Pictures of Bobby Fischer

Batgirl, 
I have really enjoyed your blogs here at chess.com
Very well done. It was very nice but certainly deserving that Daniel Rensch mentioned you during the 10 yr Anniversary announcement. Keep up the great work!

Do you have anything on Mikhail Tal. He is, by far, my favorite player. (Sorry Bobby)

u ppl have lost it....

I think it was a tipping point when he chose not to defend his title. He had to admit to himself, with his huge ego, that he was in fact, a coward. I read about everything there was to read on Bobby and he came from a dysfunctional, yet brilliant family. His mother raised him and his sister and had several degrees, but was hounded by the FBI for supporting the communist party. He disassociated himself from his family before he even became world champ. Imagine being heralded as the hero of the United States, but not even having one family member come with to Iceland, for the match. He was intelligent enough to survive as a loner, but I can only imagine how strange his life must have been between the 2 matches he had with Spaasky. The second was the nail in his coffin. He pissed off the United States Federal government by publicly spitting on their sanction against him playing the match. They issued a warrant for his arrest and he led the life of a fugitive even since, until he died.

This page contains a few nice domestic photos: https://www.chess.com/blog/batgirl/who-would-marry-a-chess-master

But if you want to learn something about Tal, visit Spectrowski's blog.  I made a hurried list of links to various articles there:

https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/mikhail-tals-first-ever-published-annotation

https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/mikhail-tal-quotwe-fought-like-hussarsquot-interview-after-riga-1979-interzonal

https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/mikhail-tal-tv-interview-in-1987

https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/mikhail-tals-last-ever-interview

https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/mikhail-tal-quotknowledge-intuition-riskquot
https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/mikhail-tal-quotknowledge-intuition-riskquot-part-2
https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/mikhail-tal-quotknowledge-intuition-riskquot-part-3

https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/mikhail-tal-quotwhen-pieces-come-alivequot-part-22

https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/an-interview-with-angelina-tal

https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/mikhail-tal-quotwhen-pieces-come-alivequot

https://www.chess.com/blog/Spektrowski/mikhail-tals-blindfold-simul-for-documentary

Good point. His behavior was so bad that I remember during the Fischer-Spassky WC Match in 1972, when America was at the height of the Cold War vs the Soviet Union, that someone wrote, "Only Bobby Fischer could make Americans root for the Russians."

I was playing a round in a tournament when word came in that Spassky had won Game 11, his first win in the match since Fischer had blundered away a drawn bishop ending in Game 1 and forfeited Game 2.  When the tournament director got the word whispered to him and announced out loud to the room, "Spassky won," the players paused in their thinking long enough to applaud the news rather vigorously.  And all the players were Americans except for a few Canadians, so this was pretty clearly a reaction to Fischer's boorishness. 

I have always thought that Fischer had a strong streak of paranoia, and that perhaps that was part and parcel of his genius at the game, serving as a sort of creative mainspring in ferreting out his opponents' intentions; in his games, he was usually pretty effective at denying his opponents activity.

I agree much of his words and behavior, especially in the latter part of his life, were pretty hateful and loathsome.  But sometimes he had a good point, as when he accused the "Russians" (by which he meant all players from countries in the Soviet bloc) of colluding against him.  In later years some of them admitted that yes, they had.  As they say, just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean nobody is out to get you.

 Noted.

Page 1 is kewl!

I would love to see Bob come back for a little while, and be allowed to post here.

I wonder how many of his critics would ask him to hang around for a simul.

Central Park would not be big enough to fit all the tables.

I find that B&W pictures stand the test of time. Clothing fads/colors come and go but the memory of the subject of the picture is eternal.

I didn't take any of these pictures.
I found most of these pictures by searching on Google picture search. 

This picture represents so much.

The laurel wreath of World Champion conferred on the 11th World Champion Bobby Fischer, by the Dr.Max Euwe, FIDE president and 5th World Champion - and a man who played every world  champion from Lasker to Karpov. 

That photo symbolises Fischer and all World Champions, bar Steinitz to 1972.

guys i cannot find bobby fischers clip where he had wild hair and went insane