In Memoriam: Robert J. "Bobby" Fischer

Bobby Fischer died yesterday in Iceland. He was perhaps the greatest chess player ever to live. I began playing professional chess on Labor Day Weekend, September, 1965, a week after Bobby Fischer returned from his first 2 1/2 year absence from international chess, that he took to protest the Soviet way of throwing games to ensure that their top players always won major tournaments. On August 25, 1965, he began play in the Capablanca Memorial Invitational, held in Havana, Cuba. As always, controversy accompanied Fischer. Fischer demanded permission from the State Department to travel to Havana for the tournament. But Castro had only five years earlier nationalized all American interests in Cuba and refused to compensate the American corporations that owned them, and only three years earlier had loaded up with nuclear missiles that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The cold war with Cuba was in much deeper freeze than it was with the USSR. So, there was no way on earth that Bobby was going to get permission. In the end, he played from a New York City hotel, with moves being transmitted by teletype. Until the last five games or so out of 20, he was in the lead, then he faded - so far as Bobby could ever fade - and finished in a tie for 2nd - 4th, half a point out of first place. One of the games he lost was to Yuri Geller. Six years later in the World Championship playoffs, he would humiliate Geller by beating him six games in a row. Geller would never be the same after that.

His performance in the World Championship was beyond imagination. He crushed all opposition in the playoffs, trouncing former world champions as if they were patzers. Then he spotted Spassky two games with his protest over playing conditions, then went on to beat him as if Spassky had never been given those games.

Fischer would come up with theoretical novelties in opening positions or even endgames that dozens of Russian seconds to his opponents could not find. His individual research was unmatched by any committee of Grandmasters. He even astounded the chess world, when in speed play with Grandmasters, with each side allowed ten minutes for the whole game, he would still introduce new theory to various openings. No one else could ever do that.

I will not dwell on how his eccentricities marred his image and eventually his personality. His genius was unique. He instilled a love of the game in American children that was simply unprecedented, and that helped move American players after him into the international limelight.

May he finally have peace.


Francis A. Miniter
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Relevant Pages

  • Fischer Obituary in Economist (excellent read)
    ... PEOPLE were always coming to get Bobby Fischer. ... They tried to disrupt his chess games, ... moving rook or a sidling bishop, or with both in his favourite Ruy ...
    (rec.games.chess.misc)
  • Re: RIP Bobby Fischer
    ... If Chris Benoit was a raving anti-Semite, he'd be Bobby Fischer. ... finish games as well as him. ... Yet, when forced to confront technicians and mat-wrestlers of chess, guys ...
    (rec.sport.pro-wrestling)
  • Re: RIP Bobby Fischer
    ... finish games as well as him. ... Fischer - the middle and start portions of the game were too easy - he ... Spassky wanted to get to the finish as fast ... Yet, when forced to confront technicians and mat-wrestlers of chess, guys ...
    (rec.sport.pro-wrestling)
  • OT: Chess legend Bobby Fischer dead at 64
    ... Chess legend Bobby Fischer, whose tortured genius earned him both worldwide acclaim and disdain, has died at the age of 64 at his home in Iceland. ... Einar Einarsson, the chairman of a Fischer support group in Iceland, said the cause of death was kidney failure. ...
    (sci.med.diseases.lyme)
  • Re: What you wont read in Chess Life
    ... Chess Life, ... Can you tell me again why Bobby Fischer ... until one player won 10 games (with the champion ... Instead FIDE ...
    (rec.games.chess.politics)
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