Q, This pattern sounds familiar. The article’s just before 911 👀. An anonymous chess master, playing an anonymous chess master. Appears to play erratically, but then dismantles their opponent. The assumption is that it’s Bobby Fischer, but it sounds like another MO to me.
“In October last year Short was again logged on to the ICC when a player approached Short using the code word. He said: "My heart jumped. Could this be Bobby Fischer?"
The mystery opponent asked Short to log off and back on as a unnamed guest rather than under his own identity. This meant that anyone else watching the game's progress on the internet would have no idea who was playing and that the game would not be recorded.
Short said the first three-minute game began with his opponent making some "totally absurd" opening moves, including shifting all his pawns forward one square, to severely weaken his position.
The British player thought he had been the victim of a practical joke. But from this poor position Short said there followed "moves of extraordinary power". In the first game he was "totally crushed".
Though his opponent's openings became increasingly "cocky" - in one he immediately exposed his king to attack - Short went on to lose eight games in a row.
In all, Short said he was to play the mystery opponent some 50 times and did not come close to winning half the games, though he still regarded as one of the best players in the world and is strong enough to have drawn a series of blitz games against Kasparov.
When the British grandmaster ran short of time, the opponent would add seconds to his clock so that he would not beat him just because he was out of time…
Governments have long used chess players. The British chess team was ordered back from a tournament in Argentina at the outbreak of the second world war so that they could work as code-breakers. Chess players were among the team which cracked the Enigma code. The Japanese confiscated chess books from prisoners of war, thinking they were military codes. Some probably were.
Chess is a surprisingly physical game. Kasparov has a team of trainers who keep his body as well as his mind at its peak. While preparing to take on Nigel Short in 1993 he had a training camp set up much like a boxer's on the Adriatic coast. During a 10-match game in 1990 Nigel Short shed about half a stone“
https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2001/sep/10/internetnews.internationalnews?__twitter_impression=true