Fischer vs H Matthai, 1956 (kibitz #26)

(Speaking of unreliable...)

Note to all biographers - please don't use your personal forum for publishing historically interesting info - it risks being taken offline (see, for example, all the info published in <Chess Librarian> account - which should be a system account:

CG Librarian chessforum)

Hopefully better, by-and-by.

Brady writes: 'I ask forgiveness for my occasional speculations in this book....'

So you have to view some of it with a bit of suspicion and then you can choose to believe the bits you want to believe...or hear what you want to hear and disregard the rest. (thank you Paul Simon)

I trust the games Fischer played, there are witness's and signed score sheets by his opponents. Everything else written about him needs the 'occasional speculation' he was a chess player, his real private life story is probably very boring.

Woke up, had breakfast, studied chess, ate dinner, studied endgames, ate supper, studied openings, went to bed, slept, Woke up, had breakfast, studied chess... I suppose you could do that for 250 pages and if it had 'Fischer' on the cover people would buy it.

Have you seen the endless list of books on Bobby Fischer. which Edward Winter admits is as 'comprehensive as possible,'

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

This waaaaanka is the old USER

<<ZANZIBAR>>

the Numptie refused to reveal this when challenged by me

Part 1
Robert James Fischer (kibitz #37348)

No Idea what happened to part 2.

Part 3

Robert James Fischer (kibitz #37366)

Part 4

Robert James Fischer (kibitz #37367)

On the whole Focus appears to like the book (I thought is was OK - never finished it, I know how it ends. Gave it to the Club library.)

This is Focus's work, not mine. I think one or two are minor nit-picking but some of the others are genuine errors.

Genuine error.
page 30 (in Focus's copy I cannot check) The Tsar Nicholas II originally giving out GM titles. That is wrong.

My view of a nit pick (though I'll accept that opinions may vary - it's a silly slip, no harm done, unlike the remark about the Tsar.)

Pg. 104: On Gligoric’s thirty-second move, the Yugoslav looked up from the board and said, “Remis?” Fischer knew the French word for “draw” and he immediately consented.>

<<Sally Simpson: Focus pointed out a few errors. Part 1>>

FOOK off <<Sally>>

My interest at the moment is in the dates during which this match was held. I do not have the time frame here, but clearly it had to be well prior to the match with Spassky and prior to the infamous Treasury Department letter dated August 21, which Fischer contemptuously displayed on September 1. I say it is all the more to the discredit of the government that the letter was conveyed AFTER the training match with Fischer's activity in Yugoslavia already well underway and the training match finished.

One (not me) might argue that there was no prize fund in the training match so it might not count as "illegal business activity in Yugoslavia," but renting a hotel room or buying a Coca Cola is business too. I'm sure Fischer would have ignored any warning prior to the training match the same as he ignored the tardy warning of August 21, but the letter's timing only makes it all the more tasteless.

Fischer began playing chess in Yugoslavia at age 15, and there was no valid reason that chess should make way for war when he was 49. On seeing Fischer's display on September 1 I called the Treasury Department and made my sentiments known. To my mind the timing of the letter only underlines its perfidy.

So I stop by here today to add my spit to Fischer's on that letter. Now let me play through some of the creative work of Fischer - Gligoric 1992.

Is there any place where these games are annotated?

The usual definitions of economic activity include making goods, providing services and using a medium of exchange.

The sanctions on Yugoslavia were imposed by United Nations May 31, 1992.

So if your estimate of the practice games date of July-August is right then Fischer was playing these games under the sanctions too. The games were not publicized so maybe the G was unaware of them - but I doubt it because both Fischer and his mother were subjects of scrutiny for many years prior.

One may consider the matter significant or not significant.

he wasn't paid to play Gligoric unless some behind the scenes wealthy benefactor threw him a bone for playing. Perhaps free hotel and meals, something like that.