Decoding The Bobby Fischer Myth
Back to TopNot very many figures in the history of chess have captured the world’s imagination quite like the way Bobby Fischer did. This blog will explore Fischer’s genius, his battles both inside and outside the chess arena, and the enduring (epic) legacy he left behind. Whether you’re a seasoned GM or are just simply intrigued by the drama of his story, Bobby Fischer’s journey offers a window into the mind of a man who truly transformed chess forever.
His victories were truly AMAZING, his demands eccentric, and his retreat from the public eye ever-so haunting. Fischer’s life seems like a cautionary tale: a man who conquered the board but struggled to conquer himself. In this edition of JETINATE’s Little Blog, we will confront not only the brilliance of his play but the darker questions of genius- its costs, its isolation, and its capacity to unravel the very person it elevates.
So, without further ado, let's begin learning about the man, the myth, the legend...
...Bobby Fischer.
Table Of Contents
Robert James Fischer, better known as Bobby Fischer, was born on March 9, 1943, in Chicago, Illinois at the Michael Reese Hospital. His mother’s name was Regina Wender Fischer. There is quite a lot of speculation about who is his father. Bobby Fischer’s offical father is Hans-Gerhardt, but strong evidence (the strong evidence is in the form of the 2002 investigative report by The Philadelphia Inquirer) suggests that his biological father is actually Paul Nemenyi, who was a Hungarian Mathematician and Physicist.
In March of 1949, a chess legend was born. 6-Year-Old Bobby Fischer and his sister, Joan, learnt how to play chess! They (funnily enough) learnt it from the instruction book of a chess set in which they bought from a candy store of all places (didn't even know candy stores sold that stuff). Joan lost interest in chess, and Regina didn't have any time to play. So, Fischer was left to play a lot of games against himself.
The family took a vacation to Patchogue, New York. In that trip, Fischer found a chess book full of old, classic chess immortals. Fischer studied it quite intensely.
In 1950, the family moved to Brooklyn, first to an apartment at the corner of Union Street and Franklin Avenue and then they moved again to an apartment with two bedrooms, 560 Lincoln Place. It was at 560 Lincoln Place when Regina “feared that since Fischer was so engrossed in chess that he might be spending too much time alone”. So, on November 14, 1950, Regina sent a postcard to the Brooklyn Eagle Newspaper, seeking to place an ad inquiring whether other children around Fischer’s age (at the time) would like to play against him. The paper (sadly) rejected her ad suggestion, the reason being that they didn’t know how to classify the ad. But, the paper forwarded her inquiry to Hermann Helms, who then guided her to meet Max Pavey, who was having a simultaneous exhibition (a match where a good player versus a lot of worse players all at once). On January 17, 1951, Fischer played in the exhibition, and even though he held on for a notable time of 15 minutes, and managed to draw a big crowd, he eventually lost to Max Pavey. One of the people watching this game was the president of the Brooklyn Chess Club and American Chess Expert, Carmine Nigro, found Fischer’s play so interesting and impressive for a boy of his age, that he introduced Fischer to the Brooklyn Chess Club and began teaching him. Later, when Fischer was an adult, he noted that “Mr. Nigro was possibly not the best player in the world, but he was a very good teacher. Meeting him was likely a decisive factor in my going ahead of chess”. Fischer had a strong relationship with Mr. Nigro until 1956, when Nigro moved.
Starting June 1956, Fischer started to go to the Hawthorne Chess Club, which was based in master John W. Collins's home. Collins taught chess to children, and has been described as Fischer's teacher many times before, but Collins himself suggested that he did not actually teach Fischer, and the relationship maybe can be more accurately described as one of mentorship.
Fischer played hundreds of blitz and offhand games with Collins and, studied the books in Collins's very large chess book library, and ate almost as many dinners at Collins's home as his own.
