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| Jul-08-08 | | HannibalSchlecter: I like a good sporting debate. Cheers all around. I don't believe Fischer ever intended to defend his title because he didn't play any serious chess, a sign of what was to come. Oh you think the eyes are a joke? Have you people not heard of Fischer Fear/Fever? The man had spooky powers. As for Spassky playing better against Karpov, I had heard the opposite, that he wasn't the same after Fischer shredded his confidence. Also what is your evidence for claiming that Korchnoi got stronger than he was in the early 1970's? |
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| Jul-08-08 | | Woody Wood Pusher: Obviously Spassky wasn't happy about the loss but it didn't destroy him by any means. He was back playing just as good, if not better than before because of his experience with Fischer. We need to remember that Spassky did not come away from the match thinking his play had been fundamentally flawed, he though a few adjustments were all that was necessary and re-entered the candidates matches with the full intention of getting a return match. Different people argue over when exactly it became apparent that his type of chess would no longer cut it at the highest level, but his match with Karpov more likely revealed this to him than his match with Fischer. I don't want to just talk in abstracts here because its well know his whole approach to the opening and strategic phases of the game was based on INSPIRATION at the board rather than exhaustive preparation and in-depth home analysis. It was during his candidates match with Karpov that it really became clear this whole line of thinking was dead for top level chess. After the young Karpov was able to direct almost every game into the type of positions he wanted, Spassky realised that his time had really passed and he was unfortunately unable to fully meet the new demands after this. |
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| Jul-08-08 | | Jole: For this debate, a few things need to be noted: Karpov was young at the time of the proposed match between him and Fischer. Even though he was dominating the soviet bloc, he had not yet fully developed into the great that he would be. Fischer wasn't exactly well warmed-up for the match. The match wouldn't likely have been between a top-form Fischer and a top-form Karpov so it is really hard to tell. A match would have been nice in so much as training for Karpov. It would have been interesting to see how far he could go when he was pushed. |
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| Jul-09-08 | | tsp: <Jim Beatle>
Referring to your post, I am unable to understand the sentence "Add one more to the list of differences between the USSR and the USA..." |
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Jul-09-08
 | | keypusher: < As for Spassky playing better against Karpov, I had heard the opposite, that he wasn't the same after Fischer shredded his confidence.> His results after the Fischer match (e.g., winning the Soviet championship) were better than his results before the Fischer match. Why not compare the games in the Fischer match to the games in the Karpov match and see what you think? At least against Karpov he didn't throw any games away. < Also what is your evidence for claiming that Korchnoi got stronger than he was in the early 1970's?> His rating went up (it peaked in 1978). He co-won the Leningrad interzonal with Karpov in 1973 and won three straight against Petrosian in a match in 1974. In the 1978 cycle he beat Petrosian, Polugaevsky and Spassky before losing narrowly to Karpov. He also won matches against various western players in those years. |
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| Jul-09-08 | | Ziggurat: <danielpi><Kasparov thinks that Karpov would have won.> Where do you get this from? In On My Great Predecessors, he writes that Karpov would have had good chances - as opposed to the conventional wisdom that Fischer would have won easily. Kasparov definitely doesn´t write that Karpov "would have won", nor has he said so as far as I know. |
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| Jul-09-08 | | boz: <At least against Karpov he didn't throw any games away.> Players threw games away against Fischer in the same way they do today against Carlsen. |
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| Jul-09-08 | | danielpi: <tsp><Referring to your post, I am unable to understand the sentence "Add one more to the list of differences between the USSR and the USA..."> I think he meant that one wouldn't expect truck drivers in the USA to be the sort to compose or solve difficult chess problems -- the association (fair or not) one connotes with "truck driver" in America is more with unrefrigerated meats and trucker bombs http://www.urbandictionary.com/defi... than chess. <HSchlecter> I haven't heard anyone (other than patzers) claiming that the Spassky playing Karpov was any worse than the Spassky playing Fischer. Indeed, from masters, I have only heard the opposite. I do think the eyes are a joke. Even if a glare might intimidate some players, Karpov certainly wasn't the sort to be affected by something as silly as that. The truth is that I think this "death stare" stuff is just something that some people introduce to make chess more palatable for non-chess players. That is, to add drama to the proceedings for people that fail to see the drama on the board. Not that I'm near their league, but the only time I've ever been affected by the physical presence of my opponent was when I was paired with this hobo-like guy, who I suspect hadn't bathed in weeks. I couldn't give a crap what the other guy does with his eyes, ordinarily. If he wants to waste time posing and staring into my eyes rather than looking at the board, I'm happy to let him. Heck, if it bothered me at all, I'd just step out for a coffee. <Ziggurat> What conventional wisdom is that? http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail...
