Bobby Fischer Dead at 64
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-01-18-fischer-obit_N.htm







Ex-chess champion Bobby Fischer dead at 64
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — 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 in a Reykjavik hospital on Thursday, his spokesman, Gardar
Sverrisson, said Friday. Icelandic media reported that he died of kidney failure
after a long illness.

Born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Fischer was wanted 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.

Garry Kasparov, the former Russian chess champion, said Fischer's ascent in the
chess world in the 1960s and his promotion of chess worldwide was "a
revolutionary breakthrough" for the game. But Fischer's reputation as a genius
of chess was eclipsed, in the eyes of many, by his idiosyncrasies.

"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.

He 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.

Spassky said in a brief phone call from his home in France that he was "very
sorry" to hear of the death of his friend and rival.

An American chess champion at 14 and a grand master at 15, Fischer dethroned the
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.

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."

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 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 threatened with extradition to the United States. 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 in Chicago in March 9, 1943, Robert James Fischer was a child prodigy,
playing competitively from the age of 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 underway, 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.

Americans, gripped in their millions 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.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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