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Dec-20-09
 | | HeMateMe: what about Spassky? You never hear about him plyaing serious chess, just sometimes these ex. matches with the teenagers. Do you get to keep your last FIDE rating forever? Should be an asterisk on it, or something, if you aren't playing a minimum number of games. |
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Jan-11-10
| | HeMateMe: Kevin Spragett, with some nice comments on Spasky:
"Spassky is also the most respected chess player in the world. In a chess career spanning more than 6 decades, Boris has managed to avoid both scandals and intrigues. He has somehow avoided the nastiness of politics. Though Boris was not liked very much by the Soviet sporting authorities <(he was banned from travelling abroad for a short while> , allegedly for poor results), there was not very much that could be pinned on him: Boris was, simply, a gentleman and a sportsman." |
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| Jan-12-10 | | JaneEyre: Karpov's view of Spassky's victory in the 1973 Soviet Championship (Game Collection: USSR Championship 1973): <By contrast, Spassky peddled furiously. He played flat-out, not saving any theoretical discoveries for the Candidates matches, and generously revealing his plans in a number of variations, admitting that before the Candidates matches he had to experience his strength. But I think that Spassky's victory in the championship was not really so convincing and promising for him. The ex-world champion had a losing position against me, he could have lost by force to Korchnoi, and he had a difficult position against Kuzmin... Had he lost to any of us, the winner would have shared first place with him.> As quoted in Kasparov's <OMGP V>; original source unknown. G Kuzmin vs Spassky, 1973
Karpov vs Spassky, 1973
Korchnoi vs Spassky, 1973 |
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Jan-12-10
| | HeMateMe: <The ex-world champion had a losing position against me, he could have lost by force to Korchnoi, and he had a difficult position against Kuzmin... Had he lost to any of us, the winner would have shared first place with him.> that kind of blather from chessplayers has never impressed anyone. ".....Oh, I was winning, but..., Oh, he was lost in the other game, but his opponent didn't see.....". The winner of a match or tournament is the one who best navigates these problems. If Karpov didnt win that tournament, then he didn't play as well as Spassky. It's that simple. |
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| Jan-12-10 | | JaneEyre: It's never as simple as that. Which is why Karpov beat Spassky so handily in their Candidates match. |
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Jan-12-10
| | HeMateMe: The Candidates was a different event. I was referring to Karpov's comments about the '73 USSR Championship. One does well to lose with dignity, and don't bash the winner. |
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| Jan-12-10 | | JaneEyre: Karpov's making two pertinent points about Spassky's play in that event. 1) That Spassky tried his utmost, including the use of his favourite opening systems and preparation whilst Karpov kept some of his powder dry. 2)That Spassky's play against his fellow frontrunners was still less than irreproachable. |
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Jan-12-10
 | | keypusher: <HeMateMe: The Candidates was a different event. I was referring to Karpov's comments about the '73 USSR Championship. One does well to lose with dignity, and don't bash the winner.> It also depends on the circumstances. If Karpov said something like that right after the tournament (and I would bet a healthy sum that he didn't, at least not in public) it's sour grapes. If he said it years later, after he had proven his superiority over Spassky beyond any doubt -- well, I still don't like it, exactly, but it is less objectionable. |
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| Jan-12-10 | | Petrosianic: The first point is perhaps valid. Spassky may have been too eager for a big victory after losing to Fischer to keep enough back for the next Candidates. The second point is irrelevant woulda-coulda-shoulda that could be said about almost any tournament. Some of the losers might have won. But they didn't. No newsflash there. |
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Jan-12-10
 | | tamar: No one who played Fischer in the previous cycle ever was a threat again.