Of course, it was too hasty of me to say that Kasparov thinks Karpov would have won -- but he thought a bit more than that Karpov merely had "chances" or "good chances" as you claim (unless by "good chances" you mean "more likely would have won"). From OMGP: "And, hypothetically comparing the pre-match preparations of Fischer and Karpov, one must mention not only the challenger's advantage in the number and quality of specific prepared variations, but also, in particular, his obvious superiority in the all-inclusive, wide-ranging extent of this preparation... [Fischer] was aware that serious qualitative shifts had occurred, that he had left one kind of chess and would arrive at another, and that to join the new reality, a huge effort, an incredible spurt was required. He realized that he would have to play against the leader of a generation who had grown up on the wave of the openings revolution and had brought these qualitative shifts to chess... Observing the qualifying cycle, he realised that Karpov would be especially strong in the first part of the marathon. And Bobby, in view of his psychological instability, most probably began to have serious fears about a bad start." The tone throughout is not the suggestion that Karpov would have won, nor that Karpov had a reasonable chance of winning, but that Karpov was the favorite win. |
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| Jul-09-08 | | Woody Wood Pusher: I dont personally give any credit to stories about mysterious powers of intimidation in any sport, least of all chess. I grant that some players are more susceptible to intimidation than others, but at the highest level every player has enough self belief to prevent this being a truly significant factor. But if you want to continue to talk about Fischer's stare then I would counter with Karpov's type of play which was something to be worried about in itself. Spassky found him impossible to play against because he simply did not understand how Karpov was evaluating positions and so could not guess his plans. More recently Kramnik is quoted as saying there 'is something incomprehensible' about Karpov's play (he was talking about his victory over him in linares 94). If anything, I would be a lot more worried about this than an opponents 'stare' lol |
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| Jul-09-08 | | boz: I think there is definitely intimidation in chess but not through stares. More often it is achieved through a steady succession of hammer blows on the board. That said, I agree with Woody that Karpov was not a man to be intimidated by anybody. |
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| Jul-09-08 | | Woody Wood Pusher: agreed. Intimidation through performance is totally different to 'stares' and other play acting, but the best players have a formidably high resilience even to this. |
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| Jul-09-08 | | boz: If anyone ever stared at me I never noticed. I do suffer a little from rating intimidation though. Or more accurately, I too often expect to lose when I play someone rated much higher than I am. I'm talking about real chess, not blitz or online. |
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| Jul-09-08 | | Tomlinsky: Perhaps Marty Feldman lookalikes are seriously underestimating their potential in having a shot at the title? 8| |
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| Jul-09-08 | | boz: <Perhaps Marty Feldman lookalikes are seriously underestimating their potential in having a shot at the title? > Yes, but what would happen when they have to play each other? |
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| Jul-09-08 | | Jim Bartle: "What hump?" |
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| Jul-09-08 | | boz: <Jim Bartle> I'm chuckling just thinking about it. |
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| Jul-09-08 | | newton296: <(Counting only his non-Korchnoi loses, Karpov lost once in 1973, once in 1974, once in 1975, twice in 1976, twice in 1977, once in 1978 and twice in 1979. And those were years in which he played a lot, and played everybody.)> you can't help but be impressed by karpovs auro of perfection , if you look at fishers and karpov's common opponents ie; spassky and korchnoi ! karpov does looks stronger. karpov dominated spassky while fisher had a losing record to spassky throughout his entire career. ( until 1972 ) then they were tied I think 6 wins each after the 72 match
fisher was also even with korchnoi , while karpov had a healthy plus score and 2 world champ wins against korch ! it's tragic they never played , but the fact that fisher wasn't even willing to start the match and karpov was. has to make even fisher fans go hmmm! imo fisher had no intention of playing a match against such a strong player , when he hadn't even played at all for 3 years . not even fisher can overcome a total lack of prep
sorry fisher fans , but if karpov and fisher played in 75 , karpov would have won. |
