Bobby Fischer (1943-2008)

Like myself, I think most young Americans who learned the game of chess came to revere and idolize Bobby Fischer. What wasn’t there to like about his Chess skills? Fischer started off as an astonishing prodigy whose accomplishments were never seen for someone so young. He later fulfilled his potential by taking on the Russians and becoming the first American World Champion in Chess. He played an open, attacking style of Chess characterized by ingenious tactical maneuvers. Bobby Fischer was to young chess players what Michael Jordan was to aspiring basketballers.

If you watch “Searching for Bobby Fischer”, you see his youthful brilliance on display with the various historical clips. There are multitudes of pictures of the young Fischer playing adults. There’s the video where the youngster walks around a room with ten chess boards and plays ten seated people simultaneously. At 13 years old, he became the youngest US Junior Chess champion. At 14, he became the youngest US Senior Chess champion. At 15, he was at the time, the youngest player to ever attain the Chess rating of Grandmaster. Fischer’s display of precociousness is amazing

Despite his life as a young prodigy, Bobby Fischer is probably best known for his adult exploits. In the early seventies, Bobby Fischer went on an electrifying run of 20 straight official match victories. This ultimately led him to the showdown in Iceland with Russia’s Boris Spassky for the World Chess Championship. There in Iceland, Fischer shocked the world by defeating the incumbent Spassky. He became the first American to earn the distinction of World Champion, breaking the dominance of Soviet champions that lasted a quarter century. His win resonated on multiple levels. Many saw Fischer’s triumph as a symbolic US victory over the Soviets during the cold war. Also due to the match’s media coverage, interest in the US for Chess exploded and peaked in the mid 1970s.

However, after his defining victory, Bobby Fischer’s career effectively ended. He forfeited his World Chess Title in 1975 after he refused to agree to a title defense. Fischer then became a recluse the world over. He only later emerged to play Spassky in a 1992 rematch held in Yugoslavia. It was this move that made him an exile from the US due to the match being a violation of the UN sanctions on Yugoslavia at that time. Ultimately in his twilight years, strange behavior such as Fischer’s extreme comments on Jewish people and on the 9/11 US attacks came to define his image. Many people came to question his sanity.

Despite his eccentricities and his extreme comments, I choose to remember Bobby Fischer for his great talent and skill. I see him as one of those rare human beings who achieved mastery in his favorite pastime. His talent and achievement stand mighty like the Colossus, inspiring those who come after him to match his brilliance and style.