why did bobby Fischer quit chess?

If this is true, will we have to re-evaluate our all-time top ten lists to put Capablanca (who could play at world's-best level while living the playboy lifestyle) ahead of Magnus?

Many consider Capablanca to be the greatest natural chess player of all time. Karpov puts Capablanca in the top five of all time.

He didn't quit chess. He just quit competitive and public chess except for a later Spassky match.. He continued to play. He proposed his time control scheme in 1988, then chess960 in 1996. So after Fischer "quit" he contributed more to chess than many here including myself are likely to ever do.

Fisher random aka chess960 may end up being the most significant contribution to chess since Indians introduced chaturanga to the Persians.

False. Fischer stopped of playing professional chess in 1972. When Karpov challenged Fischer in 1975 he was 3 years retired. .. why he retired? because the only way to be eternal champion is not playing anymore. He was very sick and made a great effort to destroy the Soviet Union just by himself. I do not think Fischer was supported by USA at all, and probably this is the second reason.

So true , where else do you go , maybe in today' age he had a burn out , his hero was Paul Charles Morphy ,

Same reason you bumped the topic. He realised there was no more that he could do.

"Rus" is an Old Norse word. Norsemen came to Novgorod in 862 and their chieftain Riurik and his son Oleg subjugated all the East Slavic people between there and Kiev by 882, displacing the Khazars. The Norsemen were only a small ruling minority, but they led trading (and raiding) expeditions to Constantinople, leading the Byzantines to call all the peoples of their dominions "Rus".

So it seems that Kievans, Novgorodians, and Muscovites all "stole" the name "Rus" from a band of Vikings.

For the first time in history the top players will be playing in a Classical Fischer-Random Super-Tournament Event next year in Hamburg. This is what Bobby Fischer envisioned. It also looks like Magnus Carlsen Aronian and others are excited about this event. With hundreds of lines in opening theory thrown out the window maybe Judit Polgar and other older elite players will make a comeback appearance.

"I have been waiting for a tournament like the Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T Challenge my whole career." —Levon Aronian

https://www.chess.com/news/view/carlsen-ding-caruana-in-new-200-000-fischer-random-event

I think he quit because he had already proved his point and didn't want to deal with the world of opening theory and robot people. Fisher was easily the best to ever play chess.

There were several reasons why Bobby Fischer quit chess – most of them not good reasons – but that’s what you get when a person’s mental illness overtakes the mind of the individual and rational thinking goes out the Several reasons have been well discussed in the past (which I will mention at the end for the sake of completeness) and concentrate on the two most important reasons: 1. he had grown to hate chess; and 2. his mental illness had gotten worse.

Fischer has stated since 1972 that he hates chess and that chess is dead because there is too much of a reliance on memory and pre-arrangement in the opening. This puts the beauty of creativity down to at least third on the list of importance of what makes a great chess player and takes much of the fun out of the game. This of course more often rewards massive tedious preparation, rote play, and not creative and “genius” play. And naturally as a result of all this there are far too many draws, especially at the Grandmaster level (e.g., 2108 Carslen-Caruana title match all 12 classical games were drawn).

Yes, Fischer did partake in huge amounts of opening study and preparation, but that was only because he knew that he had to in order to achieve his lifelong goal of winning the World Chess Championship. He knew that if he achieved at least equality in the opening, his talent, creativity, and genius would take over and likely produce a win. And just because he did this ad nauseam doesn’t mean he enjoyed it (outside of the fact that it improved his game and results). After all, who would? And it seems to me that he was tired of it after over 20 years of obsessive tedious study and didn’t want to continue doing it for the next 10 or 20 years in order to keep his title. I think we can all relate to this. (Gary Kasparov, who appears to be mentally stable, was willing to do this for 35 years so more power to him.)

Fischer dealt with mental illness his whole life, with the most significant and common diagnosis being that he had paranoid personality disorder. Sadly, mentally illness, if not treated, gets worse with age. Fischer’s mental illness was not treated and part of the reason is because his illness was difficult to treat since the individuals tended to (not surprisingly) mistrust the therapy and the therapist. Apparently (but there is no way to know for sure), Fischer’s obsession with chess helped keep his mental illness somewhat in check since the structure may have kept him grounded (i.e., focused), gave him confidence (and arrogance), and a sense of self worth. And once he stopped playing apparently things began to unravel in his life. Perhaps if Fischer960 (Fischer Random) had been playing competitively in 1972 he would have focused on that and his mental illness would not have accelerated so quickly.

Other reasons: 3. He was burned out. Of course this was part of it since apparently he possibly studied chess as much as any human in history (per day) up to that point. 4. He was scared of losing the only thing of value and importance in his life – the World Championship Chess Title. Of course this is part of it, especially given his mental state and mental illness, and how much hard work he put in to achieve it (not to mention how he had to overcome the Russian dominance and the advantages their players had).

5. He was scared specifically of Anatoly Karpov. No, but it is safe to say he would have been scared of any decent opponent given everything discussed above and his lack of recent play. All players know that there is a chance they can lose no matter how great they are or how much they are favored to win. Just ask Jose Capablanca when he played Alexander Alekhine, and then ironically, Alekhine, who wouldn’t give Capablanca a rematch for fear of losing. However, Karpov was not yet in his prime, not at Fischer’s level yet, and had no championship match experience. True, Fischer was rusty in competitive play and might have played almost no chess for three years. But he would not have played the match without getting back in practice, and studying Karpov’s games and any opening developments in the previous three years.

Soon after Fischer won the title he had already started thinking about quitting and never defending his title based on his actions. After all, it’s almost suicidal to not play chess for three years and expect to unequivocally beat the second best chess player in the world in a long championship match. And his demand that at 9-9 wins (this obviously means the challenger would have to win by 2, or 10-8 wins) the Champion would keep the title he knew was unfair and not going to be accepted by FIDE. Sadly, Fischer and Paul Morphy may have been the greatest chess players ever (and not because they are Americans), but their mental illnesses (and in Morph’s case also a lack of interest) prevented them from demonstrating this without question. Let’s hope that Magnus Carlsen’s lack of defense of his title is not any indication that he has any mental issues. It is sad for the chess world nonetheless.

Your reason #4 is the correct answer. Reuben Fine, world-class chess player, licensed psychologist, and someone who knew Fischer for many years, predicted before the 1972 match with Spassky that if Fischer won, he would never play again because his ego couldn't deal with the possibility that he would lose and his long-proclaimed "I'm the best" boast would be punctured.

He loved chess but he had mental problems that is why he quit

Well, my optimism that such an event will happen is rather limited. I doubt either will still be alife in 2108.

But what do I know, maybe somebody will invent youth pills or something in the coming 50 years or so.

SCNR

Fide's WC cycle now resembles world cup football.. where two teams are close in strength... they play for a draw and settle the match with penalty kicks.

I'm still confused why Carlsen quit. Clearly the FIDE WC Cycle favored him. Imo he is just strong enouph to outplay everyone in Blitz ... and the number of games in classical time controlls appear to be to short for anyone to figure out where his weakness are (in match play)

he quit chess cause it was not fun anymore, he said it himself, it became a memory game and all theory, back then you couldnt make so much money as today either, so it was a bit of a waste of time to be honest, same why Magnus quit the WC, it is meaningless, he makes more money now doing everything else, the WC title is meaningless and chess is pretty much dead these days, i see no reason why anyone would want to become a professional chess players these days, when dudes like gothamchess make millions not even being a good chess player

chess com is did you familie is did

is DID ha ha ha ha ha