Bobby Fischer

Chess Player

• Born: March 9, 1943
• Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
• Died: January 17, 2008
• Place of death: Reykjavik, Iceland

Sport: Chess

Early Life

Robert James Fischer was born to Gerard and Regina Fischer in Chicago on March 9, 1943. His father, a biophysicist, and his mother, fluent in six languages, divorced when Bobby was two and his sister Joan was seven. To support her family, Regina worked as an elementary school teacher and a registered nurse in California and Arizona, finally settling in Brooklyn, New York. While her mother was at work, Joan brought home games, including chess, to keep her six-year-old brother amused. Bobby figured out the chess moves from the enclosed directions, and he quickly outmatched his sister. With his mother’s help, in 1951, Bobby participated in a chess exhibition at the Grand Army Plaza Library and joined the Brooklyn Chess Club. The club’s president, Carmine Nigro, was an early mentor to Bobby.

The Road to Excellence

At the age of twelve Bobby competed in his first United States Junior Championship, finishing twentieth out of twenty-six competitors. He joined the Manhattan Chess Club, which became the springboard for his meteoric rise. He scored his first success in 1956, in Philadelphia, where he became the youngest player, at thirteen years old, to win the U.S. Junior Chess Championship. A few months later, he gained national recognition by playing the so-called “game of the century” at the 1956 Rosenwald Tournament against Donald Byrne, who had won the 1953 U.S. Open. Bobby’s winning moves, which involved sacrificing his queen and a rook in a mating attack, were praised as the most insightful ever created by a young player. He finished fourth in the U.S. Open. After a setback early in 1957, when he failed to qualify for the Manhattan Chess Club Championship, Bobby achieved an unparalleled series of victories. He repeated his previous success in the U.S. Junior Chess Championships and also won the U.S. Speed Chess Championships and the New Jersey State Open. His crowning achievement came at the end of 1957, when, playing in his first U.S. Chess Championship, he overtook international grand master Samuel Reshevsky to win first prize. At fourteen, Bobby had become the youngest American champion ever.

The Emerging Champion

After achieving national prominence, Bobby wanted to become the strongest player in the world. He realized that this would not be easy because no American had ever won the World Chess Championship, but he felt that he had the required winning spirit. His first international recognition came in 1958, when he placed fifth in the Interzonal Tournament against a field of strong competitors. As a result, he was named an international grand master, the youngest in the history of chess.

In 1959, he dropped out of school to devote himself completely to chess. His professional career met with both failures—he played unevenly in some South American tournaments—and successes—he placed third at a 1959 international tournament in Zurich, Switzerland. He also began to exhibit the eccentric behavior—complaining about match conditions and prize money and disappearing from public view—that characterized his later career. The opinions he expressed in interviews also generated controversy. For example, he claimed that such great world champions as Mikhail Botvinnik and Mikhail Tal were “Russian potzers” whom he would crush, and that female chess champions were much inferior to men. A month after this interview, Tal gave Bobby his comeuppance when he beat Bobby in the 1961 international chess tournament held in Bled, Yugoslavia (now in Slovenia).

Continuing the Story

In 1962, at the International Interzonal Tournament in Stockholm, Sweden, Bobby placed first in what Chess Life described as “the finest performance by an American in the history of chess.” However, he came in a disappointing fourth in the Candidates Tournament in Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles. Commentators attributed his poor showing to his waste of mental energy in trying to win drawn positions, but Bobby, in an article in Sports Illustrated, attributed his failure to cheating by the Soviets. He accused them of prearranging draws to guarantee that Soviet players would win against non-Soviet opponents.

During the middle and late 1960’s, Bobby had numerous disagreements with officials over rules, conditions, and prizes, which led to his refusal to play in several tournaments and his partial withdrawal from international chess. On the national scene, however, he continued to dominate the American championships, including an 11-0 triumph over all competitors in 1963-1964, the first time that had ever been done.

Bobby’s return to international competition in the early 1970’s was spectacular. In March, 1970, he played in the so-called “match of the century,” a contest between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now in Serbia). Although the Soviets won narrowly, 20 1/2-19 1/2, Bobby’s defeat of Tigran Petrosian was memorable. From December 2, 1970, to September 30, 1971, Bobby won twenty consecutive games by overpowering three top grand masters: Soviet Mark Taimanov, 6-0; Denmark’s Bent Larsen, 6-0; and Soviet Petrosian, 6 1/2-2 1/2. In this way, he qualified to become world champion in 1972.