Fischer saw a "meteoric rise" in his playing ability during 1956. Fischer's first real tournament succession happened in July of 1956, in which he won the US Junior Chess Championship in Philadelphia. He scored 8½/10 to become the youngest-ever Junior Champion at age 13, a truly amazing result. At the 1956 U.S. Open Chess Championship in Oklahoma City, he scored 8½/12 to tie for 4th-8th places, with Arthur Bisguier winning. In the first Canadian Open Chess Championship at Montreal 1956, he scored 7/10 to tie for 8th-12th places, with Larry Evans winning. In November, Fischer competed in the 1956 Eastern States Open Championship in Washington, D.C., tying for second with William Lombardy, Nicolas Rossolimo, and Arthur Feuerstein, with Hans Berliner taking first place by a close lead of a half-point.
Fischer happily accepted an invite to play in the Third Lessing J. Rosenwald Trophy Tournament in New York City in October 1956, a premier tournament limited to the 12 players considered the best in the US. Playing against top opposition, the 13-year-old Fischer could only score 4½/11, tying for 8th-9th place. Despite that, he actually won the BRILLIANCY PRIZE for his game that he played against the experienced International Master Donald Byrne, in which Fischer sacrificed his queen to unleash an unstoppable attack. Hans Kmoch called it "The Game of the Century", and the game is still widely published and analyzed.
Based on Fischer's (amazing) rating and very strong results, the USCF (United States Chess Federation) invited him to play in the 1957/58 US Chess Championship. The tournament included Samuel Reshevsky, the defending US champion. It also consisted of other great players, such as Arthur Bisguier, and William Lombardy, who in August had actually won the World Junior Chess Championship. Bisguier thought that Fischer would "finish slightly over the center mark". Despite all the predictions to the contrary, Fischer scored (amazingly) eight wins and five draws to win the tournament by a one-point margin, with 10½/13. Still two months shy of his 15th birthday, Fischer became the YOUNGEST EVER US Champion. Since the championship that year was also the US Zonal Championship, Fischer's victory qualified him to participate in the 1958 Portoroz Interzonal, the next step to play in the ever-so prestigious in the WCC (World Chess Championship). It also earned him the title of IM (International Master).
At the Portoroz tournament, the top six finishers in the Interzonal would qualify for the Candidates Tournament. Most observers and fans heavily doubted that 15-year-old Fischer with almost no international experience could finish among the six qualifiers at the Interzonal, but Fischer told the famous journalist Miro Radoicic: "I can draw with the grandmasters, and there are half-a-dozen patzers in the tournament I reckon to beat" (dang, Fischer roasted them🤣). Despite some bumps in the road and a slightly problematic beginning, Fischer advanced in his plan: after a strong finish, he ended up with 12/20 to tie for 5th–6th. Yuri Averbakh said:
In the struggle at the board this youth, almost still a child, showed himself to be a full-fledged fighter, demonstrating amazing composure, precise calculation and (crazily) devilish resourcefulness. I was especially struck not even by his extensive opening knowledge, but his striving everywhere to seek new paths. In Fischer's play an enormous talent was noticeable, and in addition one sensed an enormous amount of work on the study of chess.
— Yuri Averbakh
David Bronstein said of Fischer's time in Portoroz: "It was very interesting for me to watch Fischer, but for a long time I couldn't understand why this 15-Year-Old boy played chess so well." Fischer became the youngest person ever to qualify for the Candidates Tournament and the youngest EVER grandmaster at the time, aged 15 years, 6 months, 1 day, a new record.
Before the Candidates' Tournament, Fischer won the 1958/59 US Championship (scoring an impressive 8½/11). He tied for third (with Borislav Ivkov) in Mar del Plata (scoring 10/14), just missing a half-point behind Ludek Pachman and Miguel Najdorf. He tied for 4th-6th at Santiago (scoring 7½/12) behind Ivkov, Pachman, and Herman Pilnik. At the Zürich International Tournament, which happened in spring 1959, Fischer finished a point behind the tactical legend and former World Champion Mikhail Tal and a half-point behind Svetozar Gligorić.
