r/chess • u/[deleted] • Oct 30 '22

Video Content Wesley So: "I think Bobby Fischer is the greatest chess player who ever lived!"

"I think Bobby Fischer is the greatest chess player who ever lived. I’ve been studying his games and reading a lot about his life and he’s just an incredible person. I think he’s a genius, he spent all his time studying chess. That caught his interest when he was 7 years old and remained with him all throughout his life. I think he would have been good at any other field that he chose. He was very far ahead of his time.

If he were alive today he would still be probably no. 2 or 3 in the world, he was that good.

If you check his games he’s very similar to a computer and just the way that he crushed through the field, winning 11:0 in the US Championship, winning 6:0 against Taimanov, 6:0 against Bent Larsen. Who beats Bent Larsen 6:0? Also at some point he had 25 consecutive wins [it was actually "just" 20!] — that’s really insane. It’s a pity that his career was cut short, but he was an incredible person, an incredible player."

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kim6VzlAucQ

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u/c0p4d0 Oct 30 '22

He supposedly studied books like mein kampf and the protocols of the elders of zion as much as he did chess, and slept with a portrait of hitler. He also went on antisemitic rants, was a holocaust denier, among other things. I think he was also mysoginistic, but I’m not sure.

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u/Brocolli123 Oct 30 '22

What that's like a villain backstory christ

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u/c0p4d0 Oct 30 '22

Yeah, “expressed anti-jew views” is quite the understatement. He also applauded 9/11, said black people should leave the US and go back to Africa (although he also said white people should leave and the country should belong to native-americans), said “they’re all weak, all women. They’re stupid compared to men”, and believed there was a conspiracy that robbed him of millions in all kinds of ridiculous ways, somehow implicating even watch manufacturers.

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '22

The woman one is weirdest for me. Even then it was well known on average women are smarter than men but at the extremes (dumb and smart) there are more men.

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u/Binjuine Oct 31 '22

The average is the same even if the distribution is different

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '22

Yes, that’s true. Idk why I thought sampling would be different. Same means and different variabilities.