Bobby Fischer (NF)

[Phil C]

I know there are issues with his life but I want to just concentrate on the time when he was at his peak in chess. Most chess players are the their peak in their late 20s to early 30s not that they don't play great chess the other times in their life though.

Bobby Fishcher was a great chess player especially in the late 60s to early 70s. He is the only US World Champion ever to win the World Championship in a match and when he won the title it created much interest in chess in the US.
At the time when he became a grandmaster he was the youngest person up to that time ever. When he won the World Champion he was the highest rated grandmaster ever and completely dominated chess. Unfortunately it was a short reign.
In 1969 US Grandmaster stepped aside so Fischer could compete in a zonal qualification tournament. The winners of the tournament would compete in round robin elimination matches until a world championship match with the then world champion Boris Spaskey who at the time was considered one of the top five greatest chess players ever.
In his Interzonal match in December 1970 Fishcher won it with a remarkable dominance of 18.5 to 4.5 score with a 3.5 point lead over Bent Larson, Efim Geller and Robert Hubner. Fischer was to dominite chess over these years as no other grandmaster has done so in such a dominate fashion. Even Kasparov who many consider the best chess player ever never had this complete dominance.
In the matches to follow with elimination matches Fischer beat both Mark Taimanov (USSR) and then Bent Lawson (Denmark) both by 6 - 0 scores! It wasn't the wins that were so surprising but the complete dominance. Neither opponent were able to even get a draw agains him.
The final match that would put him against Spasky was against former world champion Tigran Petrosian. Fischer won the first game of the match which brought his consecutive total to 20 straight wins. Petrosian stopped his streak by winning the second game and then there were four straight draws. Then Fischer put on the crushing blow by winning four straight games.
This set up the world championship match with Boris Spasky in Iceland. Fischer carelessly lost the first game and then forfeited the second game when he objected to game conditions. Despite being down 0 - 2 he came back to win the match 12.5 to 8.5 in convincing fashion. This created a sensation in the world as well as the USA because the USSR had dominated the world championship in chess since 1948.
Fischer was set to play Anatoly Karpov in 1975 but the FIDE who was the ruler on chess matches would not meet his demand on how the winner was to be determined. Because it would not meet his demand Fischer withdrew from the tournament so by forfeit Karpov became world champion and ironically when he was to defend his title the FIDE gave in to his demands which were the same as Fischers. Politics unfortunately ruled.
It was a shame too because I don't think that Karpov in 1975 could have defeated Fischer but of course we will never know.
But it can't be denied that Fischer not only ruled chess from 1969 to 1975 he dominated it as no one else had.

It is a shame he didn't continue his great career. I know he had personal issues in his life but as I mentioned this thread is to concentrate on the time when he was the greatest chess player ever up to that time.

[carter08]

Fischer was very good
He actually invented a new type of Chess that involves randomizing the strating positions

[Phil C]

The one thing about Bobby Fischer in his prime in chess is that he knew the chess openings better than anyone before him. Chess is divided into basically three stages between great players. The openings consist of about the first 12 movies when the players get their positions set up. Fischer was the best ever at this at the time. Next is the middle game in which he excelled indeed which consists of the next 20 moves when player made combinations to set up a win. The end game is next when most pieces are captured and players try to strive to end the game. Fischerr was great in this too.

Most of Fischers losses were due to trying too hard to win in a game that was obviously a draw. He would make a careless movie to try to win and his opponent would take advantage to win. But one can't knock it because he was probably more successful at winning these games most of the time.

But his dominance was such that many players thought that since he knew the openings so well that he usually had a game won in the first ten moves even though his opponents might play up to 40 moves. I seriously doubt this and this was probably started by some Sports Illustrated writer who probably knew nothing of chess. But he was great in the openings.
He very rarely took over 5 minutes on each move and quite often much less time and since he knew the openings so well he was able to gain time for important movies. In serious chess matches you have to make a certain number of moves in a certain amout of time. He never got into time trouble unlike some of his opponents.