Yeah, I used to dress badly until I was about sixteen. But people just didn’t seem to have enough respect for me, you know And I didn’t like that, so I decided I’d have to show them they weren’t any better than me, you know?
This is not just my struggle, I’m not just doing this for myself… This is life and death for the world. These God-damn Jews have to be stopped. They’re a menace to the whole world.
Too many times, people don’t try their best. They don’t have the keen spirit; the winning spirit. And once you make it you’ve got to guard your reputation – every day go in like an unknown to prove yourself. That’s why I don’t clown around.
I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different.
In chess so much depends on opening theory, so the champions before the last century did not know as much as I do and other players do about opening theory.
I’m really not interested in that. I want to keep the old chess flavor. I want to keep the old chess game. But just making a change so the starting positions are mixed, so it’s not degenerated down to memorisation and prearrangement like it is today.
Americans like a winner. If you lose, you’re nothing. I’m going to win, though. It’s good for the match that Spassky has a plus score against me. We’ve met five times. He’s won three times and we’ve drawn twice. But I’m a stronger player and a long match favors me.
There was open collusion between the Russian players. They agreed ahead of time to draw the games they played against each other. Every time they drew they gave each other half a point.
