By GUDJON HELGASON, Associated Press Writer
12 minutes ago
REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Bobby Fischer, the reclusive chess genius who became a Cold War hero by dethroning the Soviet world champion in 1972 and later renounced his American citizenship, has died. He was 64.
Fisher died of kidney failure Thursday in a Reykjavik hospital after a long illness, his spokesman, Gardar Sverrisson, said Friday.
Born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Fischer faced criminal charges in the United States for playing a 1992 rematch against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia in defiance of international sanctions. In 2005, he moved to Iceland, a chess-mad nation and site of his greatest triumph.
As a champion, he used his eccentricities to unsettle opponents, but Fischer's reputation as a genius of chess was soon eclipsed, in the eyes of many, by his idiosyncrasies.
"Chess is war on a board," he once said. "The object is to crush the other man's mind."
Fischer vanished after the 1992 match and occasionally re-emerged to give interviews on a radio station in the Philippines. During one interview, Fischer praised the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying America should be "wiped out," and described Jews as "thieving, lying bastards."
Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion from Russia, said Fischer's ascent in the chess world in the 1960s and his promotion of chess worldwide was "a revolutionary breakthrough" for the game.
"The tragedy is that he left this world too early, and his extravagant life and scandalous statements did not contribute to the popularity of chess," Kasparov told The Associated Press.
Fischer lost his world title in 1975 after refusing to defend it against Anatoly Karpov. He dropped out of competitive chess and largely out of view, emerging occasionally to make erratic and often anti-Semitic comments, although his mother was Jewish.
Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of the World Chess Federation, called Fischer "a phenomenon and an epoch in chess history, and an intellectual giant I would rank next to Newton and Einstein."
Spassky, reached briefly at his home in France, said: "I am very sorry, but Bobby Fischer is dead. Goodbye."
An American chess champion at 14 and a grand master at 15, Fischer dethroned Spassky in 1972 in a series of games in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, to become the first officially recognized world champion born in the United States.
The match, at the height of the Cold War, took on mythic dimensions as a clash between the world's two superpowers.
Fischer played — and won — an exhibition rematch against Spassky on the Yugoslav resort island of Sveti Stefan, but the game was in violation of U.S. sanctions imposed to punish then-President Slobodan Milosevic.
In July 2004, Fischer was arrested at Japan's Narita airport for traveling on a revoked U.S. passport and was threatened with extradition to the United States to face charges of violating sanctions.
He spent nine months in custody before the dispute was resolved when Iceland granted him citizenship and he moved there with his longtime companion, the Japanese chess player Miyoko Watai. She survives him.
In his final years, Fischer railed against the chess establishment, alleging that the outcomes of many top-level chess matches were decided in advance.
Instead, he championed his concept of random chess, in which pieces are shuffled at the beginning of each match in a bid to reinvigorate the game.
"I don't play the old chess," he told reporters when he arrived in Iceland in 2005. "But obviously if I did, I would be the best."
Born March 9, 1943, Robert James Fischer was a child prodigy, playing competitively from age 8.
At 13, he became the youngest player to win the United States Junior Championship. At 14, he won the United States Open Championship for the first of eight times.
At 15, he gained the title of international grand master, the youngest person to hold the title.
Tall, charismatic and with striking looks, he was a chess star — but already gaining a reputation for volatile behavior.
He turned up late for tournaments, walked out of matches, refused to play unless the lighting suited him and was intolerant of photographers and cartoonists. He was convinced of his own superiority and called the Soviets "Commie cheats."
His behavior often unsettled opponents — to Fischer's advantage.
This was seen most famously in the showdown with Spassky in Reykjavik between July and September 1972. Having agreed to play Spassky in Yugoslavia, Fischer raised one objection after another to the arrangements and they wound up playing in Iceland.
When play got under way, days late, Fischer lost the first game with an elementary blunder after discovering that television cameras he had reluctantly accepted were not unseen and unheard, but right behind the players' chairs.
He boycotted the second game and the referee awarded the point to Spassky, putting the Russian ahead 2-0.
But then Spassky agreed to Fischer's demand that the games be played in a back room away from cameras. Fischer went on to beat Spassky, 12.5 points to 8.5 points in 21 games.
Millions of Americans, gripped by the contest, rejoiced in the victory over their Cold War adversary. In the recent book "White King and Red Queen," the British author Daniel Johnson said the match was "an abstract antagonism on an abstract battleground using abstract weapons ... yet their struggle embraced all human life."
"In Spassky's submission to his fate and Fischer's fierce exultant triumph, the Cold War's denouement was already foreshadowed."
The victory made Fischer the first U.S.-born world champion. Paul Morphy, an American, was regarded as the world's best player from 1858 to 1862, and William Steinetz, an Austrian immigrant to the United States, was an official champion from 1886 to 1894.
18th January 2008 11:45 AM
robpop
This man was crazier than Ernie Holmes. A man who blamed the Jews for the world's problems, who later in life found out he was a Jew himself.
18th January 2008 11:47 AM
gimmekeef
Check Mate......
18th January 2008 11:49 AM
Ten Thousand Motels
RIP Bobby. Eccentrics are Gods gift to humanity.
