Was Bobby Fischer A Chess Prodigy?

I realize that for many readers, the very question in this article's title may sound absurd. GM Bobby Fischer has long been regarded as the epitome of a chess prodigy. With Fischer's own famous remark, "When I was eleven, I just got good," even asking if he was a prodigy sounds like blasphemy.

However, let’s set emotions aside and take a closer look at his games. Since I didn't find his tournament games played at the age of 11, let's take a look at his first major tournament, the US Junior Championship, which Fischer played when he was 12 years and three months (Fischer was born March 9, 1943, and the tournament took place in July 1955). A big connoisseur of chess history, Eugene Rozenfeld helped me to find a cross-table of the tournament in John Donaldson's book Bobby Fischer and his World.

Eugene also pointed out that it is a Harkness rating system, a precursor to the Elo system. So, Fischer's rating of 1830 would be approximately equal to US Chess 1730 today. Now, without further ado, let's take a look at Fischer's games. Here is his fourth round draw against an unrated opponent:

To be honest, this was the most shocking game of 12-year-old Fischer. The way he played the opening is very popular in scholastic tournaments, since that is how kids play chess for the first two or three years after learning the rules of the game.  A very primitive development without any strategic plans, which also allows a well-known "fork combo" 4...Nxe4!

As you probably know, Fischer started playing chess when he was six years old. "In March 1949, six-year-old Bobby and his sister Joan learned how to play chess using the instructions from a set bought at a candy store," according to Wikipedia. So, by the time Bobby played this game, he had been playing chess for six years already.

What was he doing during these six years? This is not some top-notch theoretical line, but rather a very basic variation known for hundreds of years and found in almost any beginner's book. To make things worse, after falling for the "fork combo," Fischer chose the worst possible way to react (5.Bxf7?), and by move nine, he already had a lost position. Luckily for Bobby, his unrated opponent missed all his numerous chances to score.

If you thought that was a bad game, let's take a look at his encounter from the very first round. After mutual opening mistakes, Fischer got a completely winning position. Can you find the best continuation for White?

Then Fischer made an outrageous positional mistake:

How can you trade a knight, who is ready to jump to d5 (after kicking Nf6 by g4-g5), for a totally useless bishop on b5, also opening a file against your own king in the process? While White is still winning even after this howler, a couple of more mistakes, and Fischer had to defend. When it rains, it pours, so Bobby blunders a rook and immediately resigns.

Even though Halloween is over already, let me show you another horror story. First of all both players missed a basic forced win for Black:

I cannot explain how 20-year-old expert Victor Pupols missed it. I have no doubt that even today, Northwest chess legend,  91-year-old "Uncle Vic," would have played it almost instantly. Trust me, I've seen his games played just last month. The guy is sharp as a tack!

Then, one move before his resignation, Fischer missed a perpetual check. Since I don't know the time control, it is possible that he was in time trouble.

Looking at these and some other games from that tournament, it looks like 12-year-old Fischer's US Chess rating of 1730 might be a bit generous. So, to be honest, I don't know what Fischer meant when he said, "When I was eleven, I just got good." If 12-year-old Bobby played the 10-year-old endgame connoisseur WIM Bodhana Sivanandan in a 10-game match, he would be very lucky to score two points. 

You might say that it is as unfair as comparing Paul Morphy to modern elite players. I absolutely agree with you. The problem is that if you compare 12-year-old Fischer to 11-year-old GM Samuel Reshevsky, who played some 30 years before Fischer, the result of their imaginary encounter wouldn't be in Bobby's favor either. Just look at the following game where 11-year-old Reshevsky, despite getting into a very difficult position in the middlegame, still managed to beat a former world title contender:

When you look at Fischer's life, you can’t help but feel that almost everything he said or did was unusual from the perspective of ordinary mortals. Just as I cannot explain what he accomplished in the first six years after learning the rules of chess, I am absolutely stunned by the incredible metamorphosis that took place over the following year and three months. A player who made primitive positional and tactical blunders and didn't know basic openings, suddenly played the Game of the Century, which any grandmaster, including world champions, would be proud to play:

Next year, Fischer was already a very strong master, who won the US Junior Championship (+8=1) and the US Open (+8=4). Also, he beat another prodigy, Rodolfo Cardoso (+6-1=2). We analyzed one of the games from the match in a previous article. 

I wish I knew the answer to the burning question: What exactly did Fischer do during that year after his disastrous performance in the US Junior Championship? How, in such a short period of time, can someone transform from an ordinary 1700-rated player into a very strong master, especially in an era with no chess engines or databases?

Yet one question can be answered. Was Fischer a chess prodigy? At twelve, absolutely not. By thirteen and a half? Definitely yes.