Asri-unix.164 net.chess utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!mclure Fri Dec 4 13:56:27 1981 Fischer comeback Most people are sick of hearing about Fischer, but some new information has come my way (some new, some old). Fischer gets his living money from two places: 1) His match winnings from 1972 2) His wealthy friends It seems that #1 has dried up almost completely, and was helped along that path by Fischer's absurd donation of over $100K a couple years ago to the Worldwide Church of God in Pasadena (Herbert W. Armstrong's organization). He learned from that experience. #2 is also drying up. Fischer's friends are getting quite sick of him. Particularly his grating personality which wears thin on their nerves after awhile. It would appear that they will soon decline to give him any more money. #2 has been confirmed by my tutor, a Bay Area master, very familiar with Fischer's situation since 1972. Fischer is paranoid about people using his chess talent to further their own monetary plans. He has been keeping up on all current opening theory during his entire absence. Also, he frequently visits Walter Browne's place up near Berkeley, when other Grandmasters come over to play with him. He regularly wipes them out. (Grandmasters aren't used to being wiped out.) I feel that Fischer will be forced back into competition in order to make ends meet. I also feel that he will be stronger than he was in 1972. At the end of each of his two prior self-imposed exiles he came out much stronger than before. Fischer, like Morphy, was a full Elo class interval ahead of the rest of the mainstream; he was a half-class interval ahead of his nearest competitor, also like Morphy (although we're interpolating in Morphy's case). Very few people have studied Fischer's games, although many people talk about them. Fischer's style is characterized by the deepest opening analysis of any master in history. He knows his particular openings much better than anyone else, having studied them through middle-game and even sometimes deep into end-game. Of course he is also a superb tactician and endgame expert. But perhaps more than anyone else, he has the greatest will to win. In the Candidates just before the 1972 match, he destroyed Taimanov, Larsen, and Petrosian (the first two 6-0, unheard of in master chess). Taimanov and Larsen had to be hospitalized after their losses. Petrosian says that the best game he ever played was the game he won against Fischer in that Candidates. If Fischer is forced back into competition, I feel that he will easily get back into the World Champion cycle and eventually dispose of Karpov. A Fischer-Karpov match would probably be the greatest single thing to happen for American Chess in many decades. A win for Fischer might finally provide him with enough money to retire permanently (at least $5 million). ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.