#20
'Nearly the whole reason for the rise in chess masters today is the readily available database that is comprised in great part of the wisdom of those we're speaking of.'
I don't agree, they are part of chess lore, but the machines are the ones doing the heavy lifting. The seconds of the world don't consult old literature, they ask the engines questions and hope to get novel ideas out of them.
What Fischer said in the airplane is very authentic. Look at how he speaks about Kasparov. It explains why he didn't play for world championship title against Karpov. It's a pity the interviewer didn't allow him to tell more why "people are living in a dream world".
@BlackSalt thanks a lot! Old, Fischer sounds like a janitor of lunacy. :)
@pawnmulch BlackSalt has just shed light (for me) on Fischer's motivation, and 960 seems to be a contender. Seirawan - one of your favourite grandmasters- developed Seirawan chess with Bruce Harper, and they bring in extra pieces named hawk (combining knight and bishop) and elephant (combining knight and rook) that start from any vacated 1st (8th)rank squares on an 8x8 board. Seirawan is not the frustrated type, is he? :)
And variants sometimes stick.. like the 'mad queen chess', chess ;) Or inspire transformations: We may owe the modern bishop to a variant called courier chess, which played out on 12x8 squares. (The german name for the bishop, "Läufer, carries on the meaning of courier, which was the outstanding new piece of that variant, popular in the netherlands and german speaking countries from the 13th through to the 16th century).
On topic, chess as depending on knowledge (openings & techniques) gives today the advantage, chess as depending on talent is timeless?! Any world class player of old could have grown up here to be one today if they could do the knowledge part, any world class player of today could have grown up and succeeded then if they could do without. It is a difference of heavy weight today and light weight then. Theoretically. But instead of moving ever clumsier, the game today becomes more dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee-like. A general knowledge saturation would bring back pure talent fighting, after all. Or would it? What was talent, again? Can we turn the question over to computer chess with any gain? Not resigning but handing it over for today, a little time chess player :)
People here talking about opening theory, is that really that much of a factor? What if the opponent makes a poor move and deviates from theory? Can people really memorize all possible moves, etc? I guess knowing the concepts might help.
I never understood when people say, "modern chess has progressed". What is really fundamentally different? I am a beginner but in my eyes, there are only a few basic principles to follow. Develop, keep your king safe, avoid doubled pawns, so on. It's the combination of these few factors that makes chess so complex. Each position is so fundamentally unique. Can someone who knows please explain it to me?
Chess, to me, doesn't seem to be, "the person who has the most of prior chess knowledge will win", it is more like, "the person who can acquire the most knowledge about the specific position at play will be able to win". It isn't about what you know it's about what you can find out. If you are able to get where I'm coming from.
Yes, today we have computers, but before people had to think about everything on their own. Maybe that also has its advatages, in a way. They were forced to think alone, if you're always being given the answers, can you really grow? Of course you can analyze the games without the engine first, but a risk might come from having the engines.
What if engines don't have that much to teach us, because they think so differently? Is it better to analyze a game between humans or a game between engines? I've not seen the latter approach that much.
Also today bullet chess is easy to play, I wonder what does that change.
But I wouldn't count out the old GMs. They've spent their entire lives studying this game, every one of them must know some tricks. Especially in chess 960 it would be interesting to see!
@BlackSalt In your video #17, at 3:33 mark fischer talks about a Frenchman who developed pawn theory. Who is that guy? Is he talking about Alekhine?
#25 Philidor
I can't stand these posts, probably by young people, which denigrate Fischer. If you give Fischer a copy of Leela to practice with, and add 50 extra years of opening theory, he'd still be the greatest. What's even more outrageous is people saying "well if we teleport Fischer to 2016 he'd suck". The top 5 now can't even win 5 games in a row much less the 19 in a row Fischer won again the world's elites. Without engines and 50 more years of theory, the modern elites would NOT be better than Spassky and Botvinnik and Keres and Karpov.
Criticizing Fischer is almost like denigrating Isaac Newton for not coming up with General Relativity. Young people these days don't seem to realize that the greats in every field stand on the shoulders of giants. Young people casting outrageous aspersions against Fischer are postmodernists who nihilistically want to erase history as if Carlsen, Ding, and Caruana arrived at their skill levels without the existence of past greats. Don't people have any regard for the role of history any more?
If you’re going to push, it’s going to come down to young brains growing up in a resource rich environment.
So it doesn’t matter if you give Fischer prime the same resources he is not going to be able to grow at the same pace. Teleport Fischer prime would be a non competitive, teleport Fischer the kid and it gets interesting.
I think, the most important change is the increased number of potential chess players.
If 50 years ago a prodigy was born in the middle of china, india, africa, south america or some other chess diaspora like, let's say norway, then his chances to discover his huge talent and develop his skills, were close to zero.
Nowadays with internet and mobiles available in most parts of the world, (s)he has much bigger chances.
So the heroes of the past including Fischer were the best of maybe 10% of the whole humanity, while todays best are the best of 80%. This alone increases the level of play.
Whether Fischer is the Greatest or not is not for me to tell! The discussion about Fischer being defeated or not by the current elite players will never be solved. But we will have to have standards with which we can compare the players with. First we have ELO rating! Fischer in his prime 1970 was rated 2785 elo, how many of the current elite players (08-01-2020) are higher rated than 2785? 3 guys! Magnus, Fabi and Ding. Some have said that we have a rating inflation even so the current players are higher rated than they would be without inflation. Some have said there is a 5 % inflation in rating in 2020 compared to 1970, let us do some math then! Fischer rated 2785 in 1970 would be with inflation (let us give him full credit with 5 %) rated 2785+5% = 2925 elo. I can't see anyone close to that in the current field of players. I'm an old player born in 1959 and I remember Fischer back then and I know for sure that chess theory has evolved dramatically the last 10 years due to engines, what was normal to play back then in the 70's has been changed a lot. Have a nice day guys and chess is the best!!!
Erik Skov Denmark.
