Here is a very disturbing interview with Bobby Fischer about women in chess and women in general.
This interview was done 6 years before I was born. When Fischer met me and stayed at my family’s home in Hungary back around 1993, he no longer had the same view about women in chess.
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
This was a young Bobby and of course he did not have a match at Knight odds with the Russian Woman World Champion.
He better have changed his view or Zsuzsa would have given him a Shiginami Chop!
However, as of right now, Men dominate pretty much every sort of competition worldwide by a wide margin. I think Hou Yifan is a great talent and can bring women into the spotlight a bit more.
Fischer was a well known misogynist. I doubt that he had really changed his opinions in his later life, but simply hid them because society had made such attitudes unacceptable.
His comments are nothing more than that of the times. Probibly Fischers understanding and education of home life was based on Us programmes like ‘I love Lucy’, or ‘ I dream of genie’.
Let’s face it. There never was a worthy women chess champion either before or during Bobby’s heyday. Pre computer chess required a lot of dedication,imagination,memory and the ability to invent and calculate lines (without the help of Rybka).So Bobby was correct in his assessment at that time.
Fischer’s views of anything outside of chess are not worth of consideration. He was an unpleasant, disturbed person.
“Fischer was a well known misogynist. I doubt that he had really changed his opinions in his later life, but simply hid them because society had made such attitudes unacceptable.”
But he never managed to hide any of his other socially unacceptable opinions, which are well known.
Certainly, by getting to know the Polgar sisters, Fischer realized that he was proven wrong about his statements on women in chess.
Nothing strange about his views about chess & women. At that time, probably 100% of men, chess players or not would have said same thing.
Successful women chess players have proven this view wrong but there are still a lot of men that think the same with respect to the role of women in society and other “intellectual affairs”.
Nothing has changed still. Bar exception like a Judith Polgar chess IS dominated by men like most other things.
Sorry to disappoint the PC crowd, women ARE the weaker sex. Just look around. It’s not misogynism to say that. I don’t hate them because of that. They are very beautiful, many of them, in the physical sense.
He was just honest – no woman was even close to his level. Somehow men dominate almost all areas of life, science, politics etc. I wish it was different, but that’s just how it is!
Didn’t Fischer later deny that he said this?
It’s true. Even now. No strong women are at the top of the lists. Why? Because society claims it’s not right for women to play chess. Want to prove them wrong? Then women, any women, just get to the top.
so why there are not women in the top?
Fischer was the greatest chess player ever ….
He stayed at her house
look how much rubbed off
enough said
Fischer is putting the reporter on…..no one gets how fischer played everyone like a violin
all that mattered to him was chess …. everything else was meant to distract you
and as you see it still works
Supposely at the time of this interview – the Russian Woman World Champion after hearing of Fisher comments was very keen to play at match at knight odds with Fischer !
Fischer didnt reply to her in regards to the knight odds match, and no more knight odds comments from Fischer after this.
At least he said a knight, not s rook or queen but…
in a 3 or 5 minute game against him a rook would have been more accurate…..
im sure you and your sisters cured him of this foolish thinking. did you ladies beat him a couple of games?
“I don’t hate them because of that. They are very beautiful, many of them, in the physical sense.”
Just as you are still very much a dumbass, in the physical sense.
Well of course today Fischer view is ridiculous, any top woman today would beat him easily,but it is equally ridiculous that the top chessplayers with their gm titles loses to computers with pawn and move and this is being accepted by everyone as a matter of course,and a few years from now this will simply be exposed as complete and utter nonsense! Right Susan? hehe.
No strong women are at the top of the lists. Why? Because society claims it’s not right for women to play chess.It does? I’ve lived in society all my life and never once heard it say that. In fact, in my experience, it’s rare for society to pay any heed to chess at all, one way or the other.
His comments are nothing more than that of the times. Nah, they were wrong even then. Not even a world champion is going to beat a 2300 player at Knight odds, unless maybe in a very, very fast blitz game. And maybe if she were in handcuffs.
