Background

Ethnicity: Fischer's mother was Jewish who had been born in Switzerland but raised in St. Louis who became a naturalized U.S. citizen. The actual identity of his father is unknown.

Bobby Fischer was born Robert James Fischer on March 9, 1943, in Chicago to Regina Wender Fischer. Fischer grew up in a single-parent family, his physicist father, Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, having left the family and the country after a 1945 divorce. The boy showed early promise in his chosen field when at age six he learned the rules of chess.

Education

Bobby continued to hone his skills as a youngster at the Brooklyn Chess Club and Manhattan Chess Club. Fischer had a strained relationship with his mother, who supported his chess endeavors, but preferred that he pursue other areas of interest.

He was spotted by Brooklyn Chess Club President, Carmine Nigro a chess expert and an instructor. Meeting with Nigro was the turning point in Fischer’s growth as a chess player.

In 1952, Bobby got a scholarship to Brooklyn Community Woodward. Later the boy attended Erasmus Hall High School at the same time as Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond. Not surprisingly, Fischer was at the head of his class in mathematics and science. Fischer quit school at the age of 16.

Career

Bobby became a National Master at the age of 12 and won America's Junior Chess Championship at the age of 13, making him the youngest Junior Champ in history. The 13-year-old Bobby defeated 26-year-old Donald Byrne, winner of America's chess championship, in a 1956 game heralded as "The Game of the Century." By this age, Fischer was showing gifts for improvisation and innovation that marked him as a chess genius.

As a 14-year-old on the cusp of his 15th birthday, he won the U.S. Chess Championship in 1958, giving him the title of International Master. Later that same year, he broke future opponent Boris Spassky's record to become the youngest World Chess Federation Grand Master; Bobby was 15, and Boris was 18 when he set the distinction. The two names would become linked forever in chess history. (When the two first played each other in 1960, Fischer lost during an Argentine tournament, though the two tied and were co-winners of the tourney. He would not beat Spassky until their famous world title match in Iceland in 1972.)

Bobby quit high school at the age of 16 to earn his daily bread by the sweat of his brow as a chess player. In a 1961 match against American champ Samuel Reshevsky, Bobby dropped out of the match claiming a scheduling dispute with the match organizer after tying Reshevsky in 11 games. Such eccentric behavior heralded his future.

By 1962, Fischer was considered the best non-Soviet chess player in the world. Bobby came to hate the Soviet players, who he claimed colluded with each other to him at a disadvantage. In 1966, Bobby placed second behind Boris Spassky in a super-tournament held in California. A year later, he withdrew from the tournament cycle that culminated in the World Championship, again over a scheduling dispute. The cycle ended in 1969 with Spassky crowned as the World Chess Champion.

In 1968, Fischer began an 18-month-long sabbatical from the game, which included sitting out the 1969 American Championship tournament as he was dissatisfied with the prize money and the tourney format. Failing to compete should have disqualified him from the 1969-72 Championship cycle, but he was able to compete for the world title when an American Grand Master surrendered his own spot for Fischer.

Starting with the 1970 USSR v. Rest of the World tournament in which he beat former World Champion Tigran Petrosian, the master who had been defeated by Spassky in 1969, Bobby began his march to the world championship. Through 1971, he had won 20 straight games in international tournament play, the second-longest win streak in the history of the game. Petrosian broke the streak but was in turn defeated by Fischer to win the right to challenge Spassky, a player he had never beaten, for the world title.

By 1972, he was in the position to make good his boast that he was the greatest chess player in the world. His difficult nature when it came to setting match and tournament conditions flared up again, and though he wanted to play in Yugoslavia, he accepted Spassky's suggestion of Iceland for the world title match. Negotiations were so prickly, President Richard Nixon's national security adviser, Henry Kissinger intervened, personally contacting Bobby to ensure that he did not drop out of the match, which was seen as a proxy battle in the ongoing Cold War between America and the Soviet Union.

Held in Reykjavik, Iceland from July through September 1972, the drama of the world championship boosted the image and popularity of chess to new heights. Bobby lost the first two games, the first on a bad end move and the second by forfeit when he refused to participate. Because of his eccentric demands, he came close to forfeiting the match, but Spassky agreed to his demand to play in a new room with no TV cameras, the presence of which had upset Fischer.

