The Early Evolution of Fischerandom

Last week's post, 'Presenting the Fischeramdon' (sic; see the last link in the list below), was the first post in nearly two-and-a-half years to shed new light on the early evolution of chess960. I started to wonder: How many other posts had I done on the early years of chess960? To answer that question, I first turned to a post from 2013 that listed earlier posts focusing on Fischer's activities. For easy reference, that 2013 post is pictured below.

2013-03-09: Remembering Bobby

Using the same format, here are posts about Fischer's activities during the 1990s:-

• 2009-10-31: Fischer Announces Fischerandom (1996)
• 2009-11-01: Fischer's Rules of Fischerandom (1993, 1996)
• 2009-11-07: Fischerandom's Inauspicious Start (1996)
• 2009-11-08: The First Recorded Fischerandom Game? (1996)
• 2009-11-21: Who Is the 'Father of Chess960'? (1996)
• 2010-03-06: Pictures of a Fischer Random Precursor (1993)
• 2010-09-25: The Rampant Expansion of Theory (1992)
• 2011-01-02: Brady on Fischer Random (1992, 1993, 1995)
• 2012-02-18: An Aborted Announcement (1995)
• 2013-08-10: Foraging the 'News Groups' (1996)
• 2013-08-17: 'Reform Chess' (1993)
• 2015-02-21: Chessmaniac, Comments on Chess960 (1993)
• 2018-04-21: Early Chess960 in Hungary (1993)
• 2018-07-28: GM Hort and Chess960 (1993)
• 2021-02-21: Presenting the Fischeramdon (1996)

From this we see that Fischer's early activities were bunched into two time periods. The first period took place in 1992-1993, when Fischer developed the rules of his emerging invention. The second period took place in 1995-1996, when Fischer revealed his invention to the world.

What happened in 1994 and after 1996? Looking at Fischer's other activities in those periods might help answer those questions.

Presenting the Fischeramdon

Spotted on Twitter: Las revelaciones de Miguel Ángel Quinteros, el ajedrecista argentino que convivió 25 años con Bobby Fischer (infobae.com). Google translates the headline as 'The revelations of Miguel Ángel Quinteros, the Argentine chess player who lived with Bobby Fischer for 25 years'. What sort of 'revelations' are we talking about?

It was Quinteros who assisted him in 1971 to beat Petrosian; in 1972 he was in preparation and then assisted him in the World [Championship] in Iceland. He was also the one who accompanied him to most of the Open, to Las Vegas and three months to Taxco (Mexico) in 1982; to Paris in 1995 to draw up the Fischerandom contract that was launched with singular success on 16 June 1996 at the Pasaje Dardo Rocha in La Plata at the request of the then governor Eduardo Duhalde.

I don't understand the references to the Open, Las Vegas and Taxco, so I'll leave that to the Fischer experts. I do understand the reference to June 1996, which I discussed years ago in Fischer Announces Fischerandom (October 2009). I don't understand the reference to Paris 1995, but I'll leave that for another time.

Even more important to the history of Fischer's invention, the article included a photo. It's reproduced below along with its translated caption.

'Fischer with Quinteros in La Plata, in 1996. He had come to present the Fischeramdon [sic], a chess variant where the pieces (except the pawns) could be placed in the opening in a random way to demand the creativity of the players.'

GM Quinteros has appeared briefly on this blog before, the last time in the post Fischer and 'Wild Variant 22' (December 2013). That post is currently no.1 on 'Popular Posts (All time)' at the bottom of every page on this blog and often appears at the top of every page in 'Popular Posts (Last 7 Days)'. At some time in the past I discovered that it was not for its relevance to chess960, but rather for its discussion of the Fischer - Short ICC controversy in the early 2000s.

I never realized that GM Quinteros played a role in the early history of chess960/FRC. Perhaps that knowledge will lead to further historical discoveries.

***

Later: Re '[Quinteros] was also the one who accompanied [Fischer; ...] to Paris in 1995 to draw up the Fischerandom contract that was launched with singular success on 16 June 1996', I wrote, 'I don't understand the reference to Paris 1995'. I found three references in previous posts:-

• Brady on Fischer Random (January 2011) • 'While in Budapest, Fischer also made the acquaintance of Andrei [Andor, Andre] Lilienthal, who arranged a meeting with FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. [...] It's not clear from Brady's account when this meeting took place, but the February 1996 issue of Europe Echecs (p.22) gives a date of 15 December 1995.'
  
  
• An Aborted Announcement (February 2012) • 'From The Week in Chess 51, 1 October 1995: "Bobby Fischer to present new chess rules' By Roberto Alvarez"'; I asked, 'What happened to that 1995 announcement? [...] Whatever finally became of the November 1995 plans'
  
  
• Foraging the 'News Groups' (August 2013) • '1996-04-14: Bobby Fischer Announces New Rules of Chess [rgc]; April 1996 was after the first (tentative) formal mention by Fischer in November 1995, as I recorded in An Aborted Announcement, and the formal announcement in June 1996, Fischer Announces Fischerandom.'

I imagine that 'Paris in 1995' meant the meeting with Ilyumzhinov in December 1995. Fischer had one objective for the meeting: Fischerandom; Ilyumzhinov had another: getting Fischer to return to chess.