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From: ditzel@ssc-bee.UUCP (Charles L Ditzel)
Newsgroups: net.chess
Subject: Bobby Fischer, Number 1 in the World???
Message-ID: <295@ssc-bee.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 25-Feb-85 12:15:30 EST
Article-I.D.: ssc-bee.295
Posted: Mon Feb 25 12:15:30 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 20:33:52 EST
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Organization: Boeing Aerospace Co., Seattle, WA
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>Big deal. This is just a match for the title of second-best
>chess player in the world, anyway.

You can't possibly believe that Fischer could fare well against Karpov
or Kasparov.  (Especially in his current rusty condition.)
Fischer is dead as far as chess goes.  He died in 1972 when he played the
2nd or 3rd best player in the soviet union (Spassky).   Spassky played
very poorly and was psyched out.  If you study Spassky's prior games
with Fischer and his decline in 1970 and 1971 you should conclude that
Spassky was in sharp decline (just look at the Fischer-Spassky games
from Reykevik and then compare them to Siegen 1970).

In addition many experts believe that Fischer was VERY lucky to get
by Petrosian...that match score could have been reversed.  Study
games 1 through 5.

There is no doubt that Fischer was a super -grandmaster, but so are
Karpov and Kasparov.
...and it should be noted so are a few other players.

An excellent book ... Jan Timman's book, THE ART OF CHESS ANALYSIS
has an excellent section on Fischer-Petrosian 5th match game.  The
question was how Fischer ever survived the first part of that match.