Fischer won the third game of the match, the first time he had beaten Boris Spassky in 12 years. For the rest of their play in 1972 and their 1992 rematch, Fischer never fell behind Spassky in terms of play or points. Spassky was baffled by Fischer's innovative moves, as he played new lines and combinations that Boris had never encountered before. Fischer won the match and became World Chess Champion by a score of 12.5 points to 8.5 on seven wins, one loss and 11 draws in 19 games.

His championship was heralded by the American media as a victory for the individualistic America over the collectivist U.S.S.R., whose players had dominated chess since the end of the Second World War. It was front-page news, and it made Bobby Fischer a celebrity. He reportedly turned down a $1-million offer to endorse a chess set brand as he faded from the public spotlight.

Fischer did not play competitively for the next three years, and in 1975, he forfeited his title by refusing to defend it when the World Chess Federation did not meet one or two of his many demands (estimated at between 64 and a hundred). The world title went to Anatoli Karpov by default, though Fischer continued to insisted he was the world chess champion.

Fischer did not play competitively until 1992 when he met Boris Spassky for a rematch on the resort island of Sveti Stefan in Montenegro, which was part of all that remained of Yugoslavia along with Serbia. The match was held in defiance of United Nations sanctions against Slobodan Miloseviæ's Serbia for war crimes.

Bobby beat Boris, winning $3.35 million in prize money (approximately $5.65 million in 2012 dollar, when factored for inflation), but because the United States intended to enforce the United Nations sanctions, he had violated American law and could have served up to 10 years in jail upon returning to America. A defiant Fischer went into exile instead, living in Hungary before moving to the Philippines and then Japan.

During a stop-over in Japan, Fischer was arrested for traveling with an invalid American passport. He promptly renounced his American citizenship. The arrest meant he could not leave Japan as he was a stateless person wanted by the United States. Facing potential extradition to the country of his birth, Iceland came through and granted him citizenship, which allowed him to leave Japan. The country was still grateful for the publicity he had brought to its then-unknown capital of Reykjavik. Thus, Fischer moved to Iceland, the place where he had became part of not only chess lore, but of world history

Achievements

• An eight-time United States chess champion, and the holder of several "world's youngest winner" titles, Fischer was a well-known name in chess circles long before his most famous match: the 1972 tournament that pitted him against Boris Spassky of Russia. That tournament played out before millions via television coverage, became less a contest between two gifted players and more a metaphor for Cold War politics.
  
  With his youthful good looks and unpredictable manner, Fischer helped turn a new generation of young people into chess enthusiasts." Chess clubs proliferated during the early seventies, inspired by Bobby's success and charisma," reported Waitzkin. "Mothers pulled their sons out of Little League and ferried them to chess lessons. Talented young players with dreams of Fischer, television immortality and big chess money spurned college and conventional career choices to turn professional."

Works

More photos

• book

  • Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess

    (A one-of-a-kind masterclass in chess from the greatest pl...)

    1966

Religion

Although Bobby Fischer was born Jewish, he renounced Judaism from an early age. Starting in the early '60s, he became a devotee of a religious sect known as the "Worldwide Church of God," one of the many Fundamentalist Christian televangelist programs emanating from Southern California. This particular group featured the preaching of Herbert W. and Garner Ted Armstrong and was riddled with biblical prophecy and, not surprisingly, apocalyptic predictions for the future. Fischer became such a convert that he gave $61,000 of his 1972 prize money to the church. But after many of Herbert's dire predictions never came to pass and Garner Ted was repeatedly caught in sexual transgressions that were against the Church's teachings, Fischer became disillusioned and stopped contributing money.

Views

Due to his anti-American and anti-Semitic statements, Bobby became a controversial figure in the final decades of his life. He, for example, asked the editors of Encyclopedia Judaica to remove his name from the publication because he was, and has never been, Jewish (1984) and denied the Holocaust in several interviews. On a radio show shortly after the 9/11 attacks, he proclaimed them "a wonderful news" (2001).

Fischer managed to follow not only men's competitions, he also studied games from women's tournaments, trying to find fresh ideas there, although in general he did not consider women to be the same opponents in the chess game and, in general, intellectually equal to men.