Although Fischer had stopped his proper education at age 16, dropping out of Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, he amazingly taught himself several foreign languages, including Russian, so he could read foreign chess periodicals. What dedication! I've been studying Spanish for four years and can't even say more than "Hi how are you". How is this guy so good at everything 😭. According to Alexander Koblencs, even himself and even MIkhail Tal just could not match the commitment and determination that Fischer had made to chess. Clearly, he meant to take his chess career to the next level.
Fischer convincingly won the 1962 Stockholm Interzonal by a 2½-point margin, going undefeated (!), with 17½/22. He was the first non-Soviet player to win an Interzonal since FIDE instituted the tournament in 1948 (impressive). Vasily Smyslov commented on Fischer:
I have discussed Fischer's play with Max Euwe and Gideon Stahlberg. All of us, experienced 'tournament old-timers', were surprised by Fischer's endgame expertise. When a young player is good at attacking or at combinations, this is understandable, but a faultless endgame technique at the age of 19 is something quite rare. I can remember just one other player who at that age was equally skillful at endgames.
— Vasily Smyslov
Fischer's nice win made him a heavy favorite for the Candidates Tournament in Curaçao. Yet, despite his result in the Interzonal, Fischer only finished fourth out of eight with 14/27 (which is still good!), far behind Tigran Petrosian (17½/27), Efim Geller, and Paul Keres (both 17/27). Tal fell very ill during the tournament and had to withdraw before completion. Fischer, a friend of Tal's, was the only contestant who visited him in the hospital.
In the 1963/64 US Championship, Fischer achieved his second (!) perfect score, this time being against some of the top-ranked chess players in the whole country! This result brought Fischer heaps and heaps fame, including a profile in the ever so-famous Life magazine. Life wasn't the only one, though. Fischer also caught the attention of Sports Illustrated, who diagrammed each of the 11 games in its article "The Amazing Victory Streak of Bobby Fischer". Such extensive chess coverage was new (and exciting!) for the top American sports magazines like Sports Illustrated. His 11-0 win in the 1963/64 Championship is the only perfect score in the history of the tournament to this day, and one of very few perfect scores in high-level chess tournaments ever. Fischer recalled: "Motivated by my very lopsided result (11–0!!!), Dr. Hans Kmoch congratulated Larry Evans (the runner up) on "winning" the tournament... and then he congratulated me on 'winning the exhibition'."
Fischer really wanted to play in the prestigious Capablanca Memorial Tournament in Havana in August and September 1965. Since the State Department actually refused to endorse Fischer's passport as valid for visiting Cuba, he proposed, and the tournament officials and players accepted, a unique arrangement that hadn't been done ever: Fischer played his moves from a room at the Marshall Chess Club, which were then transmitted by teleprinter to Cuba, showing the lengths he goes to play chess. All of Fischer's playing sessions went from eight to twelve hours, leading to some amount of fatigue in the later rounds. Despite the handicap, Fischer tied for second through fourth places, with 15/21, behind former world champion Vasily Smyslov, whom Fischer defeated in their individual game together. The tournament received extensive media coverage, in the form of television, magazines, and more, showing the high-level Fischer was playing (and thriving) in!
In December, Fischer won his seventh US Championship (in 1965), with the score of 8½/11, despite losing to Robert Byrne (the guy that Fischer beat for the "game of the century", remember?) and Reshevsky in the eighth and ninth rounds. Fischer also reconciled with Mrs. Piatigorsky, accepting an invitation to the very strong second Piatigorsky Cup (in 1966) tournament in Santa Monica. Fischer began [surprisingly!) disastrously and after eight rounds was tied for last with 3/8. He then staged a very strong comeback, scoring an impressive 7/8 in the next eight rounds. In the end, World Chess Championship finalist Boris Spassky edged him out by a half point, scoring 11½/18 to Fischer's 11/18, showing how close he was to winning, despite having such a bad start. Amazing!
