WHY is Bobby Fischer still respected in the chess community???

So we can all agree that bobby fischer was at least one of the top 5 greatest people to ever play the game right? right. 

But when we look at fischers life off the board, he goes beserk. He blamed jewish people for 9/11, and was an extremely outspoken anti-semite / anti-american. So why do we all still revere him as one of the smartest people to ever have lived? I mean, clearly, a man who believes such conspiracy theories about 9/11 and believes the holocaust was a lie can't be all that smart, right ?(not to mention that these things he said about jews and democracy and america were absolutely horrible.)

He still deserves respect, there's no question about that...

but..... why do we still respect him as much as we do? Shouldn't we all think a little less of him??

Just to clarify, this is in no way meant to be a forum about religion. This forum is purely meant to examine the legacy of Bobby Fischer.

  He is respected for his chess not for his madness. Personally what i dislike the most about Fischer is before he was champion he bragged about all the challenges he would take on once he became champion and then did not defend his title even once. I think what makes fischer so popular on this site is he is the only offical (i think morphy was too but it was not offical) american world champion and there are many americans (including me) on this site. It  should also be noted that he had a most impressive series of elimination tournaments which led to him becoming the challenger for the title.

Why should we think less of him? He was an amazing chess player. That was his profession. Look at his games instead of his words. And besides, he was never insane and what he believed wasn't completely out of question. People just labelled him insane because he didn't think like they did. I respect him as a chess player and as a person.

We all don't. Many of us respect his games but not his behavior away from the board. (BTW, I think you already know the answer and are just trolling.)

You recently said to some member here that they should "bomb his country, Asia's Trash can" so you are not the best 10 years old wanna-be-troll to talk about this subject

I respect his contributions to chess, not only his playing, but also his ideas as to how to make tournament chess better, and popularising Fischer clocks and scramble (960) chess.

One does get the impression that he was scared to lose his title. He should have been confident enough to beat Karpov whatever the tournament format. We will never know who would have prevailed.

Karpov played in other tournaments too during his time as champion. I do not see that Fischer played in any tournaments at all after 1972 until the 1992 rematch with Spassky.

He had a lot of "issues" before he became champion too, which led to him not competing in the candidates for either 1966 or 1969, when he may have been good enough to be champion.

 

Nietzsche is still respected amongst philosophers and he was completely nuts.

Being nuts was part of his appeal.

If he was a regular guy he'd be boring. 

Nuts?? Now Paul Morphy, there's an American chess champion that was certifiable!

I don't recall we do or we ever did.

A brilliant chess player, but outside of chess circles no-one today will have a clue who he was.

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So in other words you're a nutter. #thankyouverymuch

"JoEvJohn wrote: So we can all agree that bobby fischer was at least one of the top 5 greatest people to ever play the game right? right.

But when we look at fischers life off the board, he goes beserk. He blamed jewish people for 9/11, and was an extremely outspoken anti-semite / anti-american. So why do we all still revere him as one of the smartest people to ever have lived? I mean, clearly, a man who believes such conspiracy theories about 9/11 and believes the holocaust was a lie can't be all that smart, right ?(not to mention that these things he said about jews and democracy and america were absolutely horrible.)

He still deserves respect, there's no question about that...

but..... why do we still respect him as much as we do? Shouldn't we all think a little less of him??

We separate the person from the chess player.

Right. Wrong. It's just what we do.

In light of lebid's words, I have to reconsider the Holocaust event as possibly untrue myself. And I am certainly not anti-Jewish or pro-Nazi. Lots of political lies have been spread. Called propaganda. Who knows? This could have been one, too. I just don't know anymore.

Could you provide a source please? 

Who cares about what he did and said. I respect the way he played chess and his moves. As for what has been written above - this is a chess website not a history website. 

Wauw you are easy to persuade! A random person on the internet speaks with the same authority as thousands of respected historians like Ian Kershaw or Joachim Fest, who have deeply studied the matter?

You will go far in this world !

Take the word of a nobody on an internet forum against the facts gathered by the armies of Russia , the UK and the US who liberated the camps, the testomonies of those who survived and the testomonies of those (both German, Poles and Jews) who were forced to work there.

The 1940's were not some medieval age, it is relatively recent history. Ever heard of a thing called a Census ? It is quite easy to establish who was alive and at school/or working/paying taxes in 1940, and who was not around in 1945.

But LadiMisil, if it makes you feel better, then you believe that it didn't happen.