Bobby Fisher - Move by move to insanity

[Skybird]

Yesterday, German-French TV station ARTE showed a very very good documentation, 90 minutes, about Bobby fisher, the century fight against spasski, his youth, and his way into mental illness, insanity and the final crash. The film imo is very fair - and that is what makes this a very human, tragic, depressing story to tell. I heared about him probably being mentally ill, but I did not knew that it started so seriousl so early, and was so bad at the end.

It is French or American film made in 2010. It can be watched with German dub over the English original here, for 7 days from today on:

http://videos.arte.tv/de/videos/zug_...n-4296374.html

So many of the very very great players suffered from mental insanity of some form. There is some truth in saying that if you really get serious in chess and dive deep into it, it destroys your mind and puts the pieces together differently - and then there is no way back for you into the realm of normal life.

I do not excuse his later comments, his antimsemitism and his remarks, but they need to be seen in the light of his biography and mental illness.

What geniu,s shooting fireworks for just so short a time. What a tragedy how it ended.

If somebody has a link to the fully English version, post it. This is a good film to wtach.

[Takeda Shingen]

And that is a very good way to describe his deterioration. Being so far 'inside' the game ultimately drove him mad.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

And that is a very good way to describe his deterioration. Being so far 'inside' the game ultimately drove him mad.

They explain it quite similiar in the film. They point out that the high level of abstraction in chess forces the chess player to indeed deconstruct his reality-callibrated mind, and to put it together again in a different way that can handle this enormous abstraction (after just the first white and black move you already have 400 possible positions, and after that the variation tree explodes totally) - but is not well-equipped anymore for handling reality. They also said that a good chess player necessarily needs to be a paranoid, always being on guard against threats and traps set up by his opponent.

From there, paranoid schizophrenia is not far away. So is megalomania. They refer to first world champion Steinitz, who at the end of his life (he was over 60 when becoming world champion) claimed to not only play against God, but to beat him.

As I said, the film is very good, but it tells a very sad story. They said that after the famous sixth match in Rejkjavik, Spasski rose from the board and applauded Fisher in admiration, although just before they battled against each other over the absurd demands Fisher constantly set up as conditions to continue the tournament. True sportsmanship by the Russian, ignoring the political pressure and the personal animosity for a moment! I looked up the match this night and took almost two hours over it. Beautiful, simply beautiful:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044366

[RickC Sniper]

I cannot get your video to play, but HBO is currently running a documentary about him called "Bobby Fisher against the world".

I have watched it and it is a very well done story about his youth, that match vs Spassky, and his mental state as it deteriorated.

You are correct about Spassky bending over backwards to accommodate Fisher's demands, and I think it was remarkable it even took place considering how difficult Fisher was to deal with.

A clip from the HBO documentary. I assume your link is a different film but perhaps not?

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/bob...inst-the-world

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/bob...IyMgIAacUXOA==

[Skybird]

By Liz Gorbus - it seems to be the same film. The clip also shows scenes from the film I mean, and the same interview partners in the similiar swettings.

It should be around 90 minutes, and probably made in 2010. But I already think it is the same.

P.S. The ARTE video player takes almost a minute before starting the film. It took long for me, too.

[Skybird]

For the interested people understanding German: a presentation about the importance of games for paranoia and paranoia for games, and plenty of reflections about the two biggest paranoids in chess grandmaster's history, Paul Morphy and Bobby Fischer. Bonn, 2006.

Schach und Paranoia. Verfolgungswahn und Verschwörungstheorien bei Spielergenies

"Chess does not make you insane. It allows the potentially insane to stay normal for a while." When the final victory has been won, the ultimate battle ended in triumph, then from there ther eis only the chnace and thus the growing fear to lose, to get defeated, and so the mind being like this does not play anymore, like Fischer and Morphy stopped playing, too. And from then on, the fall is irreversible.

[joea]

I read an excellent short story years ago in one of my Dad's sci-fi books, a colection from If magazine-Midnight by the Morphy Watch. (Apparently Paul Morphy had an elaborate watch made).

http://quillandkeyboard.blogspot.com...phy-watch.html

In "Midnight by the Morphy Watch", the titular timepiece (sorry) is rediscovered by Stirf Ritter-Rebil, an aging chess enthusiast and antiquarian, in a San Francisco secondhand shop of the sort that only do business in the pages of weird fiction. The watch is bit more elaborate than its real-life counterpart and Ritter (as he prefers to be called) soon discovers that he has purchased more than an historical curiosity. At a local chess tournament, he finds that his atrophied chess skills are returning. In fact, he is playing better than ever. Soon he is winning game after game and progresses to defeating masters while blindfolded in a simultaneous match against four opponents. As Ritter's powers grow, so does his mania for the game. He can't stop thinking about chess or dreaming about it. The game becomes literally all-consuming in Ritter's expanding mind. It also doesn't help that he is haunted by four spectral figures and a prowling "something" with a hint of the cosmic about it.

Very good story, one I'd love to read again if I can find it at my folk's place this Xmas.