Bobby’s complaints about location and prize money complicated his match for the world championship with Boris Spassky. Bobby did not show up in Reykjavik, Iceland, for the opening ceremony, and he agreed to participate only after a British financier doubled the prize money to $250,000. During the match, controversies about Bobby made it the most publicized chess event of all time. After losing the first two games, the second by forfeit, Bobby overwhelmed Spassky in the first half of the contest to build up a lead that his opponent was unable to overcome. Bobby eventually won 12 1/2 to 8 1/2, thus becoming the first world chess champion from the United States. He had become an American hero, albeit an eccentric one. He accepted the City of New York Gold Medal but refused the mayor’s offer of a ticker-tape parade, since he did not “believe in hero worship.”

Then, something strange happened. After appearing on television talk shows and receiving numerous offers for product endorsements, book contracts, and other commercial deals, Bobby abruptly abandoned the world stage. He could have become the first “chess millionaire,” but he decided to live out of the public eye in California. He never played in an officially sanctioned chess tournament again.

In 1975, when Bobby failed to agree to terms for a defense of his title against Anatoly Karpov, the International Chess Federation stripped him of his world championship. Karpov defended his title against Victor Korchnoi but eventually lost it to Garry Kasparov. Meanwhile, Bobby lived in seclusion, though his friends claimed that he followed what happened in the chess world. He lived frugally and was able to make money from telephone consultations and meetings with wealthy chess fanatics.

In September, 1992, Bobby emerged from seclusion to play a privately organized match against Boris Spassky in Montenegro and Yugoslavia. After this rematch, which Bobby won, he remained abroad. Because he violated an American law by participating in this match, the U.S. government considered him a fugitive from indictment; he faced arrest and a possible ten-year jail sentence if he returned to the United States. In 2003, his U.S. passport was revoked. He was later arrested at Narita International Airport in Japan for attempting to use the passport.

Bobby’s career and disappearances became a pivotal theme in the critically acclaimed film Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993). During the 1990’s the impression created by him in interviews and by reports in magazine articles was of a chess monomaniac who had become increasingly eccentric and possibly mentally unbalanced. For example, though he was half Jewish, Bobby asked that his name be deleted from the Encyclopedia Judaica. In a 1999 interview broadcast in the Philippines, he made some anti-Semitic remarks. Bobby also had strong words for the U.S. government following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He was eventually granted political asylum in Iceland. Though a number of promoters attempted to draw Bobby back into competitive chess, he never played publicly again. He died in exile in 2008.

Summary

Bobby Fischer had more books and articles written about him than any other player in the history of chess. His eccentric genius made him a tragic figure. His defenders point out that his accomplishments made him the greatest player in history. Because of his sharp and super-aggressive style of play, even his losses were interesting. Furthermore, his tournament demands were motivated not by money but by his desire to enhance the world’s recognition of chess. As a consequence of his actions chess did become popular, and its prize money comparable to other sports. On the other hand, his critics point out that his antics were adolescent and detrimental to the dignity of the game. Mathematical studies of chess masters have put Bobby third—not first—in the list of all-time greats, behind Kasparov and Karpov. Despite mixed opinion about Bobby’s place in the history of chess, the adventurous inventiveness of his games guaranteed that his legacy remained.

Bibliography

Böhm, Hans, and Kees Jongkind. Bobby Fischer: The Wandering King. London: Batsford, 2005.

Edmonds, David, and John Eidinow. Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time. New York: Ecco, 2004.

Gufeld, Eduard Efimovich. Bobby Fischer: From Chess Genius to Legend. Davenport, Iowa: Thinkers Press, 2002.

Krauthammer, Charles. “Did Chess Make Him Crazy?” Time 165, no. 18 (May 2, 2005): 96.

Schiller, Eric, and Bobby Fischer. Learn from Bobby Fischer’s Greatest Games. New York: Cardoza, 2004.

Soltis, Andy. Bobby Fischer Rediscovered. London: Batsford, 2003.