[tzs]

With Fischer his lopsided path to the championship should also be considered.

In the 1970 Interzonal to pick 6 players to go to the Candidates Tournament (along with Korchnoi and Petrosian), Fischer won with 15 W, 1 L, 7 D giving 18.5 points. The next 5 were 3 tied at 15 and 2 tied at 14.

You can change every one of Fischer's draws to a loss in that tournament and he'd still have tied for first.

Then in the Candidates, he played Taimanov, Larsen, and Petrosian.

He beat Taimanov with 6 W, 0 L, 0 D. (Taimanov, a Russian) got into considerable trouble over this. The Russian government did not believe it was possible for a player of his level to be so thoroughly beaten unless it was on purpose. They stopped paying him and banned him from foreign travel).

Then he beat Larsen with 6 W, 0 L, 0 D.

Then he beat Petrosian with 5 W, 1 L, 3 D.

[Someone]

> You can change every one of Fischer's draws to a loss in that tournament and he'd still have tied for first.

Nitpick: that’s incorrect. Reading https://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/7072$iix.htm, he drew with Hübner, so if you change that to a loss, Hübner would get half a point more, moving to 15½.