazy. in terms of pure chess playing skills perhaps the other guys are stil slightly better.. we will never really know because spassky did not train like they did. |
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| Dec-27-09 | | turbo231: No games today. Sunday must be Spassky's Sabbath day, mine also, even though Saturday is the real Sabbath. Well with the Julian calendar which day is the Sabbath day? Also how many calendars do they have in the world? Let's see you have the Jewish, Christian, Julian, and what else.... Chinese.... |
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| Dec-28-09 | | dx9293: <The Rocket: Spassky is one of the biggest chess prodigys of all time, in fact probably as talented as kasparov, kramnik and fischer, but he was lazy.> Agreed. |
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| Dec-29-09 | | ewan14: Spassky never collapsed against Fischer
in 1972 the way Petrosian did in 1971
and Petrosian did not have to put up with as much of Fischer's '' high jinks '' |
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| Dec-29-09 | | TheFocus: As someone said on the Fischer page today "Spassky collapsed in the first half of the match." He played stronger in the end. |
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| Dec-29-09 | | raychandler: The games seem of poor quality for grandmaster of their experience and level.
The draws (except for the last, which seems prearranged) are more interesting than the wins. |
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Dec-29-09
 | | HeMateMe: I guess it was sort of a "Big Sleep." |
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| Dec-29-09 | | Jim Bartle: Fitting in a way, because nobody understood what the heck happened in the "Big Sleep" either. Hawks and Faulkner had to call up Chandler and ask about the plot, and Chandler didn't know either. |
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| Dec-30-09 | | waustad: A match that would be very interesting at this stage of their careers but will never happen is another Korchnoi vs Karpov match. It might not go as well for Karpov as he would hope, even though he has a huge age advantage. Their ratings are now similar. Sadly Smyslov seems to have stopped playing. I've heard that he is nearly blind. In 1957 that wouldn't have been as much of a problem as now. People in their latter 80s really don't remember as well as they used to. |
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Dec-31-09
| | HeMateMe: Karpov/Korchnoi 2009 would just be painful to watch. I remember following the '78 match in newspaper artices; I think Robert Byrne covered every game in the New York times. And there were a LOT of games to cover, 31 i think. It was a titanic struggle, east v. west. The Worm from Perm vs. Viktor the Terrible. Everyone I knew was rooting for Korchnoi. YOu get no support if you're representing the communist party of the Soviet Union. the '92 Fischer/Spassky rematch wasn't really embarrassing, as they were both around age 50 and still pretty strong players. The only rematch that would really interest me right now, would be Kasparov/Kramnik or Kasparov/Topalov. |
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| Dec-31-09 | | AnalyzeThis: It's amusing that Spassky and Korchnoi can get together to play a match, and the focus is on Bobby Fischer. Lol. |
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| Apr-21-12 | | MICK GOBLIN: yea wearing ski goggles has to be the coolest thing that ever happened in chess. i hope some top level player dresses as darth vader some time with the deep breaths - shouting to the opponent i am your father!!! maybe nakamura can do it lol |
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| Feb-02-19 | | Arturo2nd: Reputations are hard to shake. Spassky earned the reputation of being lazy and even referred to himself as such. What is overlooked is that Boris Vasilievich suffered from bouts of depression, an illness that can leave a person totally debilitated while appearing outwardly healthy. Soviet sources condemned him for poor preparation against Fischer, blithely overlooking that the authorities replaced his trainer and that Fischer had never beaten Spassky prior to the match. It can be hard to gear up for an opponent we have previously dominated. Korchnoi was essentially self taught. He never received the early Pioneers training of most Soviet players. Even when his talent was spotted and training offered, Korchnoi for several years rebelled and rejected the training. Thus, he often overlooked simple wins or committed costly blunders. The upside was his originality and ability to find hidden defensive resources. Viktor Lvovich's reputation as an ornery character was well earned. It worked against him as much as it allowed him to succeed where the less stubborn and combative who have wilted. |