Fischer played in the Sousse Interzonal in 1967 and in the 3rd round (against lhamsuren Myagmarsuren) Fischer produced one of the best chess games that he ever played:
What a great game! This game shows the true genius of Fischer's attacking skills.
In 1968, Fischer won some tournaments at Netanya, Israel, with impressive scores such as 11½/13, and some tournaments in Vinkovci, Croatia, with 11/13, with quite large margins. Fischer then stopped playing for the next 18 months, except for a cool win against Anthony Saidy in a 1969 New York Metropolitan League team match. That year, Fischer (assisted by Fischer's friend, Larry Evans,) released his second book of collected games: My 60 Memorable Games, published by Simon & Schuster. The book was well-received; it was praised for its copious and careful notes. The games annotated included some draws and losses.
In fact, the book was so popular and famous that in 2007, almost 40 years after it got published, an apparently updated version named "My 61 Memorable Games" appeared for sale on eBay. It had a new foreword supposedly written by Fischer, but his involvement was at best quite unclear, and eBay soon stepped in to end the auction for good.
Starting in 1970, Fischer began a new effort to become World Champion. His dramatic march toward the title made him a household name and made chess front-page news for a time.
Before we dive into 1970 and his efforts to rise to being the World Champion, he actually could have qualified through the 1969 Championship. Fischer, however, had sat out the US Championship, as he had sat out the 1968 championship. In his reply to the invitation, he complained that the tournament was too small and too short.
The reason I did not play last year and will not play this year is the same—the tournament is too short. I feel the tournament should be 22 rounds as it is in the Soviet Union, Hungary, Romania, and other East European countries where chess is taken seriously, rather than 11 rounds that the present U.S. Championship is.
— Fischer on how "short" the US Championships is.
Ed Edmondson, executive director of the US Chess Federation, tried to persuade Fischer to change his mind, but to no success. At the start of 1970 Fischer was (sadly) ineligible to play in the upcoming Palma de Mallorca Interzonal.
Before the Interzonal, in March and April 1970, the world's best players competed in the USSR vs. Rest of the World match in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, often referred to as "one of the greatest matches of all time". There was quite a lot of surprise when Fischer decided to participate.
Fischer flew to Belgrade expecting playing first board for the rest of the world. GM Bent Larsen, however, due to his recent tournament victories, really wanted to play first board instead of Fischer, even though Fischer had the higher Elo rating. To the surprise of everyone, Fischer actually agreed. The USSR team squeaked out a 20½–19½ victory, but Fischer scored a strong 3-1 against Petrosian, winning the first two games and drawing the last two.
Fischer eventually qualified for the 1971 Candidates Tournament. In the 1971 Candidates matches, Fischer was set to play against the Soviet grandmaster and concert pianist (wow, never knew he did that until now) Mark Taimanov in the quarter-finals. The match started in mid-May in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Fischer was generally favored to win among the public. Taimanov's preparation for the match included a notably detailed dossier on Fischer, prepared by Botvinnik when he was in talks to play a match with Fischer in early 1970. After Fischer crushed Taimanov in the second game of the match, Taimanov asked Fischer how he managed to come up with the very interesting move 12. N1c3, to which Fischer replied "that the idea was not his- he had come across it in the monograph by the Soviet master Alexandr Nikitin in a footnote". Taimanov said of this: "It is staggering that I, an expert on the Sicilian, should have missed this theoretically significant (and brilliant) idea by my compatriot, while Fischer had uncovered it in a book in a foreign language!" With the score at 4-0, in Fischer's favor (of course it was in Fischer's favor!), the fifth game adjournment was truly a sight to behold.
Upon losing the final game of the match (the final score was 6-0 to Fischer), Taimanov shrugged his shoulders, reportedly saying sadly to Fischer: "Well, I still have my music." As a result of his performance, Taimanov was thrown out of the USSR team and forbidden to travel for two years. He was banned from writing articles, was deprived of his monthly stipend... and the authorities prohibited him from performing on the concert platform. This match is commonly known as "the crushing loss virtually ended Taimanov's chess career."