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels]
18th January 2008 11:51 AM
Gazza
I guess it'll be a long wait for his next move...
18th January 2008 11:56 AM
steel driving hammer
18th January 2008 12:10 PM
steel driving hammer
Think he's playing Chess w/ Jesus right now?
18th January 2008 12:15 PM
robpop
quote:steel driving hammer wrote:
Think he's playing Chess w/ Jesus right now?
No, Jesus being black, a Steeler fan, and the King of The Jews is talking football with Ernie now.
[Edited by robpop]
18th January 2008 12:16 PM
TampabayStone
"As a matter of fact, I am uncircumcised."
Best quote ever!!! LOL
18th January 2008 12:17 PM
robpop
quote:TampabayStone wrote:
"As a matter of fact, I am uncircumcised."
Best quote ever!!! LOL
That was fucking hilarious!!! I was waiting for someone to comment on that.
18th January 2008 12:50 PM
lotsajizz
dude was weird
18th January 2008 01:35 PM
Brainbell Jangler
I vividly remember Fischermania. It was the summer of '72, I'd just graduated high school and was living on my own for the first time, and the soundtrack for those heady days was the greatest rock'n'roll album ever made: Exile on Main Street.
18th January 2008 02:33 PM
robpop
quote:gimmekeef wrote:
Check Mate......
18th January 2008 05:00 PM
TampabayStone
quote:robpop wrote:
Maybe he was Jewish after all.
18th January 2008 06:09 PM
M.O.W.A.T.
quote:robpop wrote:
With a little bit of work, Bobby Fischer could have easily landed the role of Captain Spaulding in the Devil's Rejects!
18th January 2008 06:54 PM
TampabayStone
quote:M.O.W.A.T. wrote:
With a little bit of work, Bobby Fischer could have easily landed the role of Captain Spaulding in the Devil's Rejects!
Funny!!
Anyone see that ESPN thing with Jeremy Schapp? I know he's crazy, but damn...
18th January 2008 07:06 PM
fireontheplatter
rip mr fisher
i think chess is an awesome game. i don't play it often, but when i do, i find myself there chin in palm of hand going hmmmm hmmmmm...and then my partner saying, will you just make a move already.....
no, i'm thinking
18th January 2008 10:40 PM
Shoshanna
What an interesting man he was.
18th January 2008 11:06 PM
TampabayStone
Was he like..aryanism crazy or like....Jews are from another planet crazy?
Wonder what he thought about Black people or even the Dagos...
19th January 2008 01:50 PM
robpop
quote:TampabayStone wrote:
Maybe he was Jewish after all.
He was. His biological mother or father was Jewish.
19th January 2008 02:00 PM
sirmoonie
The guy couldn't handle society because he was too intelligent. He needed lots of alcohol. I've dropped at least 30 IQ points over the years, and I'm a much better adjusted person because of hardcore boozing. Hell, I woke up this morning and couldn't even remember where my socks were. That's the kind of de-cognitive breakthrough that only alcohol can bring to chronic sufferers of swollen mental capacity.
19th January 2008 02:01 PM
TampabayStone
quote:robpop wrote:
He was. His biological mother or father was Jewish.
Yeah, I saw that on the ESPN with that Schapp thing.. He's like a dick John Forbes Nash. Wish I had it on DVD.
19th January 2008 02:04 PM
TampabayStone
quote:sirmoonie wrote:
The guy couldn't handle society because he was too intelligent. He needed lots of alcohol. I've dropped at least 30 IQ points over the years, and I'm a much better adjusted person because of hardcore boozing. Hell, I woke up this morning and couldn't even remember where my socks were. That's the kind of de-cognitive breakthrough that only alcohol can bring to chronic sufferers of swollen mental capacity.
I have a buddy with the same theory.. And I don't have a problem with it.
19th January 2008 02:08 PM
robpop
I wonder if he got laid a lot, before he went nuts.
19th January 2008 03:04 PM
TampabayStone
quote:robpop wrote:
I wonder if he got laid a lot, before he went nuts.
Funny!! What he'd do on his down time?
19th January 2008 07:58 PM
robpop
quote:sirmoonie wrote:
The guy couldn't handle society because he was too intelligent. He needed lots of alcohol. I've dropped at least 30 IQ points over the years, and I'm a much better adjusted person because of hardcore boozing. Hell, I woke up this morning and couldn't even remember where my socks were. That's the kind of de-cognitive breakthrough that only alcohol can bring to chronic sufferers of swollen mental capacity.
Time to drop my IQ.
19th January 2008 08:07 PM
Highwire Rob
19th January 2008 08:08 PM
TampabayStone
quote:robpop wrote:
Time to drop my IQ.
Drink by drink..hot pocket by hot pocket.bong hit by bong hit.
19th January 2008 08:52 PM
glencar
rip bf
19th January 2008 09:48 PM
Brainbell Jangler
quote:TampabayStone wrote:
Drink by drink..hot pocket by hot pocket.bong hit by bong hit.
Trust me, the bhang (proper spelling)won't help. I've tried; God knows I've tried.
.JPG)
