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Bobby Fischer Online?
Posted by
michael
on Sun Sep 09, 2001 05:51 PM
from the on-the-net-no-one-knows-you're-a-grandmaster dept.
from the on-the-net-no-one-knows-you're-a-grandmaster dept.
talilee writes "This story from AP (but I found it at SFGate.com) suggests that Bobby Fischer is playing online chess anonymously against champion level players. I'm glad to see that he has an opportunity to express his genius without having to deal with the overwhelming attention (and without exposing his, um, "eccentricities".)" The BBC has a slightly more informative story.
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Bobby Fischer Online?
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Depressing in a way (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Depressing in a way (Score:5, Insightful)
Regarding the rumor that Bobby is playing chess online, I've heard it before and I think it has been going around for a while. Could be true, but really total speculation.
Re:Depressing in a way (Score:5, Funny)
"Rook to rook eight and here's a picture of a goat"
Or
"knight to queens-bish three and here's some ascii art of two people having sex"
And never let AC's play as white - "hah hah! First move!"
Re:Depressing in a way (Score:5, Insightful)
I know very little about Bobby Fischer so I'm speaking in general, not about him in particular.
Intellect can do a lot, but there are other skills that one needs to be successful, especially in the public eye. These are things like stage presence, speaking ability, charisma, style, bearing and common sense, which are only tangentially connected to intelligence. A smart person might be able to develop them faster than your average Joe. On the other hand intelligence might hinder their development, especially if that person is arrogant because of their intelligence.
To take a high profile example, by all accounts Al Gore is a pretty learned guy, but he still hasn't figured out what he wants his appearance to be, and the last election suggests that he has had only mediocre success connecting with the public. The stereotypical closed-in scientist (and I've known a few) can be far worse.
Bobby Fischer is, at least to my limited knowledge, something of a one trick wonder. He is exceptionally good at chess, but clearly doesn't want to be a public figure, and perhaps he wouldn't be very good at it?
The thing I wonder most about is what kind of a life is he living now? Chess isn't easy to make a profession of and it must be nearly impossible if you don't want people to know who you are. So does he program computers by day and trounce chess masters at night, or what?
My name is also Bobby and I'm pleased to hear that Mr. Fischer might be having some fun. For my part I've grown to realize the value of that other skill set, and I'm ever so slowly trying to cultivate it.
Re:Al Gore, an intellect by all accounts? I disagr (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, yes. My wife's adviser is a conservative southerner from Alabama. Most definitely not a Gore supporter.
You can be quite intelligent and now be an excellent orator. In fact you can be quite intelligent and not be very good at English. Don't put down Gore's intelligence. In fact, all the democrat presidents (and Gore) from the last half century stack up as wonderfully intelligent. However, most of them performed as president very poorly. Intelligence is not strongly correlated with the quality of one's presidency.
Re:Depressing in a way (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, the only reason he does not live in the U.S. is because he played in a chess tournament in Yugoslavia in 1992 after President Bush (the elder) said that any U.S. citizen would face criminal charges if they help the Yugoslavia economy, similar to the embargo on Cuba. The only reason Bobby Fischer was gone after was because of his high profile.
Deep Fritz (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
proof (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder though if he wouldn't post the move lists the for games. that would tell us something.
sean
I have the movelists (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.chlodwig.com/Fischer/Fi_Games_ICC.ht
This is no computer, NO computer would ever play a game like this.
Re:Maybe it WAS him! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Maybe it WAS him! (Score:5, Funny)
Sunday, September 9, 2001
Breaking News Sections
(09-09) 11:06 PDT LONDON (AP) --
A British Linux kernel hacker is convinced that Bill Gates, one of computing's most legendary and elusive figures, is programming again -- anonymously for little-used Linux drivers.
"I am 99 percent sure that I am getting driver submissions from the computing legend," Alan Cox told The Sunday Telegraph. "It's tremendously exciting."
Gates, an American, fascinated the world by winning an epic battle against a Californian, Steve Jobs, in the desktop PC market in 1982. Then he disappeared, only to re-emerge from the Death Star in 1992 for a controversial rematch against Netscape in the Browser Market.
Gates won, and then disappeared again after U.S. authorities accused him of violating sanctions imposed against monopolies by playing the match.
