I already caught you in several that you didn't dispute. If you're saying I can't do it <again> that's entirely up to you. I can't if you don't let me.

<You think Fischers conditions for the match were wrong, I disagree, what the heck is wrong with you??>

...But you've just gone and done it again (that didn't take long!). You just lied about what we were talking about. We're not arguing about what I think. (Who cares what I think?) The point at hand is that <Fischer himself admitted that his own conditions were unfair>. Even though this subject has come up many times, you first pretended not to know it, then not to understand it, and now not to remember it.

A lot of that old ground is Joshka pretending to have forgotten points that he conceded before, hoping to get a different response next time.

<If Fischer's term had been accepted and the match went ahead then the war of attrition, first to 9 wins would have seen Karpov off (see his later matches v Korchnoi and Kasparov) how many months do you think it would have taken Karpov to win 9 games v Fischer in 1975?>

In light of Karpov's stamina problems, I can't see him even making it to the end of such a match. I could maybe see him beat Fischer in a Best of 24 match, but in a 10 wins match, the odds are that Karpov would have been carried out on a stretcher before the end.

<Fischer took time off chess for 20 years came back and played some great games in 1992 so 3 years was nothing.>

Possibly so, but what is clear that Fischer was unable to play chess <to his own satisfaction> after 1975. Make of that what you will, his standards were pretty high. At the time people thought that it was just this one match that he wouldn't play, and that Fischer would "defend his title" outside of FIDE, like Kasparov later did. But the verdict is in on that, and Fischer didn't play <anybody> for 20 years. As you'll recall, the Fischer-Gligoric match was supposedly a done deal, but Fischer walked out at the last minute anyway, despite getting all his conditions. Other matches met similar fates. Obviously Fischer wasn't afraid of losing to Gligoric, so the only other option is that he just didn't want to play chess at all.

< I think Fischer took a true layoff, genuinely intending for it to be temporary, but then found it impossible to get back to the grind.>

There is something in that, I think you are correct. Possibly add in once he had won the title there was only one thing that can eventually happen. Losing it and with no more mountains to climb there was no motivation.

It's the same issue: Fischer. Only to him it's a religion. His methodology involves misreading plain English, feigning ignorance of facts he doesn't like, and repeating back things that were never said to maintain a position by crook (rarely hook). Case in point, this current discussion is about Fischer's own admission that his match conditions were unfair. Josh <doesn't disagree with that> mainly because he hasn't acknowledged it at all. He repeats it back as only being what I think or what Ed Edmondson thinks, even though the quote clearly says that Fischer agreed with it.

You've probably seen all the big Fischer myths. FIDE wouldn't "let" Fischer play in 1975. Every other champion was granted their own playing conditions. Fischer never resigned the title. 9-9 was a smaller advantage than what Karpov got, and so on. Joshka will repeat pretty much every Fischer myth you can think of, knowing they aren't true, but feeling that the cause justifies telling them.

You heard it here first.>

You could be right, after the lay off's Fischer had in the past he came back stronger only this time we are pretty sure he stopped studying (though we know he was looking at Karpov's games.) and would have been over 30 so yes those three years off would have counted against him.

On the other hand, regarding super players, and not being one I am making an assumption. Lay off's did not seem to affect, Steinitz, Lasker and to a certain extent Botvinnik.

I think the main thing against Fischer was he had achieved what he always wanted, no motivation (it's a pity money never motivated him £5 million was the purse) and playing against the latest theory, though he here he would have avoided main lines and not used anything he had in the past like he did v Spassky - no King's Indians.

Against Karpov the question about his stamina is there and was highlighted in 1978 and 1984 and first to nine wins would have been a very long match possibly stopping and starting due to extra Fischer demands and complaints.

But looking for negatives in the players is not the way to go. At the time they were both great players. It would have been a brilliant match but alas...

<I'm in good company thinking Fischer would have won in 1975>

I hope that's not true, as if it is, it means Fischer gave up a five million dollar purse for basically no reason. In the end, history records that Karpov was Fischer's successor, which haunts people to this day.

<I think the main thing against Fischer was he had achieved what he always wanted, no motivation>

Kasparov describes that as "calcification", something that hits all world champions to one degree or another when they win the title. It hit Fischer worst of all, he's the only one who couldn't win a single game as champion. (Lasker seems have been hit the least.) That's why Fischer was the greatest ever challenger, but the worst ever champion. Fighting off a hungry challenger is a very different thing than climbing Olympus yourself.

<(it's a pity money never motivated him £5 million was the purse)>

In good company I mean in general most players, as in players of my era, think Fischer in 1975 and Karpov in 1978.

