Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 6:38 pm
by Mark
Thats sad news.
Like all chess enthusiasts I greatly admired his skill although his life ended up as quite a self inflicted tragedy. There is no doubt he was an inspiration to a whole generation of chess players in the west. His disappearance for all those years into seclusion added to his almost mystical appeal. Sadly, his reapperance to play Spassky in Serbia led to very painful chain of events for him. Generally, chess holds no interest for the general public but Fischer's success against Spassky in Iceland in 1972 against the Soviet chess school changed all that for a while. His life had so many bizarre twists its worthy of a book or film.
I spotted the mystery chart straight away as I have used his chart to show as an example of aspect configurations before ( grand trine in air, T square in fixed signs etc)
I think I have the book you mentioned by Ruben Fine in my chess library. I will check it out and send you the title. Its quite an amusing book with its early Freudian psychoanalytical approach to all the pre-war champions.
Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 9:47 pm
by Tom
Hi Mark,
Let me know that title. I'd appreciate it.
Fischer's last years were punctuated by hate speech so vile that, for me at least, it lost the ability to offend and it only aroused pity that a human being could be so all consumed with those feelings. He was a sick man.
I remember the 1972 Championship. It had all the cold war drama one could ask for in a peaceful enterprise. Fischer's accomplishment was not simply beating the then world's best player, Boris Spassky, but beating the entire Soviet Chess establishment. The Soviets were the world's best players.
Chess games at that level are frequently adjourned overnight. A player decides on a move, but doesn't play it. Instead he writes it down and hands it to the tournament referee who puts it in a sealed envelope and puts the envelope in a safe or other secure location. The next day, the referee opens the envelope, plays the move and the game begins from there.
The rules allow both players to analyze the the game with others over night. While this seems unfair it is probably unavoidable, so it has to be tolerated. The Soviets had a half dozen or more grandmasters on site to study and analyze the adjourned games and they were in contact with a dozen or more grandmasters in Moscow. They took this very seriously. This allowed Spassky to sleep and return to the match well rested. He would simply wake up get ready and look over the analysis. Chess masters have phenomenal memories.
Fisher had one "second," Grandmaster and Catholic priest Father William Lombardy. When Lombardy suggested analyzing a game for the next day Fisher would reply, "Analyze? The guy's a fish. Let's go bowling."
A fish? The World Champion a fish? That was Bobby before he went completely mad. Such a waste.
RIP
Tom
Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 12:58 pm
by Mark
I remember the 1972 Championship. It had all the cold war drama one could ask for in a peaceful enterprise. Fischer's accomplishment was not simply beating the then world's best player, Boris Spassky, but beating the entire Soviet Chess establishment. The Soviets were the world's best players.
I am a bit young to actually remember the match but have read various accounts of it. It really was 'The match of the century' as the publicity described it.
Fischer was convinced the Soviets were out to get him and to some extent this was true! In qualification games to the 1972 championship Soviet players would often agree easy draws in their games while Fischer had to fight every bit of the way. The Soviets prepared as a team so every Soviet player had access to information on Fischer and shared their adjournment analysis.
Ultimately though against a true genius like Fischer it did them no good. Fischer's main obstacle was always his own temperament.
Fischer failed to arrive in Iceland for the opening ceremony. For the next several days, it looked doubtful that the match would be played at all, for it was proving impossible for FIDE to accommodate Fischer's myriad demands, such as banning television cameras and a 30 percent share of the revenue from spectators. Fischer's behavior was full of self-contradictions, as it had been throughout his chess career. Finally, after a surprise doubling of the prize fund and much persuasion, including a phone call from Henry Kissinger, Fischer did fly to Iceland.
Many commentators, particularly from the USSR, have suggested that all this (and his continuing demands and unreasonableness) was part of Fischer's plan to "psych out" Spassky. Fischer's supporters say that winning the World Championship was the mission of his life, that he simply wanted the setting to be perfect for it when he took the stage, and that his behavior was not different than it had been in the past ten or fifteen years.
When he did eventually agree to play he entered the match two games behind. Usually a fatal position to be in for a game at this level. In true fairy tale fashion he went on to win game after game surprising his opponent with openings he had never played in his career before.
Sadly, Fischer's eccentricities meant he refused to defend his title and in 1975 he forfeited the world Championship crown. This was the last time a westerner held the championship. He had been the first non-Soviet to win the championship since WWII.
