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"Bobby Fischer Chess Club NYC"
Dear Friends,
When Bobby Fischer was once asked about what would he do after he wins the World Championship, he answered:
"Well, when I come home I'll have my own club. You're gonna have to be over eighteen to get in, unless like you have special permission because you have like special talent. When it
was a game played by the aristocrats it had more like you know dignity to it. When they used to have the clubs, like everybody went in dressed in a suit, a tie, like gentlemen, you know. Even in the best chess club. It's a social place and people are making noise, it's a madhouse." Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Bobby Fischer Chess Club NYC. The Club is dedicated to the contentment of Bobby Fischer's fans and it hosts a series of reflections that addresses the life and chess of our Robert James "Bobby" Fischer. If it is undeniable that you have a deep-seated admiration for Fischer, the player... and if it is undeniable that you do not seem to be satisfied with just the game of chess, but you're looking for the "truth behind the truth"... then, you are a "Fischerian" chess player. What is the whole point of studying regular chess games that have no "mysticism"? "Fischerian" chess players seem to have an innate need for the meaning of every chess game... for the "thoughts behind the thoughts". Our minds seems to cry out for the "purpose behind the purpose" of every game. What is the "meaning behind the meaning" of those superb chess games that Bobby played? This Club is full of reflections in response to this cry for the meaning of Fischer's life and chess. It is an exposition of the life of a chess genius. You would be amazed how relevant the Fischer's way of thinking, analyzing and playing the game is to contemporary chess. We invite you to take the journey to explore with us what Bobby Fischer has to say to us. We offer this exposition to you as a fellow "Fischerian" chess player in search for the "truth" in chess, and in search for answers to many questions about "the man" himself. It is like a joyous trip in a magical time machine, into the thicket of times immemorial. Fischer's fans will find in this Club cool waters which were dredged up directly and without processing from the ancient wells from which Bobby Fischer also dredged his amazing "ancient knowledge", that led him to reach the "heights of the world throne of the chess kingdom". Sincerely,
Bobby Fischer Chess Club NYC
P.S. With all due respect, we've decided to ignore that last part of Bobby's life and concentrate back then, when our Bobby Fischer was a King.
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Robert James “Bobby” Fischer was a high school dropout boy prodigy from humble Brooklyn origins who rose on nothing but skills and became a Grandmaster, the US's only world chess champion, one of the world's greatest geniuses, one of the world's highest I.Q., one of the great enigmas of American sports and gaming, and the most famous chess player of all time. Fischer was an eccentric genius, and a powerful and enigmatic figure in chess. Later, this strange, smart, lonely and obsessive genius who shuns company and dreams of living in a house shaped like a rook, humbled the Soviet Union's best chess players and became the eleventh World Chess Champion when he won the World Chess Championship in a World Title Match in Reykjavik, Iceland (1972), by defeating the Soviet World Champion, Boris Spassky, in a classic battle. It is the most well-known world chess championship match, the greatest chess match of all time (dubbed the Match of the Century), and definitely the most dramatic just as his toppling of the powerful and invincible “Soviet chess machine” remains the most amazing feat of all time, by anyone. Fischer began his reign as the only non-Soviet or non-Russian world champion in the latter half of the 20th century. Fischer was conscious of the prestige he would bring to the United States if he wrests the crown from the Soviets who have virtually monopolized chess since the Second World War and the acquisition of the title would be regarded by Fischer as a blow for “democratic truth”, for Bobby regarded himself as the self-appointed natural representative and champion of the "free world" against the evils of communism, as he saw it. When he turned up in Iceland to save the world from the "Commies" by waging war against the Soviets over the battlefield of 64 squares, he was met by the greatest number of journalists, academics, spooks