RIP, Bobby Fischer
This might be difficult for anyone under 45 to believe, but in the summer of 1972, chess was flat-out cool.
No, really. It was as big as poker in the early 2000s among young people, especially boys.
The obvious impetus was the championship match in Iceland between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky.
But the real clincher was Shelby Lyman's quirky, creative recreations of the event on public TV.
I'm sure they would look comically archaic today.
Heck, they looked comically archaic THEN!.
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Comments (11)
How have you not posted on Golfweek firing an editor because of your breaking story?
bobby fischer and bob dylan,one word,COMPELLING.
Doesn't Bobby Fisher look a little like Chris Russo in this picture?
I was one of those seventh-grade geeks riveted to Channel 13 for the event. I've scoured Youtube and the like to see if any remains, and the consensus seems that it wasn't preserved. Here's one still shot, though, I think of Lyman's partner in the venture:
or, if your site won't allow hotlinked images,
http://www.chessbase.com/images2/2002/mednis01.jpg
That DEFINITELY was The Board. The match itself had no television coverage, due to the eccentricities of the players, so Lyman took relays of the moves and displayed them on that board at a studio in Albany which got beamed back to WNET.
Not only did I watch these every day after school, I even placed 7th in the Woodland Junior High chess tournament (its first and most likely last ever) by mating three straight opponents with the same three-move sequence I'd learned from Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess.
God I was a geek back then.
(Shout from daughter in next room: "As opposed to you blogging about it 36 years later?")
not even close
My mother was a high school classmate of Fisher and says he was eccentric even in his teenage years. If they haven't done so already hopefully ESPN will replay the interview Jeremy Schaap did with Fisher a few years ago.
Fischer's 2785 elo in its time period is still the highest, even though Kasparov reached 2830. Kasparov didn't dominate his time period to the extent Fischer did.
Kasparov reached 2851 and was the most dominant player of all time, please check out Jeff Sonas's "the greatest player of all time" analysis.
Fischer dominated like no one else for 1 year, after that it's all Kasparov.
Kasparov reached 2851 and was the most dominant player of all time, please check out Jeff Sonas's "the greatest player of all time" analysis.
Fischer dominated like no one else for 1 year, after that it's all Kasparov.
Kasparov reached 2851. And was the most dominant player of all time, Fischer was the most dominant over 1 year, but after that it's all Kasparov.
Please check out Jeff Sonas's analysis called "the greatest player of all time".
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