Fischer knew better. There’s a story in Russians vs. Fischer from 1959, when Fischer was asking Tal and some other Soviets about women players, saying he liked Lazarevich’s play, and the others didn’t know how to answer because they hadn’t had enough time to study the games of their own women players, and were amazed that Fischer did.
He knew what he was saying, it was an idle boast, of the kind that he made many of after failing to win the Curacao tournament. Other boasts he made at about the same time were that he could spot Botvinnik two points and beat him, and that his own games against Class players at the Western Open were better than all the GM vs. GM games at the 1st Piatigorsky Cup. He wasn’t just repeating what everyone thought, he was talking the smack.
I wish that match had been played. The defeat that he would certainly have suffered might have given him some needed perspective. It was Keres who said, completely correctly, that Fischer’s greatest failing was a lack of objectivity about his own achievements.
A world-champion caliber player giving a knight odds to a 2100 player would be about even. So Fischer exagurated.
Actually, that’s the kind of thing I’d encourage people to experiment with on their own. Odds Chess was very common and acceptable in the 19th century, but is almost totally unheard of today. With computers though, it’s easy to get a game. Play your Fritz and Rybka on top settings, and give yourself a Knight. If you lose, give yourself a Rook. If you win, give yourself Pawn and Move. Experiment until you get the right combination. I was able to beat Fritz at Knight odds, and I’m not nearly as good as Nona was in 1963, so I feel pretty confident that she would have won also.
1. You can see just from the interviewer’s reaction and questions (“Would you consider yourself a misogynist?”) that such views were not universal, even at the time. He maintains a professional facade, but he’s clearly well aware that Fischer is going off the deep end.
2. The Women’s World Chammpion at the time of the interview (1964) was Nona Gaprindashvili, who was rated about 2350. Larry Kaufman, who analyzed the rating value of material imbalances using databases and chess software, estimated that a knight is worth about 1000 rating points for players at or above IM strength. Fischer would have had to be 3300 strength to have an even shot againt her with knight odds. Or for another persective, look at Kasparov’s match with the English businessman Terence Chapman, a 2100 player. Kasparov gave odds of two pawns and only won 2.5-1.5. That’s a much smaller handicap against a much weaker player and it still wasn’t a blowout. In short, Gaprindashvili would have crushed Fischer with those odds.
Dick Cavett: “Is it hard to find a girl who can discuss Capablanca and how he handled the Sicilian Defense against Alekhine or… did I pronounce any of those names right?”
Bobby: “Yeah this is a problem.” *laughter*
Guest: “Do you think chess is a sexist game?”
Bobby: “uh, I don’t think it is at all. I’d welcome some girls in chess.”
Guest: “Have any tried to enter the competition?”
Bobby: “Well, there was Lisa Lane. By the way, I think you said she was dead? She’s around.”
Dick Cavett: “Oh, I’m… I certainly apologize to her… I thought she was back in the 19th century for some reason.”
Bobby: “No. She’s alive.”
Dick Cavett: “I’m sure that was news to her then.”
Guest: “What can they enter the competition?”
Bobby Fischer: “Yeah, there was one very famous one, Vera Menchik from Hungary and the best one now is Nona Gaprindashvili of the Soviet Union and she is a very good player and she, uh, plays with men now… she plays tournaments with men.”
Dick Cavett: “and there’s no discrimination against her?…”
Bobby Fischer: “No chess is wide open. We don’t have amateurs, we don’t have discrimination with women, anybody but kids, everybody is welcome… old people…”
I am having trouble finding a copy available in the US. I suspect that American antisemites, misogynists (white supremacist Trump supporters) are blocking Mr. Bobby Fischer’s more colourful or rather fascist points of view so that parents will continue to expose their children to this monster. The world doesn’t need Bobby Fischer’s instruction on anything. Study all of the Polgar materials instead of rubbing shoulders with this pre-Nazi. Any of the Polgar sisters would likely have steam rolled this guy in his prime.
If everyone thought like Fischer at the time, he would not have been asked if he was a misogynist. Stop apologizing for Robert Fischer. You wouldn’t do so for Adolph Hitler.