It is hard to say who suffered worse-Taimanov, Larsen, Petrosian or Spassky. Spassky came nearest, but his debacle against Karpov would not have happened to a pre-1972 Spassky. |
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Jan-12-10
| | keypusher: <tamar: No one who played Fischer in the previous cycle ever was a threat again. It is hard to say who suffered worse-Taimanov, Larsen, Petrosian or Spassky.> Tamar, forgive me, but I've always found this "no one was ever the same after losing to Bobby" meme irritating. Before 1970 Taimanov had last participated in a world championship cycle in 1953, when he finished in the middle of the pack at Zurich. IOW, he was never the same before losing to Bobby, either. Larsen won the Riga Interzonal A.B. ("After Bobby") just as he had won the Sousse Interzonal B.B. He continued to lose candidates matches, just as he had lost candidates matches B.B. He was playing great chess going into his 1968 match with Spassky but lost the first three games and never had a prayer. Maybe we should say he was never the same after losing to Boris? Petrosian continued to be a very strong grandmaster but lost three matches to Korchnoi, who significantly raised his match level in the 70s. Spassky reached the finals in '77 but also lost to Korchnoi. Petrosian and Spassky were also getting into their 40s, so a slight drop in strength is not surprising. Most people aren't like Korchnoi, and thank God for that. <Spassky came nearest, but his debacle against Karpov would not have happened to a pre-1972 Spassky.> Since pre-1972 Spassky never had to play 1974 Karpov, we don't know that. |
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Jan-12-10
| | tamar: <keypusher> Korchnoi was spared facing Fischer by losing to Petrosian in 1971. I think he also took advantage that his generational rivals were traumatized by
Fischer's great run.
Had he played Fischer, I think he would have suffered the same fate as Petrosian-even for a while then unable to win a game. |
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Jan-12-10
| | keypusher: <tamar> I am pretty confident Korchnoi would have lost decisively to Fischer had they played in a match in 1971, and I am about equally confident that his subsequent career would have been much the same if he had. We'll never know, of course. I will say I see no sign of trauma in Spassky's, Petrosian's, Larsen's and Taimanov's post-Fischer play. If I am wrong and you are right, it's just another Fischer crime: not only did he deny us his own great chess, he denied us great chess from others too. |
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| Jan-12-10 | | Jim Bartle: Korchnoi suffered a number of devastating defeats in his career, yet continued on with few apparent ill effects. I don't see how a loss to Fischer would have been any different. |
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| Jan-12-10 | | Petrosianic: <Tamar, forgive me, but I've always found this "no one was ever the same after losing to Bobby" meme irritating.> There is some truth in it, but it's more due to the rise of Korchnoi and Karpov than the effect of playing Fischer. Before 1972, one could have said with a fair degree of assurance that the top 4 players (in no particular order) were Spassky, Petrosian, Fischer and Larsen. After Fischer-Spassky, it was Korchnoi and Karpov who dominated the next 10 years. That part is true. You're right about Taimanov. No appreciable effect there, except in his private life. Actually, there was more effect DURING the match than afeterwards. The blown win in Game 3 was understandable. It was a very complex position. But the draws he blew in Games 2 and 5 almost defied belief. It usually took a Bisguier to blow games against Fischer that badly. If Fischer had been a Soviet player too, people would have been saying that Taimanov threw the games. Larsen actually won the Biel Interzonal in 1976. (Tal won Riga, in Larsen's absence). He played in one more Candidates Match after Fischer, a 6½-3½ loss to Portisch in 1976. The most notable thing about that match was that it had as many decisive games as the other three quarterfinals combined. Portisch was always a tough opponent for Larsen, though, so no huge surprise in his losing it. Petrosian played in the next 3 candidates cycles after losing to Fischer, and won an Interzonal. He continued to be a top contender until he hit age 50. He didn't really start sliding noticably until 1982 (and his career ended in 1983). Spassky, as you say, reached the Finals in 1977, at age 40, though he had actually tried and failed to qualify from the 1976 interzonal, and only got in by taking Fischer's spot. His career slide seemed to begin right after winning the title, though. Having achieved his life's aim, he got lazy. Really, it was incredibly bad luck for Fischer that someone as dominant as Karpov should spring up so quickly after 1972. And Korchnoi, who was clearly inferior to Petrosian and Spassky in the 60's, suddenly played the best chess of his life in his 40's and early 50's. Before 1970, no one had really dominated the chess world like Fischer did since the early 1930's. Then suddenly two people do it back to back. Then a few years later, Kasparov comes along too. |
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| Jan-12-10 | | pawn to QB4: Wouldn't even go along with this: <Before 1972, one could have said with a fair degree of assurance that the top 4 players (in no particular order) were Spassky, Petrosian, Fischer and Larsen>: have a look at Korchnoi's results in the late 60s. It was taken for granted that he was right at the top as a tournament player, but had come unstuck in candidates' matches. He himself was of the view that there aren't people who were good in tournaments but not matches: "there are good players and bad players, anything else is a contrivance"; he'd think that he'd been one of the top four in the 6os, and proved his point in the 70s. Don't know if Elo would back this up, but chessmetrics does: http://db.chessmetrics.com/CM2/Mont...
