Bobby Fischer dead at 64

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/01/18/fischer.dies.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

by terpua • 19 years ago

39 36 19 years ago

kirubakaran7• 19 years ago

:-(

Fischer is my hero. If you are even mildly interested in chess, you should analyze his games. His games can only be called 'outrageous'. He would sacrifice a queen and couple of steps later he would win when no one else see it coming!

I usually sit with an open mouth for a five minutes when I analyze his games. They are masterpieces.

augustus3• 19 years ago

you must be referring to the game of the century against Bryne. Fischer played that game when he was 13 years old.

In later years he rarely sacrificed much.

Fischer's style of chess is considered the most universal in that he has no preferences he just plays the best moves for the position.

Kasparov considered Fischer to be 10 years ahead of the top grandmasters. In 1972 he had scores over the grandmasters (candidates matches) of 6-0.

Yes. He was incredible.

kirubakaran7• 19 years ago

"In later years he rarely sacrificed much."

IIRC, he did that against Tal too.

Either way, his games are a thing of beauty to see and wonder "how did he think of that?"

henning• 19 years ago

He's been an embarrassment to the game for the last 30 years. With respect to that, good riddance.

gregwebs• 19 years ago

he hasn't been playing for the last 30 years- he has only embarassed himself.

kirubakaran7• 19 years ago

He stood up to the government coz of what he believed in. Thats a big deal, irrespective of what he believed in seems nice or embarassing in your eyes.

mynameishere• 19 years ago

I think it was generally understood that he was mentally unstable. He went on and on about the Jews, but he was 1/2 or even 100 percent Jewish himself, and he was aware of the fact. You can go to any insane asylum and tell the people that they are "embarassing themselves" but it's a little disingenuous.

jgrahamc4• 19 years ago

Dude died at a power of 2 which is also the number of squares on a chess board. Poetic.

augustus3• 19 years ago

that's very interesting.

mig• 19 years ago

That's very keen observation indeed!

eposts• 19 years ago

The number of 1x1 squares on a chessboard. The number of squares on a chessboard is 204

1, 8x8 square 4, 7x7 squares 9, 6x6 squares 16, 5x5 squares 25, 4x4 squares 36, 3x3 squares 49, 2x2 squares 64, 1x1 squares

icky• 19 years ago

> The number of squares on a chessboard is 204

The number of squares on a chessboard is infinite, if you don't limit yourself to edges already drawn for you.

jgrahamc4• 19 years ago

Yes, and of course you should really generalize that so that the number of squares on a board with nxn single squares is sum(i=1..n) i*i

augustus3• 19 years ago

Sacrifices are great. Its visually appealing and I loved it too when I first started.

But on looking back I think what makes the greatest chess players is their intelligence and ability to calculate quickly and accurately.

Here is an example of one of Fischers greatest games. It really shows his great insight.

It is a game from 1971 against Petrosian. Here is the link http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044351

After the 21st move Fischer has a great knight and there is no way an amateur would give it for the useless bishop. But that's exactly what he did.

Fischer's insight was that in this particular position getting rid of the bishop allows his rooks to invade into the enemy's position quickly (which is exactly how the game ended).

At that time this move was criticized by top gradmasters as a blunder.

I just brought this up to show that chess is really a game of intelligence.

Regards.

antirez• 19 years ago

It's somewhat funny that all the great hackers I know in person tend to suck at chess. Did you noticed the same?

dcurtis• 19 years ago

Actually I've noticed exactly the opposite.

neilc3• 19 years ago

Depends on what you mean by "suck" -- I don't know any hackers who are IM strength or better, perhaps because of the enormous amount of time you need to devote to both programming and chess to become an expert. But I know lots of good hackers who are also above-average chess players.

rms2• 19 years ago

My high point at chess was when I was 8 and beat some newb with the four move checkmate. My chess career quickly went downhill from there.

Bobby Fischer dead at 64

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