Quotations: "I'm not as soft or as generous a person as I would be if the world hadn't changed me."

"I don't keep any close friends. I don't keep any secrets. I don't need friends. I just tell everybody everything, that's all."

"Most people are sheep, and they need the support of others."

"I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all-around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing."

"The United States is evil. There's this axis of evil. What about the allies of evil – the United States, England, Japan, Australia? These are the evildoers."

"Kasparov is a gangster, he is a disgrace to chess, he is a disgrace to the human race. He is not something Russia should be proud of. He should join Khodorkovsky in prison. He has committed a terrible fraud with all these prearranged games and matches."

Personality

Reportedly possessed of a super-genius I.Q. of 180, Bobby had a remarkably retentive memory. A monomaniac when it came to chess, his memory combined with an uncanny knack for the game and a determination to win transformed him into the greatest chess player in the world.

But there was another side to Fischer's success. The young man, for all his brilliance, was considered something of a loose cannon, less than cooperative, and publicly scornful and egocentric. He would cancel out of matches unexpectedly, act demanding on tours, and maintain grudges that would last years. Fischer once accused Russian chess professionals of conspiring against him in international tournaments and at one point in the 1960s withdrew for five years from international competition.

In other areas of his life, Fischer demonstrated equally strong, if offbeat, convictions. For example, though his mother was Jewish, Fischer maintained decidedly anti-Semitic views, even extolling Nazism. Likewise, the chess champion believed that "everything was controlled by 'the hidden hand, the satanical secret world government,"' as Nack quoted a Fischer associate. He distrusted doctors, was sure the Russian government was out to kill him, and even, according to a Maclean's article, had his dental fillings replaced "because he feared that Soviet agents might be able to transmit damaging rays into his brain through the metal in his teeth."

Bobby developed a fear of flying because he feared Russian authorities might try to hide booby traps on planes.

Physical Characteristics: Bobby had a lifelong history of disputes, conflicts, and controversy. He believed he was the victim of conspiracies. Fischer showed symptoms of the mental illness paranoia, similar to Morphy. In Bobby Fischer: The Wandering King, authors Hans Böhm and Kees Jongkind write that Fischer's radio broadcasts show that he was "out of his mind ... a victim of his own mental illness."

Quotes from others about the person

• "Bobby is the most misunderstood, misquoted celebrity walking the face of the earth." - Yasser Seirawan
  
  "Bobby is a tragic personality... He is an honest and good-natured man. Absolutely not social. He is not adaptable to everybody’s standards of life. He has a very high sense of justice and is unwilling to compromise as well as with his own conscience as with surrounding people. He is a person who is doing almost everything against himself. I would not like to defend or justify Bobby Fischer. He is what he is. I am asking only for one thing. For mercy, charity. If for some reason it is impossible, I would like to ask you the following: Please correct the mistake of President François Mitterand in 1992. Bobby and myself committed the same crime. Put sanctions against me also. Arrest me. And put me in the same cell with Bobby Fischer. And give us a chess set." - Boris Spassky
  
  "Fischer’s beautiful chess and his immortal games will stand forever as a central pillar in the history of our game." - Garry Kasparov

Interests

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Friedrich Nietzsche

Connections

Miyoko Watai, a Japanese women's chess champion and general secretary of the Japanese Chess Federation, claimed that she had married Fischer in 2004, although the validity of their marriage was questioned. Another woman claimed that she had a daughter with Fischer. His body was exhumed to be DNA tested, and the claim of paternity was found to be false. In 2011, an Icelandic court ruled that Watai was Fischer's widow and the sole heir to his estate.

Mother:

Regina Wender Fischer

Sister:

Joan Fischer

opponent:

Boris Spassky

mentor:

Carmine Nigro

References

• Bobby Fischer and His World Donaldson examines Fischer's life and career from his days as a child prodigy through the height of his World Championship triumph and into his tumultuous final years.
  2020
• Bobby Fischer Against The World Fischer's evolution from isolated child to chess prodigy, global superstar, angry recluse and, finally, fugitive from the law, is a spellbinding story of the making and unmaking of an American icon.
  2011