Bobby Fischer is Dead
Former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer died yesterday in a Reykjavik. No word yet on his cause of death, but according to chessbase, he had been seriously ill for some time. He was 64.
Although Bobby Fischer became crazy later in life, it is sad to hear of his death. He was an amazing chess player and created some beautiful games of chess.
In memory, I am reposting an article I wrote about him in June:
Did you know that in 1958 Bobby Fischer became the US Chess Champion at age 14? He was only 14 years old and he was better than any other chess player in the US. Pretty impressive, wouldn’t you say?
That’s one of the amazing things about chess - in a test of intellect, a child can beat a man.
Even more amazing were his results in the 1971 Candidates matches - competing for a spot in the 1972 World Championship, which he eventually won.
In the candidate matches, the best players in the world compete to decide who will challenge the world champion. Fischer won his first match against Mark Taimanov with a perfect score of 6-0. This is an amazing score. Often, when the best chess players compete with each other, there are many draws. When both players are so good at the game, it is difficult to find an edge and leverage it to a win. Many grandmaster games end in draws. But Fischer completely dominated.
His next match was against Bent Larsen. The previous year Larsen had played first board ahead of Fischer for the Rest of the World team. But Fischer beat him 6-0! That’s 12-0 against the best chess players in the world! He then beat Petrosian 6.5-2.5 to play Spassky.
Another thing that made this time very exciting was that the chess world had been completely dominated by the Russians for decades (and still is). Since 1927, only two world champions had not been from the Soviet Union, and no player from the United States had claimed the title. Then in 1972, during the Cold War, Bobby Fischer rose to beat Spassky.
Fischer’s victory over the Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in the 1972 World Chess Championship not only sparked heightened international interest in chess, but was seen as a symbolic victory for the capitalist West. Particularly in the United States, Spassky was portrayed as the product of an impersonal, mechanical, and oppressive system of state control, while Fischer was depicted as a solitary genius who had heroically overcome the Soviets’ dominance.
What does this hero do now? Well, he has pretty much gone crazy and sometimes goes off on radio broadcasts about how much he hates Jews and the USA.
It’s kind of a depressing end to a very amazing story.
This video shows what he has now become (warning: it is very offensive and not safe for work!):
