Jeremy Schaap vs Bobby Fischer

[KaneKungFu123]

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My guess is he could EASILY surpass every hold'em player (limit or no limit) on this forum with two years of study and experience.

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Unlikely. Chess is a game of complete information. One criticism of Fischer was that he always played the same way regardless of the opponent. No-limit is all about putting yourself in the other guy's shoes. It's this sort of reasoning which autistics are incapable of and Fischer exhibits many characteristics of Asperger's syndrome.

Do you think Stuey Ungar - whose ability at cards you must put on a par with Fischer's at chess - couldve become a grandmaster in a couple of years?

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Good Post.

The only chess I can stand to play is speed chess. It adds the varible of time, anticipation, pyschology and all of the things missing in a normal, purely mathmatical game.

[kenberman]

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Do you think Stuey Ungar - whose ability at cards you must put on a par with Fischer's at chess - couldve become a grandmaster in a couple of years?

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Stu Ungar lost more at NL than he won. yes he won tourneys, but he also lot a lot of cash in ring games. Ray Zee posted this info a while back.

[MicroBob]

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One criticism of Fischer was that he always played the same way regardless of the opponent.

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I don't dispute whether Fischer would be good at poker or not for whatever reason...or whether he is partly autistic or has ausberger's....but I DO believe he played differently against different opponents.

For example, he played P-Q4 in his 1972 match vs. Spassky....a huge pyschological ploy since he previously had exclusively played K4.


chess is extremely popular in iceland.

i think i read of an international tourney from a couple decades ago where a native icelander was playing for the championship and it was the highest rated TV program in the history of iceland. something like 90-percent of all TV sets were tuned to that match.
presumably, the only other station was showing a re-run of Happy Days (all of that is true to the best of my recollection,..except for the happy days bit which was a joke of course).


didn't see the jeremy schaap piece....but i think there is little doubt that Fischer is fairly messed up in the head.

[youtalkfunny]

I don't watch SportsCenter. What happened between Schaap and Fischer?

(When I did watch SC, I used think the younger Schaap was very much a journalistic lightweight.)

[Michael Emery]

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One criticism of Fischer was that he always played the same way regardless of the opponent.

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Totally true. Fischer's opponents would train for years to play him knowing exactly how he would play, and they still got slaughtered. He always played in this same fashion because he found it most effective. But to think hes a savant only capable of playing in that fashion is wrong.

Fischer is the best "random chess" player in the world. He has been a huge supporter of this game and spreading its popularity. For those that dont know, random chess is where pieces are blindly drawn to start out in diffrent starting positions. For example the Queen might be where the Knight is in a regular game, the Rook where a pawn should be, etc. Fischer has been a huge supporter of this game because he says it cripples players who only know how to play chess "by the book". Its still regular chess, but much more difficult in that your forced to alter your game according to the draw.

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Do you think Stuey Ungar - whose ability at cards you must put on a par with Fischer's at chess - couldve become a grandmaster in a couple of years?

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Actually I wouldnt doubt it at all. Stuey was well known for being a genius with a photographic memory. One of Fischer's biggest advantages is that he could remember EVERY chess match he ever played. I dont think Stuey was nearly as smart as Fischer (Fischer has one of the highest IQ's ever at 180) but I still think Stuey could use his raw talent to achieve grandmaster status in a few years if he desired.

Now tell me why someone would dare to think that a person who is known as being the best at one of the hardest skill games in the world (Fischer only admitted the japanese game "GO" was harder") wouldnt be able to surpass everyone on these forums? I doubt we have anyone here with near a 180 IQ, that can recall every hand of poker they played, and with one of the most organized minds ever. Most great minds dont venture into poker. But if they did, I believe the "big game" would feature a diffrent lineup of smarter and more talented players as a lot of the big names we know would be outclassed.

Mike Emery

[Skipbidder]

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Fischer is the best "random chess" player in the world. He has been a huge supporter of this game and spreading its popularity. For those that dont know, random chess is where pieces are blindly drawn to start out in diffrent starting positions. For example the Queen might be where the Knight is in a regular game, the Rook where a pawn should be, etc.

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I believe that only the back rows are randomized. He also liked the idea of simply switching the position of the knights and bishops to start the game. This would effectively cause all opening theory to be trashed as well.

[Shaun]

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One criticism of Fischer was that he always played the same way regardless of the opponent.

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Totally true. Fischer's opponents would train for years to play him knowing exactly how he would play, and they still got slaughtered. He always played in this same fashion because he found it most effective. But to think hes a savant only capable of playing in that fashion is wrong.

