Article: 13316 of rec.games.chess.misc Newsgroups: rec.games.chess.misc Path: info!dregis From: dregis@exeter.ac.uk (D.Regis) Subject: Re: Ignacio's Ignorance [was Fischer lucky?] Message-ID: Organization: University of Exeter, UK. References: <328403A4.514A@sbt.infi.net> <3284D31B.4744@cmgm.stanford.edu> Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 15:29:28 GMT In article <3284D31B.4744@cmgm.stanford.edu> marin@cmgm.stanford.edu writes: >It is a pity you won't read anything to do with chess I >write, because I think the analysis below is interesting. Ignacio, you haven't quoted any text, so readers don't know who you are referring to or what they said. [The article you refer to may show up at this site before the week is over, if I'm lucky.] >I think my estimate of Fischer getting 4 to 6 points >less in standard circumstances is not exagerated. >You can argue even for 6.5 less. Using arguments of equal merit, could you argue the score up as easily as down? For example, I believe Fischer had a cold during the Petrosian match. So maybe he could have scored higher there. And that ...Bxh2 move in the first Spassky game was untypical, so we could count that as a draw... Do you see what I mean? A game with Fischer participating could hardly ever be standard! >Finally, Fischer's psychological warfare cannot be >underestimated, but I think it was secondary in these >successes (I also want to believe so...). Fischer's power at the board intimidated players before the 1970-72 cycle. Byrne talked about 'Fischer-fear'. Perhaps other of his remarkable results - say, the 11-0 at the US championships - could also be put down to psychology more than chess. But you seem to be saying that it is only Fischer's opponents that suffered from nerves, and that this detracts from Fischer's performance. He never seemed to be a man immune from tension. Perhaps if Fischer did not suffer from nerves, he would have scored an extra 5-6 points! Moreover, psychology (nerves) is always part of the chess struggle, even in correspondence games, and should not be regarded as secondary, because we can never disentangle it. [The use of the term 'warfare' suggests that Fischer's behaviour was a deliberate device to upset opponents. Not proven.] [...] >In any case, it is impossible to find a collection of >blunders by opponents of a single player in a >world title cycle like those found in these 42 games. The two Taimanov examples were indeed corkers, but what else did you have in mind? Someone has to have the most blunders! The Botvinnik-Bronstein encounter showed that World Championship matches can feature such errors. It has actually often been remarked how many errors appear at World Championship level. Before the Fischer match there was compiled a top three blunders at Championship level in the "Chess Bedside Book". Maybe we do not give other games the same scrutiny, or attribute the same significance to them. The way to decide these things is not to read the ink off the Fischer games we are talking about, but to count up all such championship cycle errors, their depth and their consequences. [In another thread some time ago, someone said that even at the highest level *most* games are decided by tactical oversights, and cited the Karpov-Kamsky match games as evidence. I went and added up all the errors to see if this was true. If we did that for all the matches we might have enough evidence to decide.] [...] >So, Fischer, whatever the reason, was lucky. You know of course Capablanca's saying, that the good player is always lucky. And Lasker too was considered to have amazing luck in escaping from dubious positions. How much luck is a player allowed before you say they are not lucky, but successful? It seems to me that for every point there is available an equally plausible counter-argument. I'm not trying to say there is no luck in chess, but re-hashing the limited evidence we have about Fischer is perhaps too narrow, and can never produce a conclusion. -- May your pieces harmonise with your Pawn structure and your sacrifices be sound in all variations D _ / "()/~ Dave Regis &8^D* WWW: http://www.ex.ac.uk/~dregis/DR/chess.html || \_/| = DrDave on BICS ~\ / "...what else exists in the world but chess?" _|||__SHEU: ~/sheu.html -- NABOKOV From info!dregis Mon Nov 11 16:08:58 GMT 1996