and Kremlin watchers ever to have assembled to watch a chess match. There, they witnessed Bobby grinding his way to the victory which broke the back of Soviet domination of the game which they had regarded as proof of the intellectual superiority of their political system. As a result, Bobby’s victory in front of international television took a political turn and became an expression of the world tensions of the time, as Fischer beat the Soviets at their own game and scored a victory for the US at the height of the Cold War when the Soviet Union and the United States were engaged in space and arms races, and the contest, brimming with Cold War symbolisms, quickly came to be seen as a symbol of the battle for world supremacy and a precursor to American excitement at the 1980 Olympic hockey victory over the Soviet Union. In May 1949, the six-year-old Fischer and his sister Joan learned how to play chess using the instructions from a chess set bought at a candy store below their apartment in Brooklyn, but all of a sudden, as Bobby put it: "When I was eleven, I just got good." His first recorded tournament game was on July 1955, at age 12 and by age 14 he had won the USA Championship, and became a Grandmaster at age 15. He won the US Championship eight times in all eight attempts: 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966 and was winner of: every tournament and match in which he participated from December, 1962 through World Championship match 1972 with the exceptions of Capablanca Memorial, 1965, (2nd place- ½ point behind Smyslov), and Piatigorsky Cup, 1966, (2nd place- ½ point behind Spassky). By 1970 he was practically invincible, and as Larry Evans once mentioned, at that time "the essence of Fischer's style was that he had none. He was already the ultimate universal player". For instance, at Buenos Aires 1970 he mopped up the field, undefeated at +15-0=2, winning games in every conceivable way. Like Petrosian, Bobby maneuvered mercilessly against Damjanovic; like Tal, Bobby uncorked unexpected combinations against Panno and Schweber; and like Capablanca, Bobby made something from nothing against Szabo, when experts on the scene thought the game was a dead draw. In the candidates matches the whole Soviet system including hundreds of Russian Grandmasters prepared variations to be employed against him, which were not matching his character and playing style to lead him on the wrong path, but to no avail. Fischer's highest achieved lifetime rating was: 2785 ELO (That's without taking into consideration todays' infamous "ELO Inflation") and 18 years ahead of the next player that reached an ELO close to 2785... Kasparov with a 2775 ELO in 1989 & 2800 ELO in 1990. In contrast, Karpov had a 2700 ELO in 1975 when he was scheduled to play against Fischer (2785) for the 1975 World Chess Championship, and Karpov could just reach a peak of 2780 ELO only in 1994.
*** Year 1975- Karpov (2700) vs Fischer (2785), World Chess Championship
*** Year 1978- Karpov (2725) vs Korchnoi (2665), 29th WCC
*** Year 1981- Karpov (2700) vs Korchnoi (2695), 30th WCC
*** Year 1984- Karpov (2705) vs Kasparov (2715), 31st WCC (KK1)
*** Year 1985- Karpov (2720) vs Kasparov (2700), 32nd WCC (KK2)
*** Year 1986- Karpov (2705) vs Kasparov (2740), 33rd WCC (KK3)
*** Year 1987- Karpov (2715) vs Kasparov (2740), 34th WCC (KK4)
*** Year 1990- Karpov (2730) vs Kasparov (2800), 35th WCC (KK5)
*** Year 1994- Karpov (2780) (22 years after Fischer's peak 2785 ELO)
Based on the "sacred" ELO ratings and if Fischer would've kept himself active, there's no doubt that back in 1975 and for the next 15 years, Fischer would've swept the floor with Karpov... but instead, Fischer "shot himself in the foot" by dropping out of competitive chess and remaining completely inactive after he became World Chess Champion in 1972. Fischer's lifetime tournament and match results were: 415 wins, 248 draws and 85 losses, out of 748 games played from age 12 in 1955 through 1992 for a performance average of 72.1%. He won 5 games for every loss !!! Also, his historical ratings from "Chessmetrics.com" are very impressive. Although international ratings were only introduced in 1970, "Chessmetrics" uses modern algorithms to rank performances retrospectively and uniformly throughout chess history:
*** Fischer's peak rating was 2895 in October 1971.
*** His one-year peak average was 2881, in 1971... the highest of all time.
*** His three-year peak average was 2867, from January 1971 to December 1973, and this is the second highest ever, just behind Garry Kasparov.
