Fischer had some well documented mental health issues which contributed greatly to his decline in the chess world. It was a sad ending for the man.

If I want to stop doing something first I have to convince my brain that it is harmful for me and I should be doing other stuffs that help me and then it become a lot easier. Other thing is motivation. Motivation of achieving your potential. When you get  that you will understand that there are things that stop it and that you must quit them.

Uhohspaghettio wrote on 08/15/12 at 05:01:35:


He didn't give up chess. He gave up tournament and match play. He was always interested in chess, but other things became more important in his mind, e.g. "exposing the Jews". 

Willempie wrote on 08/15/12 at 21:16:58:

It musty not be so drastic. Just marry a woman you are afraid of and who does not like chess 

Fischer had a miniature communicator installed as a filling in one of his teeth and wired directly to his brain through his upper jaw, all using black technology developed (unknown to Fischer) by the KGB.  The people who sold the young lad on this idea were KGB agents deeply embedded in the New York chess community.  The communicator was linked by high-frequency radio to a massive, multi-story tube-type computer outside of Irkutsk (but Fischer was led to believe that the device itself produced chess ideas).  There was a rivalry at the time, you see, between the KGB and the top Soviet chess hierarchy, and the former hoped to use Fischer to discredit the latter.

At any rate, the idea worked well at first and Fischer demolished everyone in sight, right up to Spassky.  But it was clear by Reykjavik that the device was beginning to suffer malfunction  (remember 29...Bxh2 in game 1?). It seems that budgetary considerations and small-mindedness among some Soviet administrators led to insufficient replacement of tubes in Irkutsk as they gradually burnt out. Stimulated by errant signals, Fischer's behavior become increasingly erratic.

After the match, having accomplished their purpose, the KGB successfully used the increasing unpredictable device to influence Fischer's thinking on the rematch, provoking unrealistic demands and eventually leading to the restoration of the crown to the Soviet Union.  With the major goals of the program accomplished, it was turned over to back-office elements for down-winding.  

Instead, KGB back-office moles working secretly for Israel went forward with an illicit plan of enlisting Fischer as a spokesman for Zionism . This went disastrously awry, as the by-now-almost-uncontrollable device had the reverse of the intended effect, turning Fischer into a raving anti-Semitic lunatic.  We cannot be sure, but it could be that 1 became -1 due to a single burnt-out tube somewhere in the massive, but by-now-neglected structure near Irkutsk.

Fischer finally realized what was happening and had the device chiseled out of his tooth.  It was too late, however.  The psychic damage had already been done.  The rest is history.

True story, beyond doubt.  Secret sources.

Footnote.  Botvinnik never knew that his state-sponsored chess programming experiments were the eventual basis of software developed by a crack team at Moscow University, coded up in FORTRAN IV on tens of thousands of cards, and fed into the Irkutsk computer.  They say the card reader took 17 days to load the program.

Vass wrote on 08/16/12 at 09:48:30:


I think I would have a better chance to win a million on the lottery... 

Btw, if you want to quit within a month, then you can add a couple of hours a day to seriously go thru for example Nunn's book on rook endgames from cover to cover.

You'd either attain GM-strength or get totally fed up with chess, the later is most likely the outcome.

If I seriously wanted to quit chess I'd probably start with a daily blitz match vs a top engine, ten games/losses a day for a month or two should do it...