Did everyone finally agree on what Bobby meant by "set-match"?

I mean, I assume there was heated discussion of it, at some point in the 20 years of this website.

Maybe multiple discussions!

So I guess I don't know how to properly use the Search Kibitzing function.>

Neither do I.

Hi thegoodanarchist,

This discussion will be scattered all the forums not just on this page.

Bobby, probably like most of us, would chop and change his mind depending on what mood he was in or who was asking the question.

His top 10 list came out in January 1964. At the 1960 Olympiad when asked who was the best players of today he said Botvinnik, Tal (who was then the current world champion), and Spassky adding:

"but I think Petrosian is better than all of them."

Petrosian and Spassky went onto win the title.

In the 1964 list, Botvinnik and Petrosian were left out of top 10. Here it is, not in any order:

Morphy
Tarrasch
Spassky
Tal
Capablanca
Alekhine
Steinitz
Staunton
Chigorin
Reshevsky

As for 'set-match' he may have been hinting that <sometimes> Morphy lost the first game against a good player he had never played before. Then having judged his style Morphy would roll them over. (emphasis on 'sometimes' not always.)

So in a 'set-match' he could afford a loss or two whereas in a tournament (and here we must remember Morphy only played in one tournament.) losses to a rival meant he would have to depend on other players to beat him to catch him up.

But that is me speculating. The main point was Bobby changing his mind after a few years.

More details here at the Edward Winter site.

https://www.chesshistory.com/winter...

I would think a "set" number of games.
(like his 1972 match with Spassky)

Speculating, it could be a "set" of rules
not related to game count, to decide the match.
(like his 1992 match with Spassky)

The only certainty:

<he would beat anybody today in a set-match>

Consequently the psychiatrists of the world (including many irresponsible publicists) have been attributing to Fischer pathological characters;

Megalomania, persecution mania, monomania (in fact, every mania except nymphomania.)

Gerald Abrahams, Encounter, 1973.

After taking a pop at all the armchair psychiatrists who even back then we queing up to give their unqualified diagnosis we get his comments on Game One and Fischer's ill-fated 29...Bxh2.

He gives plausible reasons why Fischer played this move.

Not wanting to settle for a draw he missed a Zwischenzug 7 moves later or it was OK but later went wrong. (at the time the jury was still out - and would remain so for many years if the Bishop sac OK.)

Meanwhile...

"The patzers of the world are content to think that he overlooked the loss of the Bishop, and so there is hope for them all."

An entertaining article with a few thought provoking moments.

Gerald Abrahams, Encounter, 1973.

He concludes with:

"As for Fischer’s control of chess, let it simply be said that from now onwards the phrase Grand Master is meaningless."

Excuses are as old as chess itself. Everyone knows that no healthy chess player ever lost a game.

A good example of that is the Fischer-Petrosian match. Petrosian's excuse for games 6-9 was the weather, while Fischer's excuse for being lost in the first 3 games (even though he only actually lost one of them) was feeling UNDER the weather. Games 4 and 5 (both draws) seem to be the only real games played in the match.

After the Lasker-Tarrasch match, Tarrasch made some kind of excuse based on too much sea air, even though the match was played a hundred miles or so inland. One of Tarrasch's supporters made some diplomatic comment to the effect that maybe any gift that sensitive to disturbance wasn't resilient enough to be world champion.

Hi Petrosianic

Perfidious was jokingly trying to get a link with Fischer and nymphomania which, as Abrahams hints, is one of the very few 'manias' that has not been attached to Fischer by everyone with a keyboard and a Teach Yourself book on psychotic behaviour.

(perfidious, I think it best if I do the jokes. :))

There's a Jack Benny gag about Jack's toupee falling out of an airplane window when he waved goodbye to everyone. Mary asks how this could have happened when you can't open the windows on an airliner, to which Jack says "My sponsor pays me to be funny, not technical."

Excuses are as old as chess itself. Everyone knows that no healthy chess player ever lost a game.>

Out of curiosity I did a search for Fischer and The Beatles.

I think I have the place where the picture on this page was taken.

Look at the picture here https://worldchesshof.org/exhibit/b... with Bobby showing the kids a game in the park in Buenos Aires, 1971.

Same shirt and tie, background to the picture here is grass/foliage.

<https://www.bing.com/images/search?... >