Destined To Be The King Of Chess
Bobby Fischer rose through the ranks from a young age to become the King (and Queen and Knight and Rook…) of Chess. But amid all his accolades and admiration, trouble was brewing inside his singular mind, leading some to believe that his brain, which had gotten him so far in life, turned on him in the end.
1. His Mother Fled
Bobby Fischer was born on March 9, 1943, in Chicago, Illinois. It was not a happy start. His parents were Polish Jews, with his mother Regina meeting his father Hans-Gerhardt in Moscow in the early 1930s. Amidst rising tensions in Russia, Regina separated from her husband and fled to the United States—all while pregnant with Bobby and with his older sister Joan in tow.
It was not the American dream they hoped for.
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2. His Father Was Absent
Upon her son’s birth, Regina was homeless, having been unable to find a permanent residence in the US. Over the next few years, she hustled at many different jobs (from welder to schoolteacher) across many different states to support her children.
Bobby's father stayed resolutely back in Europe, all but ignoring Bobby's existence. As we'll see, Hans may have had good reason not to feel much attachment to his son—but Bobby still felt the effects.
3. He Felt Abandoned
As Bobby's mother worked tirelessly, she was largely absent from her children’s lives. Any spare time she did have, she dedicated to communist activism. All this gave Bobby an eventually controversial relationship to his roots, and it also left him with a lot of spare time.This isolation set him on the path to his destiny.
4. He Found His Calling Early
In 1949, when Bobby was just six years old, he and his sister Joan learned to play chess from a children’s set their mother bought them. While Joan quickly lost interest, its effect on Bobby was immediate. With his mother not around to play either, he began to play chess endlessly with himself. But it quickly grew disturbing.
5. He Was Laser Focused
Soon enough, Bobby was intensely studying the game using any materials he could get his hands on, and his mother feared he was spending too much time alone. Her response, though, still supported her son's obsession: She submitted an ad to a local paper seeking children Bobby’s age to play chess with him. It ended up as a date with destiny.
6. He Got Invited To The Big Leagues
Although the paper never actually ran the ad, it did forward it to chess player Hermann Helms, the so-called "Dean of American Chess". Seeing that he likely had a prodigy on his hands, Helms invited Bobby and his mother to the simultaneous exhibition of Master Max Pavey, a Scottish champion. But this didn't end as you might expect.
7. He Played Against A Master
The seven-year-old Bobby acquitted himself nicely at the exhibition, holding on for an impressive 15 minutes against Pavey and drawing a crowd to watch him. Nonetheless, he wasn't that good yet, and eventually lost the match. Even so, this loss brought a very important person into Fischer's life.
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8. He Held His Own As A Child
Brooklyn Chess Club President Carmine Nigro was at the exhibition that day, and he knew exactly what to do with Bobby Fischer. Although Nigro was, as Fischer would later not "possibly not the best player in the world," he nonetheless was close to a Master in skill, and took Fischer under his wing to teach him the next level of the game.
It paid off almost instantly.
9. He Was A Chess Prodigy
Fischer studied under Nigro and other mentors for the next handful of years—but when he was 13 years old, everything changed. He had been working day and night on his game for years, but in 1956 his talent and chess rating exploded in a "meteoric rise," and that summer he became the youngest ever Junior Champion.
But his first brush with infamy was just around the corner.
10. He Played "The Game Of The Century"
That October, Fischer attended a tournament in New York City and played against International Master Donald Byrne, a man 13 years his senior. The outcome is now known as "The Game of the Century": In a bold, even reckless move, the prodigy Fischer sacrificed his own queen and then managed to sweep through Byrne's defenses to take the win.
It stunned the tournament and the world, earning Fischer the brilliancy prize and a game that is still analyzed to this day. But Fischer's response was surprising.
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11. He Wasn't Impressed With Himself
To Bobby Fischer, that famous game was something of a shrug. For one thing, he actually performed below expectations in the tournament as a whole. For another, he didn't see what he did as particularly brilliant. As he put it afterward, "I just made the moves I thought were best. I was just lucky".
The next months, however, proved it was anything but luck.
12. He Set Records
By 1957, Fischer was a household name among US chess fans. At 14, he earned the rank of Master—the youngest player at the time to ever earn the title. Then just months later, he exceeded chess pundits' expectations and went on to win the US Championship, becoming (you guessed it) the youngest ever US Chess Champion.
Fischer was on fire, but he was heading toward danger.