Brutal💀🤣...
Fischer was next scheduled to play against Bent Larsen. Boris Spassky predicted a tight struggle. "Larsen is a little stronger in spirit." Said Spassky. Before the match, Botvinnik had told a Soviet television audience:
It is quite difficult to say how their match will end, but it is clear that such an easy victory as in Vancouver (against Taimanov) will not be given to Fischer. I think Larsen has unpleasant surprises in store for Fischer, all the more since having dealt with Taimanov thus, Fischer will want to do just the same to Larsen and this is impossible.
— Mikhail Botvinnik
Fischer beat (smashed) Larsen by the same (crazy) score of 6–0. Robert Byrne writes: "To a certain extent I could grasp the Taimanov match as a kind of curiosity—almost a freak, a strange chess occurrence that would never occur again. But now I am at a loss for anything whatever to say... So, it is out of the question for me to explain how Bobby, how anyone, could win six games in a row from such a genius of the game as Bent Larsen". Just a year before, Larsen had played first board for the Rest of the World team ahead of Fischer and had actually given Fischer his one and only loss at the Interzonal. GM Garry Kasparov later wrote that no player had ever shown a superiority over his rivals comparable to Fischer's "incredible" 12-0 score in the two matches.
On August 8, 1971, while trying to prepare for his last Candidates match with former world champion Tigran Petrosian, Fischer won the Manhattan Chess Club Rapid Tournament, scoring 21½/22 (unbeaten!) against a strong field.
Despite Fischer's (impressive) results against Taimanov and Larsen, his upcoming match against Petrosian seemed a bit of a daunting task. Nevertheless, the Soviet government was concerned about Fischer. Reporters asked Petrosian whether the match would last the full twelve games... 'It might be possible that I win it earlier', Petrosian replied, and then stated: "Fischer's [consecutive] wins do not impress me. He is a great chess player but no genius." Petrosian played a strong theoretical novelty in the first game, gaining the advantage, but Fischer eventually won the game after Petrosian brutally faltered. This gave Fischer a run of 20 consecutive wins against the world's top players (in the Interzonal and Candidates matches), a winning streak topped only by Steinitz's 25 straight wins in 1873 all the way through to 1882. Petrosian won the second game, finally breaking Fischer's legendary streak. After 3 consecutive draws, Fischer swept the next four games to win the match 6½–2½. Sports Illustrated ran an article on the match.
After the match finished, Petrosian spoke: "After the sixth game Fischer really did become a genius. I on the other hand, either had a breakdown or was tired, or something else happened, but the last three games were no longer chess." Some experts kept insisting that Petrosian was off form, and that he should have had a plus score at the end of the sixth game... to which Fischer replied: "People have been playing against me below strength for fifteen years." Fischer's match results befuddled Botvinnik: "It is hard to talk about Fischer's matches. Since the time that he has been playing them, miracles have begun- When Petrosian played like Petrosian, Fischer played like a very strong grandmaster, but when Petrosian began making mistakes, Fischer was transformed into a genius."
The 1972 World Chess Championship is widely acknowledged as one of, if the not the most controversial, brilliant, and amazing World Chess Championships of all time. Before we talk about the match, though, we should set the scene for it first.
The match was to take place in Reykjavik, Iceland. The match was played during the Cold War, albeit during a period of increasing détente. The Soviet Chess School had a 24-year monopoly on the world championship title, with Spassky the latest in an uninterrupted chain of Soviet world chess champions stretching back to the 1948 championship. The surrounding "American versus Russian" narrative within the Cold War context sparked much excitement throughout the world and an unprecedented increase in media coverage for any chess match.
For a while, the public thought that the match might not even be played! Shortly before the match, Fischer demanded that he and Spassky receive 30% of the box-office receipts, plus the agreed-upon prize fund of $125,000 (split five-eighths to the winner, three-eighths to the loser) and 30% of the proceeds from television and film rights. Fischer agreed to play after British investment banker Jim Slater doubled the prize fund.