He has remained out of the public eye and his whereabouts are unknown, although the Telegraph said he is believed to be living in cyberspace a la The Lawn Mower Man or Tron. Cox said he does not know where Gates is.
Cox, who unsuccessfully challenged Linus Torvalds for world Linux core kernel functionality control in 1993 in the Klingon ritual of Mauk-to 'Vor, said rumors began circulating last year that the American champion was anonymously authoring Linux drivers in quick, three-line snippets of badly-written Visual Basic code on "alt.binaries.BSOD.screenshots". Cox said he was skeptical, even after his friend, Brazilian Kernel developer Rik Van Riel, claimed to have run a Bill Gates-authored Linux driver.
"I could not help but burst into laughter, much as I would have done had my friend claimed to have seen the Loch Ness monster," Cox wrote in an article for the Sunday newspaper.
A few weeks later, Cox said, he was approached by someone who identified himself as an intermediary for "a very strong Visual Basic programmer
"I thought that this 'intermediary' was almost certainly a fraud or a time-waster
When the prearranged time came, Cox was requested by the anonymous player to sign into "alt.binaries.BSOD.screenshots" anonymously instead of as himself. That way no one would know Cox was submitting, and his drivers would not be put under public scrutiny, as they normally are.
Cox ran eight three-line Linux drivers for little-used peripherals in VB. Cox's machine was crashed.
"I never confronted my submitter with the question, 'Am I using VB code authored by Bill Gates,' " Cox conceded. But during subsequent driver usage, Cox said he noticed comments in the VB code, and the comments all seemed like they could only come from one man.
"He was obviously very familiar in a gossipy way with the major figures in the desktop PC world of the 1980s -- Gate's period of greatest activity," wrote Cox. "He was polite, he was funny, and clearly a Taelon, to judge from his spelling and pattern of conversation."
Cox is convinced that the author of the 8" disk drive Linux driver was the legendary Gates, and he said that he will always treasure the drivers he ran.
"To me, they are what an undiscovered Milli Vanilli symphony would be to a music lover," Cox wrote.
"alt.binaries.BSOD.screenshots", based in Redmond, did not immediately respond to a post seeking comment on Cox's piece Sunday.
Interesting, hoax or not! (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's an American Fischer fan who learned all the "Fisher-related facts." The only evidence against that is just the quality of play.
Still--can we rule out it was a very powerful experimental chess computer or a very talented and reclusive chess star? Maybe Kramnik or Kasparov has an odd sense of humor and was making all the moves while his American buddy was doing all the typing.
Unless it's one of the current greats incognito, this story is interesting even if the opponent really isn't Fischer. It sounds like there's someone out there with an incredible chess talent!
Re:Interesting, hoax or not! (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably. Many people make the assumption that
the internet chess servers are filled with people who are using chess computers and
software to cheat. They are there, but
they are easy to spot. Very advanced players
can easily tell when they are playing against
a machine, and they can often tell you after
only a few games which one they are playing against. People who try to cheat with computers, are in for a shock when they find out how easily it is detected. Kasparov claimed that Deep Blue was "insightful", but, that machine wouldn't play like Fischer. It may be insightful, but if it has a genuine sense of humor, it might pass the Turing Test... I really don't think a chess computer is going to fool a grandmaster into believing it's Bobby Fischer.
>or a very talented and reclusive chess star?
This isn't the first unconfirmed Fischer sigting. I'd say it is far more likely that a very talented person is out there, than someone has a machine that can fool even a recreational player (let's say 1700 level) into believing he is playing against a human. Whether that person Fischer or not is something we have to decide for ourselves, depending on how romantic we are about the whole thing. Consider there is no evidence presented. Let's see a double blind study, by chess historians and players, and find out if anyone else comes to the same conclusion.
According to Mr. Short's story, that should be possible.
I haven't noticed a ref to the specific games, which had better be recorded or else this is a ufo sighting (without the fuzzy photos even).
I would find it unironic that the least of my lost-in-20-moves games is archived indefinitely on FICS, while Bobby Fischer is playing on some ICC server with no record of the games?!
I hope for the sake of Mr. Short's reputation and his sanity, that he has recorded the moves in these games by the anonymous, enigmatic, ephimeral Bobby Fischer.
One of my books covers all of Fischer's games from 1965 to 1972. In the preface, the author points out that "[Fischer's] carrer is still in its early stages..." Seems I need to add some more annotated games. I'd especially like to see the "odds-all-pawns-to-3" line.
