A couple of interesting Bobby Fischer videos: 1972 after becoming world chess champion and perhaps 2004/2005 when he felt chess needed changes

Last updated on 4th April 2021

Contents of my FB post: https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/3096859393863950 , 1st April 2021

Enjoyed this 1972 interview of Bobby Fischer where Johnny Carson does a great job of engaging with him. Fischer speaks about being the best in the world then! I recall from my school kid (or slightly later) days (I used to play chess then and even represented my school in one tournament in perhaps 1976 or 1977 where I did not do so well), reading about Bobby Fischer being somewhat cranky and his boast about being the best in the world. So I thoroughly enjoyed actually seeing him say that in this video, and how Johnny Carson reacted to it with a mix of humour and acknowledgement of his chess genius. Carson also asks him about psychology tactics to disturb chess opponents and other issues that Fischer was famous for complaining about.

Bobby Fischer solves a 15 puzzle in 17 seconds on Carson Tonight Show - 11/08/1972, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxvnEwvgfeI, 18 min. 30 secs.

----

Contents of my FB post: https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/3098123507070872 , dated 3rd April 2021:

Bobby Fischer on Paul Morphy and how opening theory destroyed chess, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P349BdHUxlc , 7 min. 5 secs, published on 24th Aug. 2020. The youtube video has a transcript which seems to be mostly but not fully accurate.

It was very interesting for me to see this video of Bobby Fischer which seems to be around 2004/2005 (the youtube video description says it was after his release from prison - he was imprisoned in 2004 in Japan as the US had revoked his passport).  This video is quite a contrast to the previous 1972 interview video I shared - https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/3096859393863950 . One sees the same man little over 3 decades later!

Fischer has some frank words about some negative aspects of Chess. He says, "It's all about memorization. It's all about pre-arrangement." The interviewer interjects, "But creativity, creativity?" Fischer says, "Creativity is... lower down on the list".

Fischer continues, "The old chess is you're banging your head against the wall with this theory. You are - you know - you are trying to find some little improvement on move, you know, 18 or 20. It's ridiculous. It gets harder and harder and harder. You need more and more computers. You need more and more people working for you. For what?"

...

The interviewer says, "You became world champion on creativity" (as an argument that creativity is important in chess).

Fischer responds, "Well, first of all it is a long time ago when I played Spassky - the first match and even the second match is already some time ago - 15 years ago almost 13 years ago." [Ravi: 1972 was the first match; Fischer beat Boris Spassky and became world champion; 1992 was the second match against Spassky which was an unofficial match and which Fischer won again, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer .]

Fischer continues, "And chess, just the last few years has changed dramatically with all this computer stuff ..."

He still claims to be the best chess player in the world (all time, if I got it right) but he says that only after being pushed to say it by the interviewer. I liked this reluctance of Fischer to get into that territory and also liked him frankly saying his view that he was the best when he was pushed into giving his view. I mean, he was being frank, when pushed.

He wisely differentiates between the questions of who is/was the most talented chess player and who is/was the best chess player. He says he is better than Morphy (Paul Morphy, 1837-1884, USA chess player and unofficial world chess champion, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Morphy ) but says, "I don't say I have more talent. I just know much more theory right." .. "If he came back today and he could not open a book let's say right. He would do badly against even masters maybe. That has nothing to do with his talent though, right. So when you say I am better than ... it doesn't mean anything. Because of all this theory in chess."

Fischer continues on to say that if he is asked whether he is the most talented, he would say maybe but that's just his opinion.

In some parts of the video, he tries to promote (his) Fischer random chess, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess .

Fischer moved to Iceland after being released from prison in Japan as Iceland gave him an Icelandic passport. Fischer died in Iceland in January 2008.

===================================

4th April 2021: From my FB post: https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/3098814973668392 :

"I wanted to defeat Bobby" | GM Anatoly Karpov Interview, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPd1VdtAkOM , 20 min. 20 secs, published on 29th Jan. 2020 (don't know date of interview - Jan. 2020 or earlier years).

Karpov speaks in a mature and measured way. Karpov became world champion in 1975 when Bobby Fischer refused to play him due to Fischer's objections to some of the rules (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karpov#Match_with_Fischer_in_1975 ). Karpov is asked about this and answers quite frankly, I think. 

Great to see that Karpov continues to contribute to chess world and to Russia.

I very much liked this interview. Perhaps this is the first interview of Karpov that I have viewed. Of course, I have read a lot about Karpov in the 70s and 80s when he was world champion but that was typically in newspapers or magazines.