Bobby Fischer, arguably the greatest chess player ever and World Champion 1972-1975 has died in an Icelandic hospital.

Both in his life and at the chessboard Bobby Fischer rejected the obvious choices and defined himself in opposition to the norm. It was this characteristic, allied to his fierce intelligence and brutal logic, which made his behaviour reprehensible and his views unsavoury, but it may also have been that which raised him above his contempories.

Fisher like his American predecessor Paul Morphy, also the greatest of his time, was truly 'The Pride and Sorrow' of chess.

I remember when the famous tournament between Fischer and Spasky took place. I was then stationed with the US Army Europe in Germany. My fellow soldiers and I followed the games with great interest. They were printed in the military newspapers and we would get a chess set out, go through the moves, and marvel at the genius of Fischer's game.

There is a good book about that tournament called Bobby Fischer Goes to War by David Edmonds. Reading it brought back memories of those days, the Cold War, and all the cultural trappings of the early seventies.

Fischer, of course, was conquered by his own eccentricities but we mourn the loss of his genius.

dwl

Our paths must have come close to crossing David, I worked for Johnson Diversified Industries, a subsidiary of Johnson Wax and
frequently visited US military bases, Darmstadt, Ramstein, Frankfurt, and many others at that time.

I was a life-long Fischer aficionado and still possess much memorabilia including signed score sheets, books and programs, all of which were quite desirable even before he died as he had a marked reticence towards autographing anything.

I never met him , but I encountered Spassky on a number of occasions and had many discussions on the famous match as well as on the return match in Montenegro. Spassky became a very good friend to Fischer and was outspokenly supportive of him in his later travails.

[This message has been edited by Jim Hayes (edited January 18, 2008).]

Yes, a genius indeed. Such a shame about the politics though. I'm thinking of all the off-board antics with the Russians. Certainly it is because of Fischer that chess has become such a high profile "sport", spawning the musical, Chess, in particular.

Duncan

P.S. I pray weekly for Gary Kasparov. What a brave guy!

Probably so, Jim. I was in Schweinfurt from 1970-1973.

dwl

Bobby Fischer, everyone accepts, was crazy. As this article concedes that is the most charitable explanation for his repugnant behavior, however, at the chess board he was a player of principle and a creator of masterpieces of unerring truth and beauty.

It is for that latter he will be remembered, even in America, where he might, in time, even achieve forgiveness.
http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php...8gzxgHtrWfgdJ6

Can't quite get over what appears to me to be a neologism
in that article, Jim: "Chessically speaking".

Muse/Class/Chess
Music/Classic/Chessic (?)
Musical/Classical/Chessical (?)
Musically/Classically/Chessically (?)
(Testically speaking)

Duncan