Billy Joe's Random Web Ramblings
8 Comments Published by Billy Joe Mills on Saturday, February 9 at 8:56 PM.
Here is a sweet site that lets you play through all of the Spassky-Fischer 1972 Championship games. Game 5 is of particular interest with 27. Qc2!Dick Cavett has a blog entry that gives insight and commentary on the dark, swirling mind and world of Fischer...along with an interesting video.
I've developed an affection for Anton Chekhov, who is supposedly the second most performed playwright behind Shakespeare. His wiki article is interesting, well-researched, and well-written. Here is a link to "The Lady with the Dog," a short story that Nabokov called, "one of the greatest stories ever written."
Steven Pinker is probably a top three public intellectual at the moment. Anything he writes is worth reading. I once saw him debate former Chancellor Nancy Cantor. He made her look as
though she belonged in the kiddie game being held down the street. It's a a few weeks old now, but he wrote a lengthy article for the NYTimes called, "The Moral Instinct." It will force you to reconsider how you evaluate your daily interactions with other human beings.NEW: Lastly, a great NYT op-ed that clarifies why the American lower classes are not actually doing as poorly as we tend to assume given the spin of statistics that are most often quoted in the media. No matter what people purport to know, economics and finance are subjects that few people understand, myself included.
Labels: Billy Joe Mills, Chess, literature, Random Ramblings
For the Fischer games, I'd look for other sites that have commentary by serious chess authors, it'll help you appreciate these games more than playing through them quickly. Not sure why Billy stresses Spassky's losing move in game 5. Wanna flush that one out for us Billy?
Thanks for the great link w/ the column about Fischer and the video. A great moment in the video is when Fischer is asked what moment is the equivalent of hitting a home run. Fischer said, the moment when he crushes his opponents ego.
There is a brutality to chess, when you are put into a position where you are completely helpless, or when you're down and struggling to equalize.
The author of the piece on Fischer Bill links to gives us young ones some sense of what the Fischer-Spassky match must have been like.
I felt a sense of loss when he died, and a frustration that the world didn't seem to notice.
I'd be interested in TheTodd posting thoughts on Fischer, as he is probably the most sophisticated chess thinker on our blog. I've studied the personalities of chess some, but probably not as much as Todd. Hell, he coudl probably replay some of these games from memory.
I stressed that Spassky move because from what I understand of the game it was a terrible mistake and was completely avoidable.
also I recall reading somewhere that after that game Spassky applauded Bobby and has claimed it to be the best match of the series.
I felt a sense of loss when he died, and a frustration that the world didn't seem to notice.
He held the world's attention and brought chess to a forefront, then threw that away. He's most recently known for his anti-American, anti-western political views. He wasted his fame and tarnished his memory. Better the world not notice then spit on his grave.
Chess, constant chess, is twirling round and round a never-ending spiral staircase, anyone who dives deep enough into the game cannot avoid at least partial insanity. I don't place blame on him at all, anyone is fragile and meek when colliding with the infinite of chess.
Pull your tongue from your own ass Billy, you aren't poetically gifted.
That is true, but no one is harmed from me trying, aside from your jealous ego :)
Thanks for posting the Fischer article. I've read a lot of Fischer articles since his death, and that one's my favorite.
Spassky's blunder in game 5 was indeed avoidable and very elementary mistake for someone at the world championship level. The other move from this match that generated a lot of attention was Fischer's Bxh2 in game 1. It was a different sort of mistake than Spassky's - it was the sort of mistake only a beginner or a great player would be likely to make. It looks like a beginner mistake because Fischer's bishop immediately gets trapped, but he was aware of that and miscalculated some of the complications that followed.
As for being able to play out the games from memory, well, I think I can play out game 2 from memory :)
I like to play through some of Fischer's games when I'm in a lazy mood (which is most of the time). Relative to other great players, I find his games to be the easiest to understand. His moves tend to have a great clarity and forcefulness to them.
It's not hard to gain a superficial understanding of the games of the other great players, but it is difficult to understand the nuances without doing a lot of analytical work. For modern greats like Kasparov, you'd better have a computer to help you, too, since modern play is so strongly influenced by computer chess software and difficult to understand without using the same software the players use to prepare.