Nigel said he answered immediately , which he said is why he believed it to be Fischer.

The American Chess Congress was the official sponsor of the BOBBY FISCHER INT’L CHESS PARK proposed to be built in Santa Monica to honor the only American to have won the World Chess Championship. Bobby had an impressive career and for many is considered the greatest in chess. He began to study chess at the age of six and became a voracious student of the game. Fischer won the United States Chess Championship at the age of fourteen and at fifteen became the youngest Grandmaster at that time. In two consecutive years, he won the United States Chess Championship with a perfect score and has held the title eight times. In 1972, he captured the World Chess Championship with a decisive lead. In 1975, the Soviets and the International Chess Federation [FIDE] claimed the title on forfeiture in what is still a controversial issue and thus began the FIDE World Chess Championship. In 1992, Fischer emerged to play a rematch for the real title and won in good fashion. He died in 2008. The chess tables at the foot of the pier in Santa Monica, California are known of internationally. It was the former site of the old Santa Monica Bay Chess Club. Bobby first played in Santa Monica during the Piatigorsky Cup [a strong international tournament] in 1966. When Fischer lived in Pasadena in the late eighties, he would delight many with his visits to the tables. For these reasons, the tables have been selected to honor a great American chess hero.

This game and game number 2 are the greatest miracles of brilliance in chess history. Thank you for covering this!

Yes, I believe it is Fischer

This does look like the 'legendary' Bobby Fischer... Ten years brooding about chess after becoming the unquestioned, and probably greatest, world champion we have ever had. Why? Well, I have only seen five of the eight games (today for the first time). And what a treat! How wonderful to have them. Great commentary! The reason I see Fischer's hand behind the pieces is this: The commentary has been oh so gobsmacked by all the king moves and the unusual openings. One only has to 'guess' that Bobby was after playing eight games In order to try out a new concept or theory about a new way to play chess-indeed that is what we see. Here 'new' means just that from Fischer, it has to be something totally unexpected if it is to be 'new'. And it most certainly is. Yet, it is not completely 'new'. What we see is play rooted in his earlier style. What we see is a kind of 'natural' development or progression. I only need to look at the positioning of the pawns-the pawn structure-to see 'the Bobby of Old'. Pawn placement is meticulous and strategic. Then, I have to wade into murky waters for me, but not for him, to understand the strengths the pawn structure creates for his side, and the weaknesses it exposes in his opponent's position. This is after all the chess master that wanted to place the pieces 'in random order' on the back row at the start of every game, in order to 'open up the board' to more stimulating play. That means he had reached an understanding of the chessboard, and the possible moves for the pieces, where the options were more or less all sewn up. So, the only way to understand those 'erratic' king moves, and locations, is as a resist of new pawn structures. Get the pawn placement right, and the King can go out and be as 'erratic' as you want. That is my hunch after looking at five games. We are not seeing 'erratic', we are seeing a new pawn structure. On first view, it is similar to the old one. But this time the pawns are held to the third rank. Or at least closer to the first row. Occupying the fourth and fifth ranks is no longer a focus of opening strategy, Neither is castling in 10 moves. That frees up a LOT of tempos!!

"Yo Nigel, I heard you lost to some random on internet and he use ridiculous opening too" Nigel : my mouse is not good I swear, I mean he is not random, he is fischer I swear

Crazy opening , Very strong endgame . Those are two of Fischers signatures . The third signature is that he won 8 nil . I am ok with this being Fischer .

Truly wonderful to see these games again…thank you!

Bobby Fischer is saying that there is no center, opening, half game, final and that the roque is foolish.

A Greek grandmaster told short that Fischer did play often online chess so please the boss destroyed Nigel short. It was indeed Fischer

It is Fisher it is not first time he opened game with KING only Fisher could do something so brave. He was genius if i try to do that i will lose i guess.

I think it was Fisher. The question was much more vague than you mentioned. Short merely asked him if he knew the player, and he instantly replied with a date. Also, it makes sense. Fisher understood that in blitz, he would be in the most advantageous position by throwing a wrench in any memorization, and to instead to rely on creativity and adaptability. I believe Fisher was so good because he was adaptable, and that this aspect of him only grew in time. A technically poorer position in a blitz game is fine for Fisher so long as it throws off any prep from his opponent because Fisher will always perform well because he is genuinely talented beyond just memorization. As such, the unorthodox openings was actually a part of his winning strategy. If this hadn't been blitz, Fisher would probably play something more traditional starting out, only throwing a wrench in later on.

This was Fischer!!!!

A true legend.

It is easy to proof if this was an engine or not. 1. Find all the engines (if they are too many, get the best ones) that were available at the time of the games. 2. After the first couple of crazy moves that we know for sure can't be engine moves, play the positions against all those engines (using Nigel's moves) and see if there's an engine that matches those moves played by mystery guy. 3. Let the truth be known! P.S. Don't ask me to do it because I don't have the time but most importantly I don't need this to know that Fischer was a genius!

I love your speaking voice. Very entertaining.

There's another scenario here. An orchestrated game. It's like composing a piece of music, and then publicizing it as a mystery. 2 players map out this kind of brilliancy, and then play it out online. I like to believe this is the legend, mr. fischer, so I'll stick with that, though.

After seeing the 2nd move, i checked the upload dates because i thought this was an April fools video, lol

Steinitz said that the King was a strong piece. Fischer studied many of Steinitz' games.

The Lesson of Bobby is, you don't now how far u stay away from reality in all cases.

Does anyone have the original Short article about it? I could never find it (the original links found on forums and such leads to nothing)...

Engines don’t come up with moves like that. Not all the moves are perfect. If Nigel believed he played Fischer then who are we to say he wasn’t?

