Chess Training

Dick Cavett Interview

I find the following tribute to Robert James Fischer the single most relevent thing you could ever say about the man, given all the circumstances of his life, his mental illness, and his confrontation with self: Tim Krabbé (Tim Krabbé's Open Chess Diary): If chess is still played ten thousand years from now, Bobby Fischer will be the only player of our times who matters.

With the death of Bobby Fischer chess has lost one of its greatest figures. Fischer’s status as world champion and celebrity came from a charismatic and combative personality matched with unstoppable play. I recall thrilling over the games of his 1972 Reykjavik world championship match against Boris Spassky when I was nine years old. The American had his share of supporters in the USSR even then, and not only for his chess prowess. His outspokenness and individuality also earned him the quiet respect of many of my compatriots. Fischer’s beautiful chess and his immortal games will stand forever as a central pillar in the history of our game. And the story of the Brooklynite iconoclast’s rise from prodigy to world champion has few peers for drama. Apart from a brief and peculiar reappearance in 1992, Bobby Fischer’s chess career ended in 1972. After conquering the chess Olympus he was unable to find a new target for his power and passion. Fischer’s relentless energy exhausted everything ...

On January 18th, 2008, Robert James Fischer, the greatest Chessplayer and Grandmaster the world has ever known, passed away. He was 64. In memoriam, I'd like to post some uTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR7IWI4Rh1w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht-OqiuWVMk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZedhMvtsiXI Bobby's Chess was both a boon, in presence, and a bane, in absence, to the world. I am one of the thousands of young chess players in the early 70's to catch fire from this enigma of a man, a hero to me in my youth, living in a suburb of Boston. I keep those memories and do not allow them to mature past the early 70's into something diseased, as it were. His chess will always be remembered by me, and nothing else.

By Errol Tiwari, Stabroek News The debate was already raging when I joined the small group downtown, well-wishers of chess who enjoy discussing the literature of the game, and the people who play it. The question was: Who is the greatest chess player of all time? I could not answer the question then and I cannot do so now. The argument is futile. Some would say Fischer, some would say Kasparov. Before Fischer, the last supermaster was Alekhine. Preceding him, in reverse order, were Capablanca, Lasker and Steintz, all world champions who comprised a magic circle of greatness. Players like Tal and Spassky have touched the perimeters of the circle and even entered it on occasion, but were never card-carrying members. Bobby Fischer is. There is a mystique about Fischer which continues to fascinate people who are not even remotely connected to chess. No other chess player alive or dead has succeeded in capturing the imagination of people around the world like Fischer did. He did more to pop...