Friday, July 23, 2004
Kasparov on Bobby Fischer
Those of you who follow the chess world will know that Bobby Fischer has long since disappeared up his own demented genius and pronounced reality a fictitious concoction of Jewish Matrix-machines. Or something like that. Garry Kasparov has an article for the WSJ on the sad decline of this once brilliant player. And by the way, isn't it so bloody typical of Kasparov to be writing for the guard dog of capitalism? Anyway, here's an excerpt :
Please go read the rest...
Despite his short stay at the top there is little to debate about the chess of Bobby Fischer. He changed the game in a way that hadn't been seen since the late 19th century. The gap between Mr. Fischer and his contemporaries was the largest ever. He singlehandedly revitalized a game that had been stagnating under the control of the Communists of the Soviet sports hierarchy.
When Bobby Fischer rocketed to the top of the chess world in the early 1970s he was a fine wine in a flawed vessel. His contributions to the game, both at the board and from a commercial perspective, were nothing short of a revolution in the chess world. At the same time, his brittle and abusive character showed cracks that deepened with his every step toward the highest title.
Today, it is hard to imagine the sensation of Mr. Fischer's success when he wrested the world championship away from Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1972. In the middle of the Cold War, the Brooklyn-raised iconoclast took the crown from the well-oiled Soviet machine that had dominated the chess world for decades. And this after he barely showed up for the match at all, and then lost the first game and forfeited the second!
Please go read the rest...
