Bobby Fischer dead, at 64, chess link

[Cletus]

I know chess may not be a sport to some but news came out yesterday about Bobby Fischer's death.

I remember all the chess matches on 6 and 7 blue EMR.

Here's what the Boston Herald says about the controversial chess player.

"Searching for Booby Fischer" was a good movie, I thought.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - 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.

Mr. Fischer died of kidney failure Thursday in a Reykjavik hospital after a lengthy illness, his spokesman, Gardar Sverrisson, said yesterday.

Born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, Mr. Fischer faced criminal charges 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.

As a champion, he used his eccentricities to unsettle opponents, but Mr. Fischer’s reputation as a genius of chess was soon eclipsed, in the eyes of many, by his idiosyncrasies.

“Chess is war on a board,” he once said. “The object is to crush the other man’s mind.”

Mr. Fischer vanished after the 1992 match and occasionally re-emerged to give interviews on a radio station in the Philippines. During one interview, Mr. Fischer praised the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying America should be “wiped out,” and described Jews as “thieving, lying bastards.”

Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion from Russia, said Mr. Fischer’s ascent in the chess world in the 1960s and his promotion of chess worldwide was “a revolutionary breakthrough” for the game.

“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.

Mr. Fischer 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.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of the World Chess Federation, called Mr. Fischer “a phenomenon and an epoch in chess history, and an intellectual giant I would rank next to Newton and Einstein.”

Spassky, reached briefly at his home in France, said: “I am very sorry, but Bobby Fischer is dead. Goodbye.”

[tmh8286]

Spassky, reached briefly at his home in France, said: “I am very sorry, but Bobby Fischer is dead. Goodbye.”

An interesting parting thought.

[ORUTerry]

Bobby Fischer was a brilliant but conflicted person....

[ashVID]

"Searching for Booby Fischer" was a good movie, I thought.

Sorry Cletus, my wife wont let me watch that stuff, however, the concept of a busty chess player would make a great VH1 reality show.

ash  =o)

[Dr. Cornelius]

Fischer's life truly was sad. His fierce anti-antisemitism seemed to be fueled by his own Jewish heritage... who knows what kind of bigotry he could have experienced or what he may have been trying to distance himself from subconsciously (never an excuse but still sad).