I have often wondered whether Fischer's, a.k.a. Robert D. James' reclusiveness originates not from being a primadonna, but from fear of the
mindless bureaucracy of the US. During a time period when the FBI seemed to take special interest in celebrities, he publicly provoked the State Department by playing in Yugoslavia while US sanctions were in force, and even admitted publicly that he had not paid his income taxes, and wasn't going to.
He is rumored to have had a number of run-ins with the police, and claimed to have been subjected to police brutality in Los Angeles, but that story may also be a hoax. Still, he has a dark enough history with Uncle Sam that maybe it's understandable he would want to live in seclusion, almost certainly outside the United States, its territories, assigns, and protectorates.
As for the chess games he is said to be playing, I'm from Missouri, until the chess moves are shown to the community. If someone claimed to have found a lost Mozart piano concerto, it had damned well better stand up to peer review and the consensus process.
Regards,
James, who is lousy at chess (1300+)
Pawns shifted forward? (Score:5, Insightful)
Any chess experts want to comment on this unconventional play?
Re:Pawns shifted forward? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pawns shifted forward? (Score:5, Informative)
As you can see, he brings his king to the center of his board. Very wierd.
Re: Who is Bobby Fischer? (Score:5, Informative)
I find it hard to understand how someone who has been interested in chess for the length of time you claim to have been, can be ignorant of Bobby Fischer [bobbyfischer.net], one of the greatest players of all time.
Bobby was the youngest International Grandmaster ever. He won 8 US Chess Championships, and won basically every game he played between 1962 and 1972.
Unfortunately, he has become a reclusive paranoid schizophrenic who rants about how the Jews and Russians are out to get him (it should be noted that Bobby is half-Jewish).
By the way, in the future, perhaps you should try Google [google.com] for queries [google.com] like this.
Oh, come on (Score:3, Insightful)
As for this guy being a good chess player - good for him, it doesn't mean he's fischer. I'm sure there are people of world-class quality at chess who choose not to go pro for a variety of reasons - again, it doesn't make them bobby fischer.
Re:Oh, come on (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh, come on (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh, come on (Score:5, Funny)
Answer enough of these questions and you might not establish yourself to be Woz, but if you don't rule yourself out and show consistency both with your story and with the world as we know it, you COULD be Woz.
In this particular story there is another, unique dimension to it -- the chess play. If you study the styles of the past masters enough, you might be able to look at a game and get a good idea of which players might have played it. For instance, it's been many years but I believe Fischer was partial to the Sicilian Defense. If Short's opponent used the Sicilian, and in particular lines that Fischer was known to favor, that would be yet another indication that he was indeed playing Bobby Fischer.
The only credible alternative explanation I can come up with at the moment is that Short was playing a grandmaster-level player intimately familiar with Fischer's style -- someone perhaps like Larry Evans, who helped Fischer analyze positions during breaks in play. Few people would be able to pull something like that off, though.
Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're kidding right? This player beat Short a lot worse than Short has been beaten anyone in the world including Garry Kasparov. The likelihood that there is someone out there able to defeat the best players in the world who happens to be so good he plays up to 8 bad moves at the beginning of the game and still defeats them who has never revealed himself is so unlikely as to be absurd.Maybe you'd feel better if you saw exactly what Short had to say about the incident. [google.com]
Oh, now I understand (Score:4, Redundant)
0riginal Usenet Post (Score:5, Insightful)
ummmm (Score:3, Funny)
Aptitude vs. Intelligence vs. Effectiveness (Score:5, Interesting)
There's also an interesting analogy in sports. The strongest, fastest player does not necessarily lead to the best player. To be the best, you have to have some natural talent, i.e. aptitude.
Effectiveness, i.e. being really good at something, requires both intelligence and aptitude. Intelligence, of which I'm sure Fischer had his share, helps get you to a certain level, just as being fast and strong helps in sports, but to be truly great requires aptitude, which is altogether different.
By the same token, being really good at something like chess does not necessarily mean you're particularly intelligent. Maybe, but not necessarily.
A problem with the evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
I wanted to test my antagonist further so I thought of a number of tricky questions as we gossiped. For example, I asked him: "Do you know Armando Acevedo?" Senor Acevedo is an obscure Mexican player, not remotely of Grandmaster strength.