I am convinced this was Bobby Fischer. I'm not familiar with the models at this time, but would any model really do these crazy king walks given the moves Nigel Short made? It's hard to believe. It looks to me that there is some human creativity going on here, intended to confuse the opponent and make him think on his feet. This style of chess also matches Fischer's personality in his later life, eccentric and controversial.

Don’t think you can blitz using a computer. The guy who played on the other side must have been much better than Short at that time and there aren’t too many people who cud claim that.

if short was considered about the best or hot shot at the time it increases the odds it was Fischer. If he was not--then BF would not have been playing him on line. Also the unorthodox opening keep in mind that an online game BF could open up and try bizarre things especially near the end of his life and hating the memorization.

After white plays pawn to c3 , pawn to e4 check looks crushing ...

there are several way to even up a game with an inferior player and so have a more interesting game, you can give pieces a Knight, a Rook, even more if the difference is large, or you can give him time if you play with a clock, then there is the "walking King", which I had always seen in a milder form the opening of the giver is as white 1c3, 2Kce, 3Kd1 the other naturally is free to do whatever he likes, as you can see it is a big advantage. But this looks like bigger advantage.

What if the other person moved the pawn to e4 in the beginning? I personally would've done that

Without going into detail. This WAS Bobby Fischer. No surprise to me! How genius is his play? AlphaZero goes along with Bobby's so called outrageous ideas concerning chess!

The move Bc3 on 14-43 looks like not-human one.

Nigel is not playing a computer But a very strong human player Kf2 move is not a computer move and a very strong computer programs does not move their King to f2 it does not move that way . To me it has to be Fischer .Because Fischer did played in the internet in secret long time ago .That kinda very advance play only a very knowledgeable strong Grandmaster can play the exact game and play in this video .

Not sure if it was Fischer mocking Short with this play, if it is dam he really is one of the best of all time, if not the best. Though it might be an engine

Maybe Short was replaced by a rusty engine?

I play these crazy type openings all the time..... it's incredible how many people fall to them due to the fact that they have memorized so many of the regular openings.....

Only Fischer could do it.. If you know his motive to create Fischer Random game then you understand why the king move like that in the opening, which is to break out of chess traditional gameplay.

The true, Fischer took out to the grave. But I believe it's possible Fischer's moves. No matters, it's a very interesting game.

Nononono. The question Short asked was not eadily found on the web and the answer did come immediately. That was the thing. And in 2001-2003 there were no search engines and no chess engines like today. You sound like my young son who once asked why Churchill did not send an email to Hitler.

It is not difficult to see that indeed he was the legendary Boby Fischer. The face structure, nose mouth and eyes give it away. Just because he just got older, lost hair and grew beard doesn’t necessarily mean that he is not him!! On top of that, his game style was the smoking gun.

Fischer denied it was him. Short now says he was mistaken, and it was not Fischer. Academic researcjers have demonstrated that a particular engine will give these exact moves, as well as provide the answer to Nigel Short's question. Still, it was an interesting event.

I remember when this happened on ICC but during that time there was a cheat on a computer account doing the same strange king lift opening moves so I am highly skeptical, it is a nice thought tho.

As if after e5xf4 Fischer was going to eat that pawn with his king...

It’s not Fischer! He said it in one of his interviews. When the journalist asked him if the games against Nigel short are true. He replied saying “that’s a bunch of rubbish” you can even look it up

double bongcloud!

Black should have won the game in about 10 moves if he new how to play. on the fourth move instead of taking the pawn he should have pushed forward to E4 check the king has three options E3 G3 or back to F2 then bring out his other knight G6 depending on what square he goes to he will be mate in four or less by using his bishops or Queen backing up the knight after coming in with his king knight check no matter what square he goes to then the Bishop to C5 check if he blocks with pawn to D4 Pawn pass pawn D3 check

It was Fischer even it wasn't !

moral of the story, learn to fly

I thought this was proven to be a guy that made a few outrageous moves then proceeded to use an engine?

Здорово он над Шортом поиздевался...

Wow

I'm not Bobby Fischer.

Is this channel dead or alive?

These games are Short's fabrication, because all the moves are not the best moves. This is a cheap stunt.

I believe black was very Short on time!

Also Fischer wasn’t mad . He had opinions which were at odds with the mainstream flag waving US doctrine . Last time I looked human beings had a right to state free opinions.

Not Fisher. If it was him then he had surely lost his mind on playing logical chess. When Fisher played chess correctly, there was an unbelievable harmony about his playing. I have never seen a more beautiful player than Fisher. He had some unbelievable powers of concentration. There was no one that ever came close to him; not even in today's GM's, with his powers of concentration and skills. He was simply unbelievable!

Fischer opening f4 ? Very unusual . & after looking at the game ... not Fischer for sure , very far from his style .

Congbloud

Not Fischer.

Sometimes you win not because of you're the best but because of your opponent is weak!! If in case, it was played by Bobby Fischer; then all I can say is: he was playing with a bad player; just imagine if it was against better player like Carlsen, Kasprova, Anand or so, it would have easy loss for Bobby Fischer; I personally not very good chess player, but I have beaten so many who starts the game like this!!

Pinup

weak players :)

Good game. Annoying voice

short was a TERRIBLE play. JESUS GOD !

This game is BS and played by two novices there is no structure to the game and for someone to get a pawn to the seventh row with out protecting it and just giving it away is stupid not something a good player would do at all If someone started walking out with his king I would punish him but black just dilly dallying around with no idea of what to do pushing pawns is like playing drafts not chess the Knights and bishops should have cut him to peaces

cmon these were scam games, guy was using engine, virtually proved on reddit, was most ikely using blitz tiger software, even short admits it wasnt fischer anymore! How anyone fall for this ???? lololololol