News-Journal Mansfield, Ohio Sunday, December 07, 1980 - Page 63
The Philosopher's Stone of Chess
“…In excerpts appearing in the magazine, Canadian Chess Chat, from a book soon to be published in Moscow, Karpov describes Fischer as the chess player “who possessed a special secret, the philosopher's stone of chess.”
He takes issue with those Soviet observers (by no means all of them) whose attention “usually centered on Fischer's personality and his bizarre behavior.”
Acknowledging that Fischer's private life was his own affair, Karpov refuses to accept the view which sees Fischer as “limited.” “I would sooner call him an integral and purposeful character,” the world champion declares.
“For many years our press spoke of him as an ignoramus, a man who had only four years of schooling, in short an upstart, a whipping boy. But later when the ‘ignoramus’ started to beat our highly educated grandmasters among whom there were men with degrees, it was decided the whole thing did not look very nice and so they kept quiet about the four years of schooling.
“It could be the man very soon understood that not all the subjects taught at school would be necessary in life later on. So he switched to self education and studied only the subjects that would help him to achieve success in chess.”