My opponent's reply came instantly, if cryptically: "Siegen 1970". Now if you look in the tournament book of the Siegen Chess Olympiad of 1970 you will find that Bobby Fischer played a certain Armando Acevedo in a preliminary round. He was obviously trying to tell me something.
Typing "Fischer Armando Acevedo" into Google turns up a reference to the 1970 Siegen match on the 3rd link. (The 2nd link is a consequence of Short's article.) It's in Spanish, but the exact phase "Siegen, 1970 appears explicity next to the first occurrance of "Fischer". See for yourself. [tripod.com] The point is that one need not have access to a thirty year old tournament book, as Short suggests, to quickly generate the reply that he received. Thus this particular piece of evidence is a lot weaker than it appears.
Congratulations to whoever did this (Score:3, Interesting)
Fischer vs. Kasparov? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone know if someone has done any analyses of how Fischer's ability compares to other Grandmasters? If this online Fischer can trounce Short in speed chess whereas Short can hold his own with Kasparov then does this necessarily mean that Fischer can trounce Kasparov?
Also why didn't Fischer play Kasparov back in 1992 and what is Fischer Random play?
Re:Fischer vs. Kasparov? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't believe this. Fischer never spent a long time playing grandmaster level play before he was the best. Its likely Fischer is able to maintain a high level of play without actually playing games. Only playing against himself.
Fischer lives inside the chess board. He remembers every move in every game by every player he ever saw or himself played in. Which makes him able of playing how many current computers play(from GM game database.) as well as applying his extensive theory on the game.
Fischer played Spassky in 1992 because it was a rematch of his classic cold war world championship match. The odds were decidedly in his favour because of spassky's age, the fact that he was always better then spassky to begin with, etc. Also there was a great deal of money offered for the match which its likely fischer needed because i can't see him flipping burgers or working any other job.
Just because one player can beat another doesn't neccessarily mean superiority to all players the other can beat. It depends on the style of play. But it is a very good indicator of the likely outcome.
Kasparov and fischer are both super aggressive. Fischer even more so.
Fischer Random is just that the pieces are placed somewhat randomly on the board as opposed to the usualy mirrored armies setup. This allows you to judge a players actual strategy as opposed to their opening book knowledge. Most beginners can't beat experienced players of equal chess skill just because the experienced player knows the many good beginning moves. Most GM level chess games actually start around move 12 or so because each player has played all moves up to that point from memory.
On being a recluse (Score:5, Insightful)
This is from Thomas Pynchon, when CNN tracked him down and filmed him--and maybe, sort of, in a way, "threatened" to show the film.
And this from a reporter who previously stalked him:
http://www.cnn.com/US/9706/05/pynchon/ [cnn.com]
Just because someone's not in the news, doesn't mean he or she is a shut-in. Of course, this may be different for Bobby Fischer, but it's a perspective we need to keep.
King movement (Score:3)
Justin Dubs
Hey, my specialty... (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need to be Johnny Cochran to know the difference between concrete and circumstantial evidence, and what we have above is a wheelbarrow full of the latter. Nigel Short, speaking in the Sunday Telegraph Review article that is also devoid of substantiation, says that he is "99 per cent sure" he has "been playing against the chess legend." This is based on four sets of games, none of which are given or commented on, other than to say that Short lost the first set 8-0. (The article also says Short went 6-6 in a blitz match with Kasparov in 1995. From the context of Short's actual words these were apparently casual games.) The Telegraph doesn't call the evidence circumstantial, it calls it "overwhelming." Johnny Cochran would be proud.
Short was also impressed by Mr. X replying "Siegen 1970" when the Englishman asked him if he knew Armando Acevedo. Well, I not only know of him, but I met the simpatico Mexican master in the flesh 10 years ago. But that's another story. Acevedo lost to Fischer in the 1970 Siegen Olympiad. That many a Fischer fan and anyone with a database would also know this seems to have been overlooked in this latest continuation of the rampant desire to believe Fischer is not only alive and well, but just biding his time before coming back to take his rightful crown at the age of 58. (It is not as if the person playing these games, Fischer or not, would be unaware of the intense speculation that has been ongoing in the chess community. Fischer was the only Grandmaster the Mexican faced, at least as far as his published games are concerned.) Who is qualified to ask Fischer a question that only Fischer would know? Not many people, and probably not Nigel Short. (Here's one for Bobby: Buenos Aires, 1996. What did you say Mickey Kantor was too busy doing to protect your rights? The rude comment the interpreter wouldn't translate, but you caught her and repeated it several times? But most people at that press conference would know this one...)
