Wow! What a wonderful and fascinating article by Mr. Sam Sloan, and a great forum.
I thought the film was excellent.
I do have a question about the portrayal of Spassky in the film.
Did he really throw such a fit just before he realizes (psychologically) that he MUST play Fischer, even if it's in the
pong room? And also was he also constantly under the impression that he was being bugged?
I don't know about the fit, but any Soviet player who didn't occasionally suspect the KGB had his head buried in the sands of Atlantic City.
Wow! What a wonderful and fascinating article by Mr. Sam Sloan, and a great forum.
I thought the film was excellent.
I do have a question about the portrayal of Spassky in the film.
Did he really throw such a fit just before he realizes (psychologically) that he MUST play Fischer, even if it's in the
pong room? And also was he also constantly under the impression that he was being bugged?
I can't tell which "he" you are referring to.
I was referring to Spassky. In the film it gives the impression that Spassky,
in his own way, like Fischer, felt he was, or perhaps was, being bugged.
That's right! Both Fischer and Spassky were being used like pawns by powerful political forces. Fischer's paranoia stemmed from childhood experiences of FBI surveillance of his family; whereas Spassky was well aware that Soviet state security (usually KGB after 1953) kept tabs on all of Soviets players who ventured out of the country to foregn tournaments and matches.
I really liked the movie; no matter the inaccuracies of say young Bobby in his bedroom looking at 1. P-KR4 P-KR4,
However, yes hollywood does seem to make chess players as nuts, like in Searching for Bobby Fischer.
I liked Searching for Bobby Fischer, there was a humanity about the film. People in New York are so lucky there are parks where you can go and play chess with anyone you like. We have nothing like that here :(
I was referring to Spassky. In the film it gives the impression that Spassky,
in his own way, like Fischer, felt he was, or perhaps was, being bugged.
Spassky would have been under immense pressure not only from the masterful psychological game that Fischer played off the chess board (Bobby claimed later that he was not interested in psychology although in an earlier interview he did claim that a chess master must be an expert psychologist although this was perhaps related to events on the chess board) but Spassky did not know whether he was coming or going and when Fischer started to win games the pressure from his own side must have been immense and I think that eventually it proved too much.
I really liked the movie; no matter the inaccuracies of say young Bobby in his bedroom looking at 1. P-KR4 P-KR4,
However, yes hollywood does seem to make chess players as nuts, like in Searching for Bobby Fischer.
I liked Searching for Bobby Fischer, there was a humanity about the film. People in New York are so lucky there are parks where you can go and play chess with anyone you like. We have nothing like that here :(
I agree the movie is really good, but the portrayal of Asa Hoffman and the reaction of Joshs dad of the club players, makes it seem like that his son is heading to a world of insanity.
I've been playing chess for almost two weeks now, and I know i'm not as experianced as some other people but i'm really enthusiastic and ambitious. I'd like to be the world champion sometime in the future but would I be at risk of becomming insane, fischer style if I did? :/ I know stresses, difficulties can be hard. I'm pretty sure all the american soldiers get mad PTSD and chess is a war game so I dunno, lol.
27-1-0 brilliant for only two weeks. I wonder how great beauty-kanta is with the yellow vest and huge melons.
I've been playing chess for almost two weeks now, and I know i'm not as experianced as some other people but i'm really enthusiastic and ambitious. I'd like to be the world champion sometime in the future but would I be at risk of becomming insane, fischer style if I did? :/ I know stresses, difficulties can be hard. I'm pretty sure all the american soldiers get mad PTSD and chess is a war game so I dunno, lol.
People and media like to mythologize someone like Bobby Fischer, who in turn becomes the archetype of what folks think of when they think of chess players. And thus likewise any eccentricity of any notable player is used to bolster the myth that serious chess players are nutcases (some day someone will probably try to pin Magnus Carlsen's fondness for Donald Duck as a sign of arrested maturity). Someone like Bobby had issues to begin with and would have had those issues with or without chess. Most chess players, even at the top level, are well-adjusted, emotionally stable adult people.
@Darth_Algar Can you name a well-adjusted, emotionally stable, adult Chess player?
@Darth_Algar Can you name a well-adjusted, emotionally stable, adult Chess player?
I don't know, maybe 80% of them.
@nativechessminerals yet you cannot name one? Do you base your evaluations off of context?
Aronian seems like a nice guy from interviews. Pics of him dancing at a party on chessbase. He's married. And when the Sinquefield Cup had its show match with Rex Sinquefield and Rex's son, the two amateurs were very nervous and blundering a lot. There were two super GMs who helped them calm down and play better though. One of them was Aronian who made small talk and gave coaching in a way that didn't add pressure.
all the married players seem to be well adjusted and emotionally stable, perhaps marriage does that to a man, makes him more balanced. Kramnik, Anand, Aronian etc
It wasn't the path of least resistance. I'll give you one example: they located an old stash of vintage Agfa film to shoot the scenes they wanted to seem like old newsreels. It really looks like stock footage, too, but it's not.