13. He Got Arrogant
When Bobby Fischer focused on something, the people around him needed to watch out. After conquering America, Fischer now became obsessed with playing in the Soviet Union, which had a fearsome reputation for turning out chess prodigies—and which had a complicated place in his family history.
Never one to do things by halves, Fischer begged his mother to write to no less than the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, asking to get an invite to the 1957 World Youth and Student Festival in order to enter the country. When this fell through, he got desperate.
14. He Had A New Obsession
Nothing and no one was going to stop Fischer from getting into the Soviet Union, even though his family had no money to pay the regular airfare. In a bizarre and dedicated move, he instead got the American game show I've Got a Secret to fund round-trip tickets for himself and his sister Joan in 1958 after he made an appearance on their set. (Then again, "bizarre" and "dedicated" were going to become Fischer's watchwords).
At long last, Bobby Fischer was on Soviet soil. Within hours, everyone began to regret it.
15. He Destroyed Them
Bobby and Joan arrived in Moscow, and Bobby immediately threw a fit. He insisted that his guide take him to the Moscow Central Chess Club without any delay, and while there he routed two of the club's top players in speed chess. As one bystander noted, he "crushed almost everyone who crossed his path".
But none of this was enough for Bobby.
16. It Wasn't Enough
Having vanquished the Soviet Union’s best young masters, Fischer wanted more. He quickly demanded that he play Mikhail Botvinnik, the reigning World Chess Champion. After the Soviets informed him that this was impossible, Fischer asked for Paul Keres, another highly ranked player. Still: No.
Fischer's Soviet trip began to take a sour turn.
17. He Insulted His Hosts
Just after asking to play Botvinnik and being told no, Fischer threw out a vicious insult. Angry like a spoiled child who couldn't get the toy he wanted, Fischer sneered that he was tired of "these Russian pigs"...right in front of his hosts. To make matters worse, the Soviets—spying on their guest—found a postcard of his that said “I don’t like Russian hospitality and the people themselves”.
It went downhill from there.
18. He Made The Papers
Before long, Fischer's comments and sentiments got around to the Russian newspapers, causing something of an international incident. With everyone worried about what might happen next, Bobby and Joan went early to Yugoslavia, where Bobby played more publicized chess games—but also got out of Moscow's hair.
Unfortunately, this misanthropic streak in Fischer would only increase as time went on.
19. He Committed His Life To Chess
When he was almost exactly 15-and-a-half years old, Fischer continued on his unprecedented trajectory and became the youngest grandmaster. Half a year later, he made a momentous decision. As soon as he reached 16, Fischer dropped out of high school to focus on chess, later explaining in an interview: “You don't learn anything in school”.
Yet all this was only making his life more and more isolating.
20. He Lived And Breathed Chess
Although he was out of school now, Fischer did still tend to his education—he just did it in a way that was totally focused on chess. Incredibly, Fischer taught himself multiple foreign languages, including Russian, for the express purpose of reading chess periodicals from around the world. Soon, he was outstripping his opponents in other ways.
21. He Had An Unmatched Knowledge Of The Game
Fischer would constantly astound his tournament opponents with his knowledge of the game. One Latvian chess master recalls an instance in which he asked Fischer his opinion on a female Latvian chess player’s game, only to sit astonished as Fischer replied that he preferred the technique of another female Latvian player.
As the master said, "it never occurred to us to study our women players' games. How could we find the time for this?! Yet Bobby, it turns out, had found the time!”
22. He Dressed "Atrociously"
Despite all his prowess on the chess board, Fischer was missing one crucial thing. Chess tournaments were extremely formal settings, and most were appalled that Fischer would appear "at the most august and distinguished national and international events in sweaters and corduroys".
At first, Fischer may have shrugged at this with his typical attitude. But eventually, he made a total 180.
23. He Upped His Fashion Game
In late 1959, now making a living playing the game, Fischer decided to splash out sartorially. He began buying hand-tailored, made to order suits from all over the world, eventually accruing around 17 or more custom suits and an array of handmade shirts and shoes.
He was finally dressing the part of a champion, but his makeover may have cost him.
24. He Took His Eyes Off The Prize
In 1960, at a tournament in Buenos Aires, Fischer recorded a rare competitive failure, finishing far behind two other players. For Fischer, it would have been a humiliating loss, with the whole chess world wondering if he had lost his touch. The truth, at least according to his competitors, is much more salacious.
