@wolfe63 said
Don't forget Morphy-Staunton.

So I looked and the internet says 5 million total prize fund.
Maybe 3+ million to the winner.
I don't see Karpov refusing that chance for a WC shot.
I think booby agreed to the match only if he could pick his opponent. Or more accurately...only if he avoided Karpov.
Obviously a match with Kasparov would have been a massacre.

Fischer touted it as Fischer - Spassky II and everyone remembered the publicity that got.

It was also held by a regime that other nations shunned.
Fischer got into a lot of trouble. Spassky got off scot free.

One reason Fischer fell out with government was the way they handled
Russia copying 100,000's of his '60 memorable Games' and he never got a
penny. He asked them for help, at the time America were trying to
makes friends with Russia. 'Don't make waves Bobby...Go away.'

Everyone who knew him, and I mean knew him not read about him.
Say you only had one chance with him. If you fell out with him that was it.
No second chances, that went for family, friends....and governments.

Sounds like the lads were having fun with you claiming Fischer was Black.
Ignore them or bet a few quid, it's easy enough to prove.

No they really believed he was black.
No way to prove it because we were in prison at the time.
No internet and the chess books they had did not have any pictures of Fischer.
They were not joking.

In prison...

Did not know that. In that case just agree with them.
(and let them takes moves back if they make a mistake.)

LoL one guy threatened to kill me after I beat him 5-0

@greenpawn34 said
In prison...

Did not know that. In that case just agree with them.
(and let them takes moves back if they make a mistake.)

@chessturd said
LoL one guy threatened to kill me after I beat him 5-0

LoL good one. 😏

@moonbus said
Never play en passent in prison either.

@chessturd

Excellent!!!!!

🙂

@chessturd said
That too!
They called it passed pawn.
That started an argument.
After explaining what a passed pawn really is I explained en passant.
They think you have to agree to use en passant before the game starts.
So I grabbed a chess book and showed them the en passant rules and they said...

"That's just one book...that doesn't mean anything"
Blew my mind.

After that I stopped talking about chess and just won the tournaments when they had them. You can't fix stupid.

@chessturd
I dont think the statement Fischer Ran Scared is quite the right phrase, however the reason behind Fischer not defending his title was i think a combination of two issues:
1.) Mentally Fischer was having serious Issues, this was well documented by his Second for many years Larry Evans.
2.) Fischer had not played a competitive game for over 2 years so to defend against Karpov a seasoned pro would in his condition both Mentally and Form would have spelt Danger, a risk he was not likely to gamble on.
I Do however feel if Fischer was at his peak against Karpov he would have been able to have beaten Karpov based on Karpov at that time had not reached his Best himself. but sadly the match was never to be. Fischer was a the best of his Era and well over 2700 himself when he stopped playing, i think the So called American public of the chess world will always debate this subject and i think if we had been blessed with a talent like Fischer we would too, such players do rarely come along, Fischer was a lost Sole i think due to his poor family up bringing and lack of a decent childhood he was probably always doomed to a meltdown, rather sad really.

Love or hate Bobby Fischer's person, why not.
But to say that he could have been beaten by Karpov since 1975,
it's really a nice foolishness !
It must be recognized that the strength of the American was greater than that of the Russian in the 1970's.
I think that Karpov would have had his best chances from the period between 1979 and 1984 when he knew his greatest success ...
And to say that Spassky was a weak world champion isn't completely wrong.
Nevertheless, he was unquestionably the best player in the world between 1962 and 1969 and therefore one of the great players in the history of the game.