Greet the Knight Raiders: First official group meeting set for today

Greet the Knight Raiders: First official group meeting set for today
Posted: August 29, 2010 - 12:14am

Today, the Knight Raiders will have their first official get-together of the year. The event will take place at 5:30 p.m. at the Student Union Building (Mesa room) on the second floor. Chess fans are welcome to come by to meet and greet all members of our nationally ranked chess team.

The Fischer Legacy

One of the questions I am most often asked is about Bobby Fischer. Countless chess fans are interested to know what he was like on and off the board. In my opinion, he was arguably the greatest chess player in our time. Some of the accomplishments during his illustrious career may never be equaled.

The downside to Bobby is he often said some of the most outrageous, hurtful, and controversial things, especially during the latter years of his life. Even though I don’t agree with many of the things that Bobby said, and I told him so on a number of occasions, he had the right to say them. When we live in a society that offers freedom of speech, this is one of the consequences that we must accept. We cannot trample on one’s right to free speech. Everyone can choose to accept or disregard what he said.

However, Bobby was and will always be of the most recognized and colorful world champions in history. We should recognize and remember his genius at the chess board. I do.

He contributed many valuable ideas to chess, such as the Fischer clock and Fischer Random chess. I had the honor and pleasure to play many Fischer Random games with Bobby when he was living in Hungary. At one time, he even stayed at my family’s summer home. I truly enjoy playing Fischer Random chess and I even used to organize Fischer Random tournaments at my own chess club in New York.

As for off the board behavior, he was nice and respectful toward me. He was very “normal” in casual environment except when a certain “hot topics” came up.

Below is one of Bobby’s instructional games that I discussed in my DVD series which can be found at http://www.polgarchess.com/. In this game, he defeated the former Armenian world champion Tigran Petrosian, who in his prime one of the most solid and difficult players to defeat.

Here is the full article.