Fischer didn't come to Iceland in time for the opening ceremony on July 1 required to determine the playing colors, however, and FIDE President Max Euwe postponed the match by two days. Spassky, who appeared at the opening ceremony, refused to draw the colors by himself and asked FIDE to subject Fischer to a penalty, Fischer's forfeit of the first game, and the Russian delegation insisted on an apology from both Fischer and the FIDE President. The FIDE President signed a document condemning the action of the Championship Challenger and admitting that the postponement "violated the FIDE rules" for "special reason". Fischer, on his part, wrote a letter of apology with his lawyer Paul Marshall. According to Marshall, in the first draft Fischer renounced his share of the prize money, but the draft wasn't publicly available, since it contained "things damaging to Bobby". In the letter, Fischer explained that his absence was caused by being "carried away by his petty dispute over money with Icelandic chess organizers", and asked for a favor to withdraw the forfeit penalty, saying it would put him at "tremendous handicap" and he "didn't believe that the world's champion desired such an advantage".
After Spassky received the letter of apology on July 6, the Russian head of the State Sports Committee, Sergei Pavlov, told Spassky that he had every right to not even play the match and return to Moscow. Spassky "politely and diplomatically" declined to follow the recommendation and said he would see the match through "despite Fischer's outrageous" conduct. The match was again postponed until July 11, now initiated by Spassky as a "face-saving measure" to convince Pavlov that the honor of the Soviet Union had been preserved. Fischer agreed, cementing his condition to drop Spassky's demand for a forfeit. Some commentators contended that Fischer was "playing a game of psychological warfare with Spassky, and his demands, his protest, his disappearance—all were calculated to unnerve the supposedly unflappable Russian."
Okay. Enough talk. Imagine this. A quiet hall that has the whole world waiting in eager anticipation. One board. Two men. One winner.
Playing as the white pieces for the first round, we have Boris Spassky.
Spassky is a kind gentleman, with monster chess skills. He's known for his versatile style of play.
Playing black, we have the talent. The man who won the Game Of The Century, the man who had a near-perfect Candidates Tournament.
The one, the only, Bobby Fischer.
The first game starts.
A devastating loss for Fischer. This game is very famous for Fischer's shocking blunder. However, Fischer, being the monster he is, in the 6th game he really turned things around, making one of the best games of his career.
Eventually, Fischer won the match 12½–8½, becoming the eleventh undisputed world champion.
Fischer was scheduled to defend his title in 1975 against Anatoly Karpov, who had emerged as his challenger. Fischer, who had actually played absolutely no competitive games since his World Championship match with Spassky, laid out a proposal for the match in September 1973, in consultation with FIDE official Fred Cramer. He made three principal (non-negotiable) demands:
1. The match continues until one player wins 10 games, draws not counting.
2. No limit to the total number of games played.
3. In case of a 9–9 score, the champion (Fischer) retains the title, and the prize fund is split equally.
Fischer argued that these demands were reasonable because otherwise a player who had taken the lead could trade some pieces and draw some games, coasting towards the title. This was arguably what had happened in the 1972 match (games 14-20 were all drawn, what a snoozefest...), but it was a style of chess that Fischer found offensive. Under the proposed 10-win format, one would still have to play for a win.
Many observers and fans said that Fischer's request for the 9-9 clause quite unfair since it would require the challenger to win by at least two games (10-8). Botvinnik called the 9-9 clause "unsporting". On the other hand, Korchnoi, David Bronstein, and Lev Alburt considered the 9-9 clause reasonable. Korchnoi in particular stated:
Was Fischer right in demanding that the world title be protected by a two point handicap – that the challenger would be considered the winner with a 10–8 score and that the champion would retain his title in the event of a 9–9 draw? Yes, this was quite natural: the champion deserves this, not to mention the fact that further play to the first win in the event of an even score would be nothing short of a lottery – the winner in that case could not claim to have won a convincing victory.
