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Friday, May 2, 2008

If you didn't know it before, you do now -

This information has been out for some time, the consensus being that the book purportedly written by Bobby Fischer in December, 2007 "My 61 Memorable Games" was a fraud. Here is the article by GM Larry Evans from the SunSentinel.com: Bobby Fischer book appears to be fake May 4, 2008 "No other chess figure has had, has or will have more autograph imitations than Bobby Fischer GUARANTEED!" — Fisching for Forgeries, by Lawrence Totaro Last December, a month before Bobby Fischer died in Iceland, an auction on eBay Canada announced a new revised edition of his classic My 60 Memorable Games called My 61 Memorable Games purportedly written by him. Bidding reached $3,050 for the first 50 copies when eBay pulled the plug: "We recently suspended this seller's trading privileges. Due to privacy concerns we cannot share further details." Fischer angrily denied writing it. Yet the seller denied any hoax and insisted the auction was withdrawn solely because of death threats received online from someone called "Jews Against Fischer." "So what should I do with all these books then?" said the seller. "Why not send them — if they exist — to Fischer in Iceland?" I replied. In extensive e-mails over the next three months the seller repeatedly promised to send me a copy of the new book but never did. I think it may exist on someone's computer but it has not yet appeared in print. Obviously a strong player using a computer did a lot of work updating the manuscript. But Fischer had nothing to do with it and the seller's story appears to be a fairy tale. The Canadian came up with excuse after excuse for not sending me a copy of the book. I played along to gather more information, then encountered one falsehood after another — too numerous to mention. In order to convince me the book exists, the scammer sent me a photo of the cover and page 79, naively asking who this Weinstein was that Bobby kept attacking (knowing full well that Weinstein was Kasparov before he changed his name). This sample page pointed out a flaw in analysis by Kasparov in his series My Great Predecessors (Volume 4). To mimic Bobby's sarcasm, the author was called "Weinstein" and then boasted: "I'll say this only once — Fischer beats Kasparov!" If the book does surface one of these days, we can rest assured it was NOT written or authorized by Fischer. For the full story, see Chess Life Online (http://tinyurl.com/2noyxp). Larry Evans is a five-time U.S. chess champion and nationally syndicated chess writer. Write to him at P.O. Box 1182, Reno, NV 89504.

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