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According to this video (at 4:25), Bobby Fischer made 179 demands for a rematch for a World Championship, after he won the title. What were those 179 demands?

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If it was only about the 1975 match, It could have been a mistake by the video editor. As far as many sources from the web, there were only 3.

  1. Not counting the draws, first to win 10 games wins the Championship.
  2. If the result is 9-9, then the title goes to Fischer but the prize money is split equally.
  3. There will be an unlimited number of games.

The first one was accepted and the other two were rejected by FIDE delegates. Hence the match was forfeited and the champion title was given to Anatoly Karpov, his challenger.

As far as Fischer being concerned who was very demanding in character and liked to impose his own rules, the number 179 could have been total demands throughout his career.

Some other sources mention that he only asked for two rules. You can read the digital version of the newspaper article here: NYTimes

And there is one another source that mentions as per the video. It is the Independent article. I feel that the video editor got the directions from here. Because 179 demands seem very unlikely. If it were true, it is not a World Championship match but some sort of dictatorship.

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  • What is the significance of 9-9 ?
    – AKP2002
    May 19, 2020 at 7:13
  • 4
    @AKP2002: That is a pretty significant advantage to Fischer. That means that Fischer actually only needs to get 9 wins to win, while his opponent must get 10 wins without allowing Fischer more than 8.
    – Jean Hominal
    May 19, 2020 at 7:49
  • Thanks @Manoj Kumar. What are the most reliable sources that say there were 3 demands?
    – wwl
    May 19, 2020 at 12:54
  • @wwl You can read this article: en.chessbase.com/post/… You can also read one of the books: Russians versus Fischer by Dmitry Plisetsky & Co. or My Great Predecessors IV by Garry Kasparov which are compiled in Wikipedia as the sources.
    – m4n0
    May 19, 2020 at 13:27
  • The ChessBase post you linked talked about those demands, but doesn't say they were the only demands (perhaps they were the only major demands though). I'll look into the books you cite when I have access to them.
    – wwl
    May 19, 2020 at 14:01

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