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| Jul-09-08 | | HannibalSchlecter: For Fischer, when I talk about his eyes, it wasn't just his stare, you could see in his eyes his will to win...you can see the determination in his eyes. Spassky himself said during their famous match he felt uncomfortable and he didn't know why. Spassky said he did not rule out high tech foul play (which is why Fischer's chair had been searched) So yes, even the big boys were affected by Fischer's aura (or high tech something that was never discovered) |
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Jul-09-08
| | keypusher: I think it's impossible to say how a 1975 match would have gone, because no one can really say how Fischer would have played. But one argument in his favor is the argument from endurance -- Karpov faded badly at the end of his '74 and '78 matches against Korchnoi and the first match with Kasparov. Another argument, of course, is that in the past Fischer had been able to maintain and sometimes even increase his strength despite long stretches away from the board. It's moot -- I don't think Fischer was ever going to play in 1975. But if he had, it would have been unwise to count him out. |
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| Jul-10-08 | | whiteshark: <Q: <Is the best chess player ever still playing or did he step back from chess? <Karpov: <No, I am still playing. > >> >
Well spoken! :D |
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| Jul-10-08 | | HannibalSchlecter: <danielpi> It was not just patzers claiming Spassky had gotten worse after the Fischer match. In "Karpov on Karpov"(great must read book by the way), Karpov wrote that it was not he who is responsible for driving Spassky from the chess elite. It was not he who broke Spassky but Fischer! He added that it would have been a different story if he had played Spassky a match before Fischer did. |
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| Jul-10-08 | | Petrosianic: <keypusher> <It's moot -- I don't think Fischer was ever going to play in 1975. But if he had, it would have been unwise to count him out.> This can't really be proved one way or the other, but it's my opinion that Fischer was simply incapable of playing in 1975. Or, more specifically, he was incapable of playing at the level that he demanded of himself, and was unwilling to play at a lower level for the time it would take to get back into top form. Hence, there was no way he would have played. If he'd gotten 9-9, he'd have raised some new objection. I know he came away from long absences from the board stronger than ever on previous occasions, but those times he had kept studying chess night and day during the down times. All the post-1972 accounts of him suggest that he stopped studying entirely all through 1973, and started enjoying life for a change. If he really got out of chess entirely for the first time in his adult life, getting back into it would have been a painful process that he'd have had nothing to gain by putting himself through. He already had the title, the only thing he could do by defending it was to eventually lose. His solution was to resign the title and spend the rest of his life pretending he still had it. |
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| Jul-10-08 | | Tessie Tura: <If he'd gotten 9-9, he'd have raised some new objection.> Maybe. It's also possible he meant what he said.
<It's moot -- I don't think Fischer was ever going to play in 1975. But if he had, it would have been unwise to count him out.> Yes, indeed. |
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| Jul-10-08 | | Petrosianic: <Maybe. It's also possible he meant what he said.> He never said he'd definitely play if he got those original 150+ conditions, and never promised that he wouldn't raise new ones. He never guaranteed his participation in any scenario. So, what do you mean here? In 1980, he did get all his conditions and still refused to play Korchnoi, even though he could have stuck it to FIDE royally if he had. It seems obvious that he didn't want to play. That may not have been clear in 1975, when many people thought his refusal to play Karpov was only a prelude to defending his title outside of FIDE. But in hindsight it's clear. |
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| Jul-10-08 | | Tessie Tura: <He never said he'd definitely play if he got those original 150+ conditions, and never promised that he wouldn't raise new ones. He never guaranteed his participation in any scenario. So, what do you mean here?> Of course Fischer never said he'd definitely play. Not his M.O., as you know. What I meant was that in 1975 it is possible that he might have eventually agreed to do so, although not without the customary Sturm und Drang. He had had a long layoff, but not so long that a comeback was prohibitively difficult. As the years went by a return at the highest level would obviously have been harder to contemplate, especially as Fischer's personal condition deteriorated, and as I thik Karpov said in "Karpov on Karpov," it was at their last meeting that he realized Fischer was never going to play. |
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