Bobby Fischer body to be Exhumed

Everybody wants a piece of the pie...

I was surprised to hear that his estate had over $2M in it.  I thought he had pretty much blown all his money one way or another.

Just goes to show you that chess players are sometimes highly eccentric, can't deal with the real world well. Fischer, a genius on the board,  failed at life.  

I'm surprised he has a 2 million estate left over.  He made about 5 mil from that "illegal" match with Spassky in 1992, but that was a long time ago.  If the US government ever gets their hands on his estate to pay his back taxes, penalties, fines etc there won't be anything left.

As far having "failed at life", I would say that he succeeded financially and at his craft, but he was a failure as a human being: he was a narcissistic, hate-filled sociopath.

I agree with Dr. Strange Luft.   I wonder what drove him to his mental illness.  I do not think it was chess.   He was exceptional as a prodigy he continued to dominate after he was young.  Few prodigies actually succeed as adults.  Read some article about that in the NY Times. 

I agree that chess was not the cause of his mental illness, it merely gave him the fame that allowed the world to focus on it.  It reminds me of the movement years ago to ban games like Dungeons and Dragons because of behavioral problems of some of the children that played it. It was not the game that was to blame: it was played innocently enough by millions of normal people.  The game was just a stage for acting out their problems that were festering under the surface.

I don't know if I used the word "sociopath" correctly.  I merely meant that he was paranoid and not well adjusted socially, not that he was dangerous to others. We will probably never know what caused it.  Perhaps it was a chemical imbalance or traumatic childhood experiences. 

Fischer was not just eccentric, but turned into a serious bigot.  

Who knows?  He became increasingly disconnected from reality. I wonder if any biographer took a look at his mental health decline. 

Of course chess doesn't have magical powers to cause mental illness, mental illness is genetic, but where did you the idea that most prodigies don't succeed as adults? 

It's a comprehensive theory IMO. Some mental ilnesses like OCD are told to be caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. I personally don't agree, but many specialists say that. And there have been identifyed genes that can cause that. (Not sure where I read that). 

But I think that "Perhaps there is a tendancy to succumb to it that is genetic, but I would hardly say that mental illness itself is genetic!" is more spot on, but who knows? 

Ps: bobby's father is told to have the same kind of bizarre behaiviours as bobby did. Now that's some food for tought! I'm not sure where I read that too. 

It is. 

Since you're not sure where you read anything, I'm not sure I'm reading your posts. Maybe our Moms had "I'm not sure your the father" disease?

There's some fun sentence structure in the article. For example:

"The remains of chess genius Bobby Fischer, shown here in a 1962..."

Maybe we can combine this thread with others like:

"Do you believe in life after death?"

"BIggest what-if about Bobby."

It's a little more complex than genes --> mental disorder, although it can be that simple.  Think genes x environment --> mental disorder (or not mental disorder).  And you can think about environment in two ways here. (1) The ways in which society defines mental illness and (2) the specific things one is exposed to, both social and non-social.

Me too!  I'm also having trouble thinking about Bobby Fischer as baby maker! lol

     In this politically correct world of phony baloney Tiger Woods clones that
pretend to be Captain America's I like the fact that Bobby Fischer spoke his
mind(although I don't agree with everything he said).
     Just because a bunch of people at Chess.com say he was mentally ill doesn't make it so, as he was never diagnosed.
     The truth is he had a lot of friends(including the great Tal) and a lot of
beautiful women as dates and a great life until his later years but let's face it
who truly has a better life after 40 than from 21-40 anyway?
     He also took on the whole chess world by himself.  Let's show the guy some
respect as NO OTHER human being had the courage to do what he did.

I think a pretty universal defintion of "failed at life" would be something along the lines of never finding happiness or serenity.   I guess your idea of having NOT failed at life is having died with 2mil in the bank and being a miserable SOB (or perhaps just nuts).  I refer you to a once vibrant thread:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-players/fischer-mentally-disturbed-or-just-mean-spirited-jerk