Bobby Fischer, the genius and enfant terrible of the chess world died on Thursday at the age of 64 in Reykjavik, Iceland. An eccentric recluse during the last half of his life, Fischer’s victory over Soviet Grandmaster Boris Spassky in 1972 made him the first (and only) American to have managed this feat. Fischer’s unprecedented and elegant victory spilled over from the cerebral world of chess into politics. It became a proxy in the cold war debate over the relative merits of democracy and communism. But in the end, it was a strange and sad life for a man whose emotional equilibrium did not quite match his mental prowess. A virulent anti-Semite, he died a bitter (and slightly unhinged) critic of the US, a country which had first lionized him in a global political game of one upmanship and then hunted him for defying the political restraints of a later day.
For a glimpse into Bobby Fischer’s life, his genius and his unorthodox world view see here and here. An excerpt:
There may be only three human activities in which miraculous accomplishment is possible before adulthood: mathematics, music and chess. These are abstract, almost invented realms, closed systems bounded by rules of custom or principle. Here, the child learns, is how elements combine and transform; here are the laws that govern their interactions; and here are the possibilities that emerge as you play with signs, symbols, sounds or pieces. Nothing else need be known or understood — at least at first. A child’s gifts in such realms can seem otherworldly, the achievements effortlessly magical. But as Bobby Fischer’s death on Thursday might remind us, even abstract gifts can exact a terrible price
In 1956 Mr. Fischer, at 13, displayed powers that were not only prodigious but also uncanny. A game he played against Donald Byrne, one of the top 10 players in the United States, became known as “the Game of the Century,” so packed was it with brilliance and daring (and Mr. Fischer’s sacrifice of a queen). “I just got good,” he explained — as indeed he did, winning 8 of the 10 United States Championship tournaments held after 1958 and then, of course, in 1972, breaking the long hold that Soviet chess had on the international championship.
“All I want to do, ever,” he said, “is play chess.” And many thought him the best player — ever. Garry Kasparov once said that he imagined Mr. Fischer as a kind of centaur, a human player mythologically combined with the very essence of chess itself.
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