Korchnoi, Geller and Tal to complicate the picture of who the top four were: also, no need for "in no particular order", it has Fischer well in front in the latter part of the period...and Larsen hardly showing. But I do agree that you can't look at results and say that people like Larsen, Petrosian and Spassky were chugging along fine, then played Fischer and were never the same men again. Personally, I was impressed with the character shown by Larsen and Spassky in dusting themselves off and putting in good results. I also wonder why people would like this myth of Fischer destroying people psychologically to be true. Doesn't sound healthy to me. |
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| Jan-12-10 | | Petrosianic: <Don't know if Elo would back this up, but chessmetrics does:> Nobody knew about those then. And no Elo ratings until 1970. The best gauge of who was on top was the Candidates. When Korchnoi defected, the news services called him the World #3 player, not because of ratings, but because he had lost the last Candidates Final. According to chessmetrics, Korchnoi was still rated higher than Spassky even after losing to him 6½-3½. But few at the time would have considered him better. The idea of Fischer destroying people psychologically comes from the fact that Larsen and Taimanov both took medical timeouts for exhaustion, or something. In those days, timeouts weren't automatic, like they are now. You had to present a doctor's note, just like getting out of school. Nobody ever had trouble getting one, but still, the requirement was there. |
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Jan-12-10
| | tamar: <keypusher>
<Most people aren't like Korchnoi, and thank God for that.> Amen. |
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| Jan-12-10 | | Petrosianic: <a 6½-3½ loss to Portisch in 1976> 1977, sorry. |
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| Jan-12-10 | | pawn to QB4: My point is simply that the ratings system backs up what I recall people thinking at the time, which was not that Fischer, Petrosian, Larsen and Spassky were a group ahead of the rest. Botvinnik, for instance, thought that at one stage Geller was the strongest player in the world. Others wondered how Spassky lost to Petrosian, when he'd bested people like Keres and Korchnoi, who "caused far more trembling than he who sat on the official throne" (Golombek). I also suspect that Larsen, as a Westerner, was thought of by some people in the West as a top four player, by others in the West not, and by those in the East as below several of their top people, which effectively proved to be the case. You are probably right that Larsen and Taimanov's pleas of low blood pressure helped start the idea that losing to Fischer was a psychological crusher. What I query is why folk still believe that people like Spassky, Larsen or Petrosian never came back, and I'm sort of raising an eyebrow as to why they want to believe that, as if it says something attractive about Fischer. |
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| Jan-12-10 | | MaxxLange: What is the best book of Spassky's annotated games? Is there even one in English? |
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| Jan-12-10 | | Petrosianic: "Spassky's 100 Best Games" was pretty good, but I haven't seen a copy in years. |
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| Jan-12-10 | | MaxxLange: out of print? |
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| Jan-12-10 | | TheFocus: Has anyone any information about Spassky doing his autobiography or is that just a rumor? |
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| Jan-12-10 | | parisattack: <Petrosianic: "Spassky's 100 Best Games" was pretty good, but I haven't seen a copy in years.> I listed the Spassky books in English here a few pages back and on my forum. I didn't think the Cafferty book was one of the better ones but tastes differ, of course. Too bad not that many books on Spassky. |
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