*** “Chessmetrics” ranks Fischer as the #1 player in the world for a total of 109 different months, running (not consecutively) from February 1964 until July 1974. His style of play was often hyper-aggressive, tense, hard fought, almost perfect technical endings and hardly making any mistakes. He was not playing for a draw, but fought until the bitter end, as long there was a slight chance to win. He had an iron will to win and sometimes he won games that were normally drawn, because the opponents couldn't keep up with the precise technical play of Bobby. Although he had good chess instincts and intuition, his play was ruled more by iron logic rather than on intuition while he acquired a reputation for relying on pure mathematical logic, calculating as many positions as humanly possible, more like a chess computer. He compared professional chess to professional boxing, and acted accordingly. He was the Muhammad Ali of chess… the Bruce Lee of martial arts… a revolutionary. Notorious for his raw bravado, he famously psyched his opponents out during matches and took pleasure in their defeat: "I like watching them squirm," he once told reporters. When Bobby was on top, this dude was the most badass chess champ possible. Fischer had an extremely good memory and knew everything published about chess that had been discovered in the past and the present. He could remember all the moves played in thousand of games. Mark Taimanov remembers: "His memory was amazing. Just one example: It happened in Vancouver, Canada in 1971. At the closing of my infamous match against Fischer, when he beat me +6-0=0, Fischer and I were sitting with fellow grandmasters at a banquet and were talking peaceably after the preceding storms. The conversation revolved around the match until my second, Yevgeny Vasyukov, suddenly turned to Fischer: “Bobby, do you remember that back in 1958 (!!!) you spent several days in Moscow and played many blitz games against our chess players? I was one of your partners.” “Of course, I remember,” Fischer replied. “And who won?” Vasyukov asked. “Why only the result?” Fischer responded. “I remember the games and all the moves. Your game was a French.” And he rattled off all the moves… my God !!!"- Mark Taimanov
Fischer rose up to pinnacles of national fame and admiration that are usually reserved for professional or college sports athletes. It is hard to imagine a chess player today getting the kind of attention Fischer got in the 1960s and 1970s. In other countries, such as Russia, chess is taught in schools at an early age and is revered as a game of intellectual giants, and it is not unusual that the leading players are viewed with reverence and admiration. Yet, Fischer became as famous as a rock star while playing a game that absolutely no one in the US cares about. In the U.S., a country much more consumed with admiration for basketball, football, baseball, and, to a lesser extent, sports like hockey, tennis and track, chess barely appears on the national radar. That's why Fischer's fame was so unusual, and despite the fact that he had not played competitive chess in a long time, he was still the most talked about player in the annals of chess history. I’d bet a dollar to a doughnut that most Americans can’t name one other chess grandmaster, living or dead, such is our apathy for chess and the people who play it… but by God, everyone knows Bobby! There's no doubting that the man took a game that was largely ignored, seen as the province of geeks and nerds, and instead, Bobby brought chess to the public eye, even gave it some swagger, inspiring an explosive boom in chess games and made it something that Americans were proud of, even if only for a little while. Bobby Fisher had an uncompromising attitude in chess and in life. This was partly the reason why he had often problems with the organizers of tournaments as he often demanded better playing conditions and more money. As Fischer's fame grew, he became more unpredictable. He walked out of tournaments because of what he considered to be bad lighting or bad air-conditioning. He struck the people as someone who was unhappy and uncomfortable with his fame, and who felt alien in the country that had once revered him. The former child prodigy seemed unable to resist perplexing his public with angry gestures, decade-long sulks and outrageous opinions. His hopeless lack of social graces was amply demonstrated after his victory when, a famous journalist ventured to his hotel suite to congratulate him and ask for an interview. The door of his room opened an inch and in answer to the journalist’s request Bobby said: "Shove off jerk" before slamming it shut. It hardly mattered for he had witnessed a little bit of history and caught a glimpse of Bobby’s tortured, troubled mind. Yet because he was such a singular personality, he stayed in the national consciousness long after his days as world champion were over. Even people that never followed him closely, nevertheless they were always aware of him, and despite the fact that he had not played competitive chess in a long time, he was still the most talked about player in the annals of chess history. Fischer was taken from the chess world too soon, and then ultimately taken from the entire world too soon. For the first half of his life, his brilliance as a chess player mostly outweighed his irrational judgment and paranoia. For the second half of his life, it was the other way around. By the 1980s he was said to be living under assumed names in cheap hotels in Los Angeles, surviving on occasional royalties from his books. But after his victory in Yugoslavia, which earned him $US3 million, he spent years globetrotting, and a wanted man in the US. He dropped largely out of view, spending time in Hungary and the Philippines. Still, his chess theories and novelties continued to amaze, and his contributions of the Fischer clock and Fischer Random Chess are still celebrated today. Bobby left no will despite having an estate worth and estimated $US 2-3 million and legal wrangling continues over his estate. Additionally, the US government is also claiming unpaid taxes from the estate despite Mr. Fischer not having lived in the US for many years.
Bobby Fischer Chess Club NYC
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[email protected]
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