The genuine Soviet attempts to defeat Fischer probably only added to the paranoid tendencies in his personality.
As Tom said what a waste. Incredible talent and indeed genuine genius as a chess player were marred by the choices he made and the irrational views he increasingly became attached too.
Incidentally Tom the book you are looking for is Psychology of the Chess Player by Reuben Fine published by Dover Press. I have seen it on ABE selling for $6.00 including postage.
Its clear from Fine's book that Fischer was not the first great chess champion with a dysfunctional personality. The great 19th century American chess genius Paul Morphy had been the the subject of an early psychoanalyitical paper.
Here is a site listing this and more recent books on the psychology of chess.
http://www.chessville.com/reviews/MyChe ... kshelf.htm
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:58 am
by Tom
Thanks for the book title.
Its clear from Fine's book that Fischer was not the first great chess champion with a dysfunctional personality.
My first instinct is to say that all professions have their share of offbeat personalities, and that's true. I remember Mark Fydrich a fantastic pitcher for a short time and he talked to the baseball. The 1950s Baltimore Colts had a guy who, instead of keeping an address book with telephone numbers used to write them on a lampshade.
But, and we knew there was a "but" coming, chess has them all beat. I've been told, but have not verified that a recent book about chess history titled The Immortal Game claims that chess is way over represented in the mental illness category. Fine mentions Paul Morphy, who after retiring from chess used to arrange women's shoes in a circle and march around them chanting something in Spanish. Wilhelm Steinetz claimed he could give odds and still beat God whom he played via telephone. Aron Nimzovitch, a Jew, used to taunt Nazi soldiers and the SS, by telling them they had to present their credentials or leave the area and this in occupied France! There does seem to be a connection between chess genius and madness.
I can't prove it of course, but I never thought Fischer wanted to "psych out" Spassky. I think he was just nuts.
The Soviets did rig chess, but it was something they could not have done unless they had a large number of grandmasters. I think half the grandmasters in the world were Soviets. That they would and did cheat (not over the board - with chess that is virtually impossible to do), only added to the drama. The lone American versus the entire Soviet chess machine. That's the sort of thing Americans eat right up. Although I do recall that more than a few Americans were fed up with Fischer's behavior and more than a few more really liked Spassky - possibly the only sane man in the room.
Fischer's supporters often made excuses for his boorish behavior because he was the USA's best shot at becoming World Champion - first in the modern era. Now they shrug their shoulders and say "Yes, he was nuts, but what a chess player." What a legacy.
Tom
Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 2:57 pm
by Tom
I?ve been wondering about Bobby Fischer again, and re-read this thread with particular emphasis on Tony Louis' remarks regarding Bobby Fischer and TV Newsman Charles Gibson. There is astrology in what follows, but I think the somewhat lengthy context is necessary to explain the astrology that is below. What started me down this path again was an old news report that my son sent me of Fischer?s move to Iceland after being tossed out of Japan. The reporter was one Jeremy Schaap, son of the late Dick Schaap a long time sports reporter.
Jeremy Schaap introduced himself to Fischer at a press conference and Fischer immediately confronted Schaap with a story about his, Schaap's, father. The elder Schaap once took Fischer around to NY Knicks (pro basketball) games and other places in New York City, apparently trying to get Fischer to open up. He did and Schaap printed his impression of Fischer, concluding ?Fischer doesn?t have a sane bone in his body.? Dick Schaap?s credentials as a trained psychologist are missing from the report. Not too surprisingly, Bobby took offense to this, and had no problem letting the younger Schaap know it.
Without attempting to deny Fischer?s mental problems let?s look at this from his point of view. He was set up. He was na?ve enough to believe a journalist was actually befriending him and Fischer treated him like a friend, and then Schaap turned on Fischer, or at least that?s the way Fischer saw it (from what I recall of Dick Schaap that was probably accurate). This was not the first time something like this had happened to Fischer.
He won the US Chess Championship at age 14 and did an interview with a wholly unscrupulous magazine publisher named Ralph Ginsburg whose magazine was named, somewhat disingenuously, Fact. Fischer was a teenaged boy without even the normal social experiences of someone that age. Ginzburg did a real hatchet job on Fischer, and if the reader didn?t realize the subject of the interview was simply a 14 year-old boy, he would conclude that the new American Chess Champion was just a nut. This reputation would follow him for the rest of his life. The die was cast.
