Hello let me set the scene, In 2001 on the Internet Chess Club, Nigel short played me and thought he was playing Bobby Fischer. In his column in the Telegraph newspaper he declared he had indeed just played Bobby in his third coming after the World famous player, who won the chess match of the century against Boris Spassky, in 1972, came out of self imposed hiding(allegedly).
Now I was oblivious to this fact that it was actually me and not Bobby who Nigel had played I will set the scene now and it all makes (a weird) kind of sense.
I was an up and coming player in 1996, I had just come second to one John Toothill a 190 grade player from Cumbria in the Cumbria County Individuals and in 1995 I had come third in an under 175 grade tournament in Preston. My grade in 1996 was only 153 but it was going up fast. Then I moved to Manchester to do a Masters degree and my world fell apart. I ended up in hospital, and not for a broken foot.
So when I partly recovered and was finally let out of solitary confinement, I decided to join Kasparovs now defunct website online to get a bit of chess practice. On that I quite remarkable achieved a rating of 2350 quickly beating many grandmasters on the way.
I continued, with a lack of concentration, to struggle in my otb play and made a ton load of mistakes, also for some strange reason people seemed much stronger now.
Anyway it was online that I was proving myself a strong player and after the Kasparov website went defunct in the year 2000 I went to a site my fiancée had found it was called the internet chess club. I soon achieved incredible feats on there beating many grandmasters to a pulp.
Anyway I went in my fiancees front room where the computer usually was to play chess online one day and my fiancée had moved the computer into the small kitchen we had and said ‘I’ve arranged for a match for you it was a surprise’. I think in hindsight she had a camera in the kitchen for the event.
Apparently the match was with Nigel Short, who had a few years before in 1993 challenged the great Garry Kasparov for the world championship, as was at the time, Britains strongest ever player, almost at his peak.
When, early on in the match, I went to play the English opening, I mouse slipped and played 1 f3. Now I was unsure what to do and annoyed with myself and thought I was going to get destroyed on the board so I just marched my king all over the board, making popular the bongcloud opening as totally unknown to me, the games were going to be analyzed infinitum. People would analyze the opening played for hidden strategies in great depth but really I was just making it up after a mouse slip. After I won the game vs Nigel I started to get suspicious, how could a patzer like me beat the great Nigel Short, with 1 f3 and 2 Kf2? Unless he was letting me win.
Paranoia took hold, my illness from 1996 re occurred and I set about testing the king march openings to destruction. Rather incredibly I kept winning and won the Match something like 11-1. I was getting so paranoid asking why was he letting me win at this stage and finally I played the opening 1 f4 d5 2 f5 e5 3 g4?? Qh4#. I did so deliberately to prove he wasn’t letting me win.
After a few games the person who was using a handle(a handle is an assumed phrase on online sites) called Ural, who my fiancée said was Nigel’s incognito handle, he mentioned a name of what I then thought was his actual name(Armando Acevedo I think it was), later I was to discover it was actually the name of a Mexican opponent to Bobby at the Siegen Olympiad in 1970 but when I mentioned it was a Mexican name, my fiancée said ‘quick give me the keyboard I know that name’ and she wrote Siegen 1970. Unknown to me she had memorized Fischers opponnents it seemed. But I just thought the Mexican name was my opponent I was playing. Anyway my fiancée said he ‘thinks your bobby’, and when Nigel continued with the statement ‘Who is the greatest player you have played in blitz?’ I didn’t think it was Nigel but the words of my fiancée came to mind, that the person thought I was bobby and I had just read ‘the life and games of Tal’ in which it stated Bobby was most afraid of Tal in blitz, so I quipped back ‘if I am who you think I am I would say Tal’
Anyway my fiancée a few days later told me about Nigel Short had gone public but I was away with the fairies and convinced that I couldn’t beat Nigel Short 11-1 so it must have been that Mexican guy (Acevedo) not Nigel I played. I forgot about the whole incident.
I ended up in hospital in 2003 and didn’t come out until 2007. I found otb very difficult to concentrate on and did poorly, my rating going down to 93 at one stage that is about 1380 elo. Anyway I completely forgot about everything that had happened until in 2020 I was searching online for a Bobby Fischer video of any sort, and I came across a video of an event between Bobby Fischer and Nigel Short. Intrigued, I watched it and nearly fell off my chair when they said the handles used by bobby were guest71 and guest2563 both of which I remembered setting up.
At the time I set up the handles I was told I was going to be given ordinary guest accounts but I refused and stated I wanted meaningful handles so a compromise was suggested that I make them look like guest accounts which had guest and a number but the number I choose meant something to me, guest71 and guest2563 had a meaning to me which I knew and remembered setting them up and when in the video the same handles were mentioned I thought hey up THAT’S ME.
Every piece of incidental detail tallied but they stated in the video they thought the person used a computer engine. Indeed it had become an urban myth about Bobby playing Nigel completely unbeknown to me and the conclusion was it was a hoax. Many videos and articles had emerged on various theories, that I had used multiple engines, that I was the real Bobby Fischer, all were dismissed or promoted and I set about trying to put the record straight.
I didn’t use an engine the engines available were very wooden and unstrategical, at the time. Plus the three minute time frame was recognized as putting impossible limits on computer assistance at the time before such things as computer cheat plug ins were invented. Deep blue was available but at a cost of operation of 1 million pounds a second the cray computer used in it would have been very costly. No in 2001 I was in the groove online and playing sublime stuff.
I am ICC Fischer google the name
15 Dec '23 17:40
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