Personally I have no problem at all believing Fischer plays online anonymously. Despite the obvious decline in his mental health, he was still very animated by chess when I met him in 1996. I do not doubt that if he played into shape he would be a tough opponent for the top 10 today and more than a match for Armando Acevedo. But acting as though he would be an invincible demigod after 30 years of almost complete removal from competitive chess is silly. He played a few dozen games against Spassky in 1992 and the rare flashes of brilliance only glimmered brighter due to the thick layers of rust on his game. His knowledge and insight helped Peter Leko several years ago when the two would meet in Hungary, this we know. We cannot imagine a Fischer who has left chess behind.
As I said above, if you have good arguments you don't need junk. A master playing with strong computer assistance would have little trouble demolishing a top GM in blitz, we know this from experience. Even in rapid games humans make too many mistakes to compete successfully against CPU power on a consistent basis. I'm quite willing to believe that Bobby Fischer is "out there" and playing blitz online, but it will take published games, and more than just a few, to make this into anything more than a rumor.
Some serious comments (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, I have been competing in chess for most of my life, so I am a pretty decent player (not a GM or anything). Most of the comments here have clearly been by patzers. Here comes my take on the whole thing.
I played through the alleged Fisher-games against the IMs (unfortunately Short's games are nowhere to be found), I also read the full Google Groups article that someone posted.
The opening moves that "Fischer" used are not a "secret weapon" that he has been working on all these years. They are simply designed to give the opponent an advantage. They are also absurd enough to give quite the psychological advantage if your oponent does not exploit them. Psychology is important in chess. More than most players realize. If you get your ass kicked from some unknown guy who plays such an opening, you are going to be unsure of yourself and play much, much weaker than when you are on a streak. (see for example Kasparov vs Deep Blue)
A computers are notoriously good at shorter timelimits (programmers reading this ought to understand why throwing more time at an exponential problem leads to marginal increase in playing strength). This could very well be some bored IM or something, that is playing some weird moves in the opening and then uses the computer to defend super-humanly, confusing the opponent and finally winning simply because there are so much messy tactics on the board (which a computer will always like).
Fortunately there are good statistical tests, used for checking for people cheating with computers. These are based on the fact that most programs make the same moves in the same position. If Short were to show his games, they could be analyzed by the standard ICC-algorithm.
The knowledge that "Fischer" showed in the chat between the games could have been generated with fast google-searches, as has been previously stated.
However... The games against the IMs are pretty damn impressive. And 8-0 against Short?! A guy manually operating a computer would most likely be too slow to manage that. The improbable thing about this story is not that Fischer plays chess on the internet (why would he not?). The improbable thing is that he would still be that good. I know that he is an american legend, but is it humanly possible? Short gives it a 99% probability because his ego is involved, because he really wants it to be true and because he probably is not aware of how easy it is to use the internet to get information fast (such as the 1970-thing). I just don't know what to think. I think that my final verdict is that Short probably did play Fischer, but that the excitement and psychology of the strange openings made him play less well than he normally would. I cannot believe that Fischer would still be the best chess-player in the world.
Urban Legend. (Score:4, Insightful)
Note how he gives an excuse as to why he will not be able to acquire additional evidence in his original article [google.com] because Fischer will probably not play him anymore.
Several times in the article Short teases us with amazing evidence which he wishes he could share with us, but alas
I think Short is having a bit of fun with us, chess GMs can have a sense of humour you know.
Fischer Turning Test (Score:3, Interesting)
> question, "Am I playing Bobby
> Fischer?" I did ask him, however, who was the
> strongest blitz chess-player
> he had ever played. His response was, "If I am
> who you think I am, I would
> answer Mikhail Tal."
New definition of intelligence: can you convince Nigel Short you are Bobby Fischer.
Ken
Re:Rounders. (Score:5, Insightful)
From bbc :
Despite his misgivings, Short eventually arranged to play the unknown opponent, and in October last year lost the first of their four confrontations 8-0.
Now, my question is, how many people in the world can beat Short 8-0, and who can they be?