Fischer is the best "random chess" player in the world. He has been a huge supporter of this game and spreading its popularity. For those that dont know, random chess is where pieces are blindly drawn to start out in diffrent starting positions. For example the Queen might be where the Knight is in a regular game, the Rook where a pawn should be, etc. Fischer has been a huge supporter of this game because he says it cripples players who only know how to play chess "by the book". Its still regular chess, but much more difficult in that your forced to alter your game according to the draw.

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Do you think Stuey Ungar - whose ability at cards you must put on a par with Fischer's at chess - couldve become a grandmaster in a couple of years?

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Actually I wouldnt doubt it at all. Stuey was well known for being a genius with a photographic memory. One of Fischer's biggest advantages is that he could remember EVERY chess match he ever played. I dont think Stuey was nearly as smart as Fischer (Fischer has one of the highest IQ's ever at 180) but I still think Stuey could use his raw talent to achieve grandmaster status in a few years if he desired.

Now tell me why someone would dare to think that a person who is known as being the best at one of the hardest skill games in the world (Fischer only admitted the japanese game "GO" was harder") wouldnt be able to surpass everyone on these forums? I doubt we have anyone here with near a 180 IQ, that can recall every hand of poker they played, and with one of the most organized minds ever. Most great minds dont venture into poker. But if they did, I believe the "big game" would feature a diffrent lineup of smarter and more talented players as a lot of the big names we know would be outclassed.

Mike Emery

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Poker and chess are completely different. One thing that makes a great poker player is the ability to empathize with your opponent, and to do that, you have to have some degree of people skills. Bobby Fischer has none.

He is smart and that is an immediate boost to be sure, but his savant-like intelligence isn't neccessarily the best tool for poker success. Chess is just a totally different animal than poker. Chess is a complicated game in itself, whereas poker is a simple game in which the complications arise individually with each opponent, one's image, how one is currently running, etc.

I'm not sure an egomaniac like Bobby Fishcer would be very good at recognizing what other players were thinking, etc. Secondly, while I'm not sure if many of the best poker players (or people in general) have IQ's approaching 180, the best poker players in the world are pretty much all highly intelligent.

Intelliegnce alone is nice, but I wonder how Fischer would react to the uncontrollable variance of poker? I think the guy's ego would limit him.

[LargeCents]

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For anyone who saw the clip of the Bobby Fischer press conferance the other day on SportsCenter, I have to say that Jeremy Schaap has all of my respect on how he handled the situation...Bobby Fischer on the other hand has zero respect from me. All he did cement the fact with the entire world that he is an arrogant INSANE man.

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I saw the tail end of the interview. I wish I could see it again, to digest exactly how everything was said.

I've been keeping up with the Fischer "soap opera" since I started playing chess 15 years ago. Fischer is a unique personality, molded by the harsh conflict of the cold war during his generation. He seems to have gotten himself into an impossible situation, long ago, professionally in chess, then socially, and eventually politically. It was always him against the world in chess, and now it is his life in general.

Jeremy Schapp is a punk, looking to pick a fight, similar to Jeremy Schapp's interview with Bobby Knight a few years ago. I don't know why some of these two-bit reporters do this, I guess it's just part of their game, trying to make a name for themself.

In the interview, Fischer resembled a broken man, to me. He semi-rehashed the same stories he's been telling for the last 15 years. How his property in the U.S. was stolen after the U.S. sanctions against him were invoked, and how he blames the jews for the fact that his life has become a ruin. It's bad enough that he's a raving anti-semite, but he seems to make it a centerpiece to his every thought, action and word. I know I'm alone in wishing that we as a society would help such a genius be rehabilitated, rather than parading him around as the lunatic that he has become. I guess jew hating really is the worst thing a man can do, even worse than child sodomizing priests and pop stars, apparently.

I wish Bobby the best, and a life of peace in Iceland.

[ToneLoc]

Fischer deserves respect for what he did/created in chess. His political comments justify giving BF no respect as a person...

With regards to the chess/poker battle:
I know many chess players who have easily made the swithc from chess to poker. I don't know any example of the contrary.
I'd say it is much easier to become a profitable poker player that even a mid-level (say FIDE rated) chess player.

[youngndumb]

Basically Fischer asked him if his father was dick schapp and when told that he was, Fischer went off on how he was a backstabber like all the rest of the Jews. I guess Dick had befriended him and then wrote something non-flattering about him and this made Bobby not too happy. Jeremy was very upset (his deceased father getting called a backstabbing jew) and before leaving made a comment to Fischer about how insane he was.