25. He Fell In Lust
At the time, Fischer was 17 years old, a snappy dresser—and apparently full of hormones. According to some fellow players at the tournament, Fischer had his first intimate experience with a woman during the competition, and the distraction contributed to his loss. It also pushed Fischer to make an unsettling vow.
26. He Swore He'd Never Do It Again
After this experience, Fischer made himself a bitter promise. In another somewhat misanthropic move, he reportedly said he'd "never mix women and chess together" ever again, a promise that at least one person close to him says he kept.
Even so, people began to see cracks in his armor, and subsequent opponents—including an old enemy—began to probe for further weaknesses.
27. He Was Robbed
Fischer faltered once again in the Candidates Tournament in Curaçao in 1962, finishing in fourth place out of eight when he had been the favorite. But this time, it was more than lovesickness that felled him: In a response article, "The Russians Have Fixed World Chess," Fischer claimed the Soviet players of the tournament had colluded to stop him from winning.
But Fischer wasn't ready to lie down, especially not at the hands of the Soviets.
28. He Had More Records In Him
After a string of tournament successes around the world, Fischer achieved an astonishing 11-0 win in the 1963/4 US Championship. To this day, it remains the only perfect score in the history of the tournament, and is one of only about 10 perfect scores recorded in high-level chess.
Then he went for the Soviets.
29. His Enemies Studied Him
In 1971, Fischer competed against Soviet grandmaster and concert pianist Mark Taimanov in the quarter-finals of the Candidates matches. The Soviets were desperate not to lose to Fischer, who had treated them so poorly before, and Taimanov spent hours poring over a Soviet dossier on Fischer's game style.
Even so, Fischer was favored to win. But no one could have predicted how brutally it unfolded.
30. His Opponent Got Confused
By the fifth game out of six in their meeting, Fischer had won the previous four sessions and the atmosphere was incredibly tense. To make matters worse, Taimanov had come into this game with two "seconds" who were both grandmasters. Fischer, meanwhile, was utterly alone, and thought it was both hilarious and humiliating that his opponent felt he needed that much backup.
In the end, it didn't even work for the Soviets: Taimanov got so much advice on his gameplay that day that he was unusually distracted and weak. So Fischer went in for the kill.
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31. He Ruined A Career
In the end, Fischer beat Taimanov in a resounding 6–0 victory, crushing him in a streak of games that utterly mortified the Soviet grandmaster. The consequences were gut-wrenching. The Soviet government, furious at Taimanov's total loss, kicked him off the chess team, took away his stipend, and banned him from travelling for two years.
But Bobby Fischer's personal Cold War was just heating up.
32. He Became A Diva
The World Chess Championship of 1972, against Fischer and the defending Soviet world champion Boris Spassky, would become the defining moment of Fischer’s career. It was also a near disaster.
Fischer had long been particular about his chess playing, especially with the Soviets, and he refused to play in Spassky's chosen location of Reykjavik, Iceland until the committee upped the prize money. He didn't stop there, either.
33. He Made A Bizarre Request
After his enormous hot streak, Fischer had now gained a reputation as the "Einstein of chess," and he was more than happy to act the part. As such, his diva demands grew. In particular, he required that the 1972 Championship game have one particular Staunton chess set made at Jaques of London. He was just as hard on himself, though.
34. He Trained His Body And His Brain
In preparation for the match, Fischer did his part to meet the moment, focusing intensely on his physical fitness ahead of the tournament. In interviews, Fischer noted how he frequently played tennis, went swimming, and practiced boxing, all to improve his brain power when it came to the chessboard. He would need it.
35. He Was In The Match Of The Century
Due to the ongoing Cold War, the "Match of the Century" between the American Fischer and the Soviet Spassky became a media sensation, and Fischer himself was a heat score. His hotel had to screen a deluge of calls every day from women who wanted to date him, and Fischer liked to read the fan mail that came for him by the dozen.
The game day itself was a different level entirely.
36. He Lost Two Games In A Row
The match got off to an embarrassing start for Fischer, who lost the first two opening games—the second by declaring a forfeit. His reasons for forfeiting raised eyebrows. Although Fischer had appeared to enjoy the media attention outside the game room, he now said the gaming conditions inside, with cameras in every corner, were distracting him.
But it got much more disturbing than that.
37. He Ranted And Raved
Throughout his decision to forfeit, which took some time, Fischer was erratic and, according to a friend, "not very coherent". Indeed, Fischer was apparently paranoid about the entire match, believing that the Icelandic Chess Federation, as a supposed communist front, was conspiring against him to make him lose.
