Paul,Paul Bloom wrote: ↑Thu Apr 29, 2021 12:44 amwell We Have fisher timings on the clock I think that is more of an influence than any one opening and you could argue that the exchange variation of the Spanish was made really popular by fisher remember he thrashed Larsen who was 3rd best in the world 6.0 now that is a genius can you imagine Carlsen beating Liren Ding or Nepomniachtci by that kind of score no doubt in my mind that Fisher was a genius mad but a geniusMatthew Turner wrote: ↑Mon Apr 26, 2021 10:24 amWhy is Fischer more of a genius than Alekhine, Botvinnik or Karpov?
We have the Alekhine opening, you can play in the style of Botvinnik. Can I play the Fischer opening or play in the style of Fischer?
I think you make some excellent point there.
1. Fischer timings have certainly had a huge effect on chess and if Fischer was responsible for their introduction then that would be an enormous influence on the game. I genuinely don't know how important Fischer was in that process.
2. World Champions will play openings and that will popularise them. Did chess develop much as a result of Fischer playing the exchange Spanish (our understanding of the relative merits of the Bishop and Knight for example)?
3. Beating a top player in a match 6-0 is incredibly impressive and as I said before there really are no parallels to that. Could Carlsen, do that today - no, because the players have supercomputers. Could he beat Ding or Nepomniatchchi 6-0 in a match, if they didn't have computers, well yes. That is because it is win or go home, so if win game 1 with Black, suddenly an absolute shellacking becomes a very real possibility.
Most people would say that becoming World Chess Champion is an incredible intellectual achievement deserving of the epithet genius - fair enough. I am not sure how you elevate one World Champion over another.
You could make the same argument about Nobel prize winners.
Personally, I use the word genius very sparingly, so that people like Demis Hassabis or Amartya Sen really stand out.