— Viktor Korchnoi
There was also the practical issue of hosting an unlimited match. If neither player could prove their superiority and there were an endless series of draws, the cost of the match would be astronomical.
A FIDE Congress was held in 1974 during the Nice (which is a city in France, I think) Olympiad. The delegates voted in favor of Fischer's 10-win proposal, but rejected his other two proposals, and limited the number of games in the match to 36. In response to FIDE's ruling, Fischer sent a cable to Euwe on June 27, 1974:
As I made clear in my telegram to the FIDE delegates, the match conditions I proposed were non-negotiable. Mr. Cramer informs me that the rules of the winner being the first player to win ten games, draws not counting, unlimited number of games and if nine wins to nine match is drawn with champion regaining title and prize fund split equally were rejected by the FIDE delegates. By so doing FIDE has decided against my participation in the 1975 World Chess Championship. Therefore, I resign my FIDE World Chess Championship title. Sincerely, Bobby Fischer.
— Bobby Fischer
If Karpov could and would have beaten Fischer is a matter of speculation. Lev Alburt felt that the decision to not concede to Fischer's demands rested on Karpov's "sober view of what he was capable of". Spassky thought that Fischer would have won in 1975 but Karpov would have qualified again and beaten Fischer in 1978. According to Susan Polgar, commentators are divided, with a slight majority believing Fischer would have won, an opinion she shares. Garry Kasparov argued that Karpov would have had good chances, because he had beaten Spassky convincingly and was a new breed of tough professional, and indeed had higher-quality games, while Fischer had been inactive for three years. Karpov himself said in 2020 that he thought he had chances, although he could not say he would be favored. Clearly, a lot of mixed opinions were speculating this.
After the 1972 World Chess Championship, Fischer did not play a competitive game in public for nearly 20 years. In 1977 he published three games he played against the MIT Greenblatt computer program Mac Hack, in which he won them all.
He went to the Los Angeles area and associated with the Worldwide Church of God for a time, though he was not a registered member. On May 26, 1981, when he was walking in Pasadena, Fischer was arrested by a police patrolman, because he resembled a man who had just committed a robbery in the area. Fischer, who alleged that he was slightly injured during the arrest, said that he was held for two days, subjected to assault and various types of other mistreatment, and released on $1,000 bail. Fischer published a 14-page pamphlet detailing his allegations of police misconduct, saying that his arrest had been "a frame up and set up".
In 1981, Fischer stayed at the home of grandmaster Peter Biyiasas in San Francisco, where, over a period of four months, he defeated Biyiasas seventeen times in a series of speed games. In an interview with Sports Illustrated reporter William Nack, Biyiasas assessed Fischer's play:
He was too good. There was no use in playing him. It wasn't interesting. I was getting beaten, and it wasn't clear to me why. It wasn't like I made this mistake or that mistake. It was like I was being gradually outplayed, from the start. He wasn't taking any time to think. The most depressing thing about it is that I wasn't even getting out of the middle game to an endgame. I don't ever remember an endgame. He honestly believes there is no one for him to play, no one worthy of him. I played him, and I can attest to that.
— Peter Biyiasas
From 1982 to 1991, there are actually no records of him doing... anything, really. This showcases how he went under the radar in this time period.
Fischer emerged after twenty years of isolation to play Spassky (then tied for 96th–102nd on the FIDE rating list) in a "Revenge Match of the 20th century" in 1992. This match took place in Sveti Stefan and Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in spite of a United Nations embargo that included sanctions on commercial activities. Fischer demanded that the organizers bill the match as "The World Chess Championship", although Garry Kasparov was the recognized FIDE World Champion. Fischer insisted he was still the true World Champion, and that for all the games in the FIDE-sanctioned World Championship matches, involving Karpov, Korchnoi, and Kasparov, the outcomes had been prearranged. The purse for the rematch was US$5 million, with $3.35 million of the purse going to the winner. This was the largest purse for a match in chess history.