Money seemed only to be an issue in 1972. In 1975 he had no idea how his life would turn out. He turned down a pile of money for an unofficial Fischer - Spassky rematch in Las Vegas and another pile by not adding his name to a chess set. After the 1975 debacle the offers all but dried up. A possible unofficial match in v Karpov was on the cards but that too went astray (Maybe we should have a new thread for that one :) )

The 1992 comeback offer was at the time too good to refuse and it was against Spassky. Not Karpov or Kasparov.

As for world champions feeling the burden of the crown, it appears all champions felt it, even Lasker. If you recall he tried to resign the title naming Capablanca as his successor. I think only Alekhine and Botvinnik rejoiced in it going to great lengths to win it back.

I was thinking of Vishy in my last post. Did he not say something about relieved it was over and had to be talked into taking his rightful seat next candidates by Kramnik.

Of course Kasparov, but I was reading what Petrosinic said;

'Kasparov describes that as "calcification", something that hits all world champions to one degree or another when they win the title. '

It's a mis-attribution to credit Kasparov as having said it, though he did popularize the notion.

The proper credit should go to K's second - <Yuri Dokhoian>:

<<As my second <Yuri Dokhoian> wittily expressed it, with the years each world champion begins to 'calcify' - in other words, to become inflexible and be transformed into a living monument.>

That is, he gradually ceases to add something new to chess and to grasp the dominating tendency of its development. And sooner or later the inevitable retribution sets in, since the young challenger, on the contrary, usually makes a step forward.> [emphasis added]

<Again, since you believe I'm a liar, what lie did I tell you??>

Well, for example, pretending not to know what I said and you responded to several times. (That Fischer admitted to Edmondson that his match conditions were unfair, and furthermore that this was not a <change> in Fischer's position, but a reaffirmation of what Fischer had always said about champion's advantage.) Even though you knew all about it in advance, you claimed you didn't, then when I quoted it for you claimed that the quote said something other than what the plain English said. Then a few days later you had "forgotten" it again.

But that's not the only lie I could cite. How about the fact that you're <still> arguing this after telling me that you didn't care what I thought about you? That wasn't true, was it? And I've often seen you citing My 61 Memorable Games as indisputably Fischer's own work, while withholding any mention of the fact that it was exposed as a hoax or that it was in any doubt. That's a lie of omission.

He said that in My Great Predecessors, but I'm not sure which volume it was offhand (I don't own a copy, I read it in either a borrowed copy or a library copy.

But Capablanca said something similar. He didn't use the word "calcification", but he drew a contrast between the days when he was young and ambitious, but lacked experience, and the present day when he was loaded with experience, but lacking in ambition. I think that means basically the same thing as what Kasparov said.

Alekhine-Capablanca is maybe the best example of it. I still think Capa was the "better" player, but Alekhine was obviously much more motivated, worked a lot harder, and moved mountains to win the title.

<Tigran had not only been an observer to the tragedy of Smyslov, and the tragedy of Tal, he had also to explain the events as they took place to millions of chess fans. 'The intelligent man learns through the experiences of others'. Before he could explain these two collapses to others, he had first to explain them to himself....

Why was it that Smyslov, tasting the sweetness of a champion's cup, was unable to maintain his throne?

Possibly, a very simple answer could be given to this question: in the third match... everything did not depend on Smyslov; Botvinnik had turned out to be stronger and that was all. Yet there was a further consideration: Smyslov had lost the last match not only at the board, but even before the match had begun...

Many chess-players have been able to surmount the difficulties of defeat, but few can withstand the sweet effects of victory; as it turned out in the third and last match, Smyslov began play, secretly hoping that he would not need to expend a great deal of energy here. In the first games of the match, Botvinnik hammered him in one game after another, and the revenge took place. . . .

Next it was Tal's turn. He literally flew towards the summit, overturning the ordered ranks, hierarchies in his path... Yet the fact that [Botvinnik] decided to utilize his right to a return match indicated that he had analyzed all the games of the first match, and worked out a deep plan of revenge. Both Tal and Smyslov made the same error regarding Botvinnik; they underestimated his recuperative powers, and his ability to learn from his defeats. At the end, 25-year-old Tal, at the zenith of his powers, was beaten by 50-year-old Botvinnik!...

Tigran had before him the sorrowful experiences of his predecessors, but even without it, he would not have made a similar mistake to them. It was not in his nature to underestimate the opponent, rather the opposite. In this he had an appreciable advantage over both Tal and Smyslov.

Tal's victory over Botvinnik in 1960 had been so convincing that both the public at large and the experts believed that Botvinnik would most certainly be beaten in the return match, and many thought that he would waive his right to a return match completely...