It never stopped. All his life the press considered Fischer?s eccentricities more noteworthy than his talent. So, he is sheltered, has a somewhat unstable mother and no father; he?s surrounded by people who simply were hangers on or just wanted to take advantage of him, and all he wants to do is be the best chess player in the world ? a goal that in my case, for example, would be considered a delusion of grandeur, but for him was obtainable.
So he?s single-minded about an activity that few people in the US truly understand. He has no social skills to speak of. He is distrustful heading towards paranoia, and yet he is a celebrity, so what is his life like? He is tormented by press and public alike. Journalists are in fact picking on the weakling the way high school bullies do or the way teenagers scorn and humiliate those who don?t fit in. He defends himself by dreaming up scapegoats and he is smart enough to demonstrate that some of his complaints have merit. The Russians did cheat by setting up easy draws to conserve their energy for more difficult matches. They?ve since admitted it. It may not have come on orders from the Kremlin, but these guys knew their status in the community, income, living conditions, etc depended on the attitude of bureaucrats in the Soviet Union, so they acted accordingly. They had to succeed or they would lose everything. To them the draws were a matter of economic survival. It?s still cheating.
The media did in fact set him up by taking advantage of his lack of sophistication and understanding of how they worked. All celebrities have hangers on, now called ?groupies,? that want the reflection of the celebrities? glory. Fischer didn?t know how to handle them, and by the time people realized what he had become, they tried to coax him out of his shell, but it was too little and too late. His defense mechanisms had become his worldview. He spent the rest of his life erecting barriers to keep the world out while trying to keep 1972 from ever passing into history. It was all he had.
So, if ?others? are the problem or part of it, let?s look at ?others? in his chart. The 7th house has, not too surprisingly once we change perspective a bit, Mars, lord MC setting right on the DSC. There will be a strong martial flavor to others in his life and they will impact his career. The exalted Moon, his (unrealistic? exaggerated?) emotional state squares this Mars. His emotions are tied into these people. What kind of people are they? They are Saturnine (Mars in Aquarius), and they work hand in hand with Mercurial types (Saturn in Gemini in mutual reception with Mercury in Aquarius), i.e. journalists. Mercury is in the 8th house of enemies? assistants (resources or seconds). Moderns may wish to delve into the exact (0 orb) trine with Mars and Uranus. The more I learn about Mercury and his two-faced nature, the more I see him as a malefic. Saturn and Mercury cannot be taken lightly either, as they both rule the air triplicity and Mars is in the terms of Saturn as well. Mercury is also his rational mind and it is again intertwined with ?others? in his chart.
Fischer?s ASC lord, the Sun, is trine his dispositor - the exalted, but retrograde Jupiter in the 12th, the house of seclusion.
Mars is also on Altair and we?re now switching to how this Mars affected Fischer personally as opposed to its description of others. Robson says with Mars: ?Sharp mind, trouble through friends, society, and companies, but eventual gain.? He also says ?gives danger from reptiles,? and a better description of the likes of Ginsburg and Schaap will be hard to find.
So what about Charles Gibson? He was born the same day. In all likelihood (this is pure guesswork on my part) Gibson?s parents nurtured and encouraged him to use his talents. Mars probably did not sit on his DSC and perhaps his exalted Jupiter, dispositor of his Sun, was not in the 12th house either. He, like Fischer, probably worked very hard to become the success that he is, and for whatever reason those talents did not include chess. Although for all I know Charles Gibson is a good chess player. Gibson had in his personal life (I think) all the things that Fischer needed.
None of this is intended to excuse Bobby Fischer?s hate-filled tirades or make excuses for his boorish behavior. He was a sick man. Rather it is an attempt to justify, through the chart, a saying I can?t get out of my head: ?It isn?t what?s true that counts; it?s what people think is true that matters.? If one sincerely believes that certain groups or people are out to get him, he will act that way. He will find some objective truth to validate that viewpoint, and if the defenses are strong enough, they will become his worldview and no one will shake him out of it.
?Other people? were Fischer?s enemies. Those other people tried to keep him from his destiny and when he obtained it anyway they plotted to take it away. Their unrelenting activities forced him to be the way he was. He had a right to survive, did he not? And in the end, in his mind, he beat them. They never took his championship away. They never prevented him from defending that championship against the only player who was worthy of challenging him, and they couldn?t prevent him from retaining it. It was the only thing that really mattered to him, and it meant little to many of those surrounding him.
Tom