According to Andrew Soltis:
The match games were of a fairly high quality, particularly when compared with Kasparov's championship matches of 1993, 1995 and 2000, for example. Yet the games also reminded many fans of how out of place Fischer was in 1992. He was still playing the openings of a previous generation. He was, moreover, the only strong player in the world who didn't trust computers and wasn't surrounded by seconds and supplicants.
— Andrew Soltis
Fischer won the match with 10 wins, 5 losses, and 15 draws. Kasparov stated: "Bobby is playing OK, nothing more. Maybe his strength near to something like 2600 or 2650. It wouldn't be close between us". Yasser Seirawan believed that the match proved that Fischer's playing strength was "somewhere in the top ten in the world".
Prior to the 1992 match with Spassky, Fischer, now a fugitive, slowly sliding back into obscurity, taking up residence in Budapest, Hungary, and repeatably having a relationship with young Hungarian chess master named Zita Rajcsanyi. Fischer said that standard chess was "stale" and that he now played heaps blitz games of chess variants, such as Chess960 (in the words of Bobby Fischer, "I hate chess!"). He visited the Polgár family in Budapest and analyzed many games with Judit, Zsuzsa, and Zsófia Polgár. In 1998 and 1999, he also stayed at the house of the young Hungarian grandmaster Peter Leko.
From 2000 to 2002, Fischer lived in Baguio in the Philippines, residing in the same compound as the Filipino grandmaster Eugene Torre, a close friend who had acted as his second during his tense 1992 match with Spassky. Torre introduced Fischer to a 22-year-old woman named Marilyn Young. On May 21, 2001, Young gave actually birth to a daughter named Jinky Young and claimed that Fischer was the child's father. Her claim was ultimately false through DNA testing after Fischer died.
Fischer lived some time in Japan. On July 13, 2004, acting in response to a letter from US officials, Japanese immigration authorities arrested him at Narita International Airport near Tokyo for allegedly trying to use a revoked US passport while trying to board a Japan Airlines flight to Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, Philippines. Fischer resisted arrest, and claimed to have sustained bruises, cuts and a broken tooth in the process.
Then, in prison, Fischer then married Miyoko Watai on September 6, 2004.
Fischer, seeking ways to avoid deportation to the United States, sent a letter to the Icelandic government in early January 2005, requesting Icelandic citizenship. Sympathetic to Fischer's plight, but reluctant to grant him the full benefits of citizenship, Icelandic authorities granted him an alien's passport. When this proved insufficient for the Japanese authorities, the Althing (the Icelandic Parliament), at the behest of William Lombardy, agreed unanimously to grant Fischer full citizenship in late March for humanitarian reasons, as they felt he was being unjustly treated by the United States and Japanese governments and also in recognition of his 1972 match against Spassky, which had, quote, "put Iceland on the map".
In 2005, some of Fischer's belongings were auctioned on eBay. Fischer claimed, in 2006, that the belongings sold in the US without his permission were worth "hundreds of millions of US dollars; even billions of dollars". In the same interview, Fischer also said that UBS Bank had closed an account of his and liquidated his assets against his wishes, transferring the funds to a bank located in Iceland.
On January 17, 2008, Fischer died at age 64 from degenerative kidney failure at the Landspítali Hospital (National University Hospital of Iceland) in Reykjavík.
Fischer was buried on January 21 in the small Christian cemetery of Laugardælir church, outside the town of Selfoss, 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of Reykjavík, after a Catholic funeral presided over by Fr. Jakob Rolland of the diocese of Reykjavík. In accordance with Fischer's wishes, only Miyoko Watai, Garðar Sverrisson, and Garðar's family were present.
It is clear after reading this post that Bobby Fischer wasn't just a World Champion- he reshaped the way we look at the game. A lot of people say he is the best chess player, and it is easy to see why. From the drama of life to the controversial chess tournaments, Bobby Fischer's name will ALWAYS be engraved in chess history.
By the way, happy new year! Let 2026 be a year of renewal, positivity, and happiness! 😄
Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
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