Maybe... but a few things make me tend to think it was Fischer. Apart from the fact Short believes it was (and a GM knows a lot about chess).John wrote:It wasn't Fischer. It was someone using a programme. Fischer denied it was him in a radio interview.
.. but, on the off-chance, of meeting the Loch Ness Monster of world chess, I agreed. The appointed hour for the challenge came... and went. I hung around for another hour or so, but there was no sign of Fischer, or anyone else for that matter.
I forgot about the incident until some months later.
Why would a fraudster wait a period of months before contacting Short ? Or make this request -
And thisBefore we started he suprised me by requesting me to log off, and then log on again as a guest.
."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".
Instantly. I reckon the it would take at least five seconds to answer this question from a database.
Short's summary:
Very interesting!Fischer is in my opinion, therefore, a much stronger speed chess player than Kasparov