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| Aug-18-19 | | ewan14: It was a pity Boris did not listen to Geller. Boris might have won the match ! |
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| Dec-02-20 | | Caissanist: The complete "chess talent" quote comes from Kevin Spraggett, in a story on his website: <I remember fondly one conversation I had a few years back with Boris Spassky. We were discussing 'THE' Victor Korchnoi ('Victor the Terrible' to many).Boris and Victor had been bitter adversaries for more than 40 years at the time of this conversation, and they had played more than 60 times in official competitions..(including 2 candidates finals)... only Karpov can boast to have played Victor more times. Boris, at one point, came up with the incredible statement that Korchnoi had every quality necessary to become world champion BUT lacked ONE very essential quality...and it was precisely this quality that prevented him from attaining chess' highest title. I coaxed Boris on...He began to list Korchnoi's many qualities: ...Killer Instinct (nobody can even compare with Victor's 'gift')
...Phenomenal capacity to work (both on the board and off the board)
...Iron nerves (even with seconds left on the clock)
...Ability to Calculate (maybe only Fischer was better in this department)
...Tenacity and perseverance in Defense (unmatched by anyone)
...The ability to counterattack (unrivaled in chess history)
...Impeccable Technique (Flawless, even better than Capa's)
...Capacity to concentrate (unreal)
...Impervious to distractions during the game
...Brilliant understanding of strategy
...Superb tactian (only a few in history an compare with Victor)
...Possessing the most profound opening preparation of any GM of his generation
...Subtle Psychologist
...Super-human will to win (matched only by Fischer)
...Deep knowledge of all of his adversaries
...Enormous energy and self-discipline
Then Boris stopped, and just looked at me, begging for me to ask the question that needed to be asked.... I asked: 'But, Boris, what does Victor lack to become world champion?' Boris' answer floored me:
''He has no chess talent !''
And then he roared with laughter...> |
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| Dec-02-20 | | Z4all: <Caissanist> a very good, and funny, anecdote. I assume Spraggett is 100% reliable in the retelling (?!). Also, it's funny that the thread reads so smoothly, despite the gulf in time. |
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| Dec-03-20 | | Caissanist: My guess is that this was a summary/series of excerpts of a long conversation, during which alcohol was consumed. |
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Dec-03-20
 | | Williebob: No doubt that Spassky became a lazy bear by the late 1970s. So I just pulled up his game pages starting from the USSR Zonal in 1964, to the 1969 WC match with Petrosian, and am instantly convinced that nobody worked harder to achieve the world championship! |
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Dec-14-20
 | | perfidious: Long before the 'no talent' shtick, Larsen quoted Spassky in similar vein when interviewed by Hugh Alexander for a book published in 1972: <....Analytic power and positional insight vary very much for different Grandmasters. Smyslov and Petrosian never liked to analyze complex positions very much, Tal obviously does it very well and Korchnoi's whole play is based on analysis. If you are Smyslov or Petrosian then you have such positional understanding that you can avoid many complications and dangers and the need for so much analysis. Analytical power improves very much with practice; you learn to find what is critical in a position, what is worth analysing - you see which pieces are active, where the weak points are. When you don't know what to analyse, you sit there for a long time, picking variations almost at random. Tal and Korchnoi were probably born with a greater gift for analysis than I was and I was born with a greater gift than Smyslov and Petrosian; and in positional insight it is the other way round. Korchnoi is fantastic at calculating complex variations, especially when he is hard pressed; but he must analyze because his judgment when he doesn't calculate is very bad - he has to get through a lot of variations before he knows what's happening. Of course many things that worry the ordinary player are not problems at all for a Grandmaster; but in the difficult positions Spassky has said "Korchnoi is always wrong". Maybe a strong point of Fischer is that he is good both at analysis and in judgment - though Tal can calculate better and possibly Korchnoi also.'> Alexander, <A Book of Chess>, p 88 |
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