BOBBY FISCHER (1943-2008)

BOBBY FISCHER

 Robert James “Bobby” Fischer, the eleventh World Chess Champion and many people’s champion of champions, is regarded as one of the greatest individual sportsmen of all time, let alone chess players.

From a young age, Fischer appeared destined for greatness. At just 13, he won a game that went down in history as “The Game of the Century”, and became the youngest GM of all time (then) two years later. But he was just getting started. Apart from the total dominance he showed on the chess board, the geo-political context of his World Championship match against Spassky in 1972 – billed as a Cold War clash between the US and Soviet Union — made the fact of his victory an event that transcended chess. Add to that the subsequent narrative of his refusal to defend his title, fallout with FIDE, sudden disappearance and mysterious 20-year obscurity, and subsequent return to defeat Spassky, and you should get an idea of why Fischer is one of the most well-known and fabled chess greats. The lore of his rise to the top and eventual fall from grace is depicted in several movies, biographies, and documentaries. He is probably the best known chess player of all time.

If his story somehow wasn’t enough to convince you Fischer belongs in this list, his contribution to chess also includes a whole raft of theoretical variations named after him, or revived by him (from the Ruy Lopez exchange to Gruenfeld to the Nimzo-Indian) to the creation the creation of his own variant of the game, Fischer random chess (aka Chess 960), and a must-read classic of chess literature My 60 Memorable Games.

For more insight into how Fischer played the game, check out this piece on Fischer’s dominance, by Malcolm Pein.