This paranoia would soon deepen in Fischer—and the next developments didn't help.
38. He Got An Official Phone Call
With the match sitting at 2–0 for Spassky, Fischer began to look for a plane off of Iceland so he could stalk out of the competition for good. One phone call stopped him in his tracks. Reportedly, US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger rang Fischer up, encouraging him to stay in the match for America's sake. Along with the advice of friends, it turned the tides.
Even so, Fischer made one more stipulation.
39. He Went Into Hiding
In order to continue, Fischer demanded that he and Spassky play their third match in a private back room, far away from the audience. Spassky suspected all this hubbub had nothing to do with Fischer's emotional state and was instead designed to throw him off kilter—but he nonetheless agreed. It was his first mistake.
40. He Reached His Peak
From that third game on, everything changed for Fischer. He staged a comeback with a newfound confidence, and only lost one game after that. After the 21st game, he was declared the victor and turned into the 11th World Chess Champion—and an American hero in the process.
Fischer’s win was a propaganda victory for the Cold War US, and when he returned to the states they held a "Bobby Fischer Day". Yet amidst all these accolades, all was not well behind closed doors.
41. He Retreated From The Spotlight
After winning the World Championship, Bobby Fischer began to change in disturbing ways. For one, he played no competitive matches for the next three years, retreating very much into himself. Then, in 1975, he was pushed to play against rising challenger Anatoly Karpov for the World Championship title—and he lost in the worst way possible.
42. He Lost His Title
Fischer, no stranger to wild demands, now insisted on an updated win system for his upcoming match with Karpov. FIDE, chess's international governing body, agreed to meet some but not all of his suggestions for the update—but this wasn't good enough for Fischer. In the end, Fischer refused to compete in the match and forfeited his title by default to Karpov.
All this, even though most commentators agree Fischer would have had fairly good chances of winning again. But Fischer had his reasons.
43. It Was A Blessing And A Curse
The 1972 World Championship was both the best thing to ever happen to Bobby Fischer, and the worst. Afterward, he had nothing left to prove to anyone—and so he began to cut himself off from the world. As one commentator put it, so insulated from "humanizing influences," Fischer now "descended into what can only be considered a kind of madness".
Soon, that "madness" was apparent.
44. He Became A Recluse
Fischer’s absence from the 1975 World Championship was just the beginning. For the next 20 years he didn't play another single competitive game. Moreover, though he would still play private games with top players, these too had lost their shine.
Grandmaster Peter Biyiasas played against Fischer countless times during this period, and only walked away feeling confused and defeated. As he put it, "He was too good...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".
But Fischer's personal life wasn't much better.
45. An Ex Aired His Dirty Laundry
In 1988, Fischer entered a relationship with German chess player Petra Stadler after his former opponent, Boris Spassky, introduced them to each other. Although the relationship lasted two years, Petra punctuated their breakup with a betrayal. In 1995, she came out with a tell-all book about him, Bobby Fischer: How He Really Is.
Fischer's old rival Spassky was so mortified, he even apologized to Fischer. It was Spassky, too, who would pull Fischer back out of obscurity.
46. He Agreed To A Rematch
In 1992, Fischer finally agreed to emerge from isolation to play Spassky in a “Revenge Match of the 20thentury” in Belgrade, Yugoslavia—even though the country was under UN sanctions. This was a big problem, and the US made it clear that Fischer's participation in the match would be illegal, and sent him an official order not to go.
His vicious response shocked the world.
47. He Insulted His Government
During the first press conference for the match, Fischer stunned the room into silence with one act. He spat on the order in front of everyone, saying "this is my reply". He would go on to win the game with Spassky, proving to everyone his genius was still with him—but it was here that his luck ran out.
48. He Lived On The Lam
After witnessing Fischer's incendiary press conference, the US government made good on their threats: They put out a warrant for his arrest, effective as soon as he finished the match. Not calling their bluff, Fischer fled first to Budapest and then later to the Philippines.
Incredibly, Bobby Fischer was now a fugitive...but he continued to court controversy.
49. He Got Detained
After living in the Philippines for a few years, Fischer moved to Japan. But on July 13, 2004, while attempting to take a flight back to the Philippines, Japanese authorities arrested him in the airport at the behest of the US government, who hadn't forgotten his spitting stunt more than a decade earlier.
It sent him to a very dark place—and a very big decision.
50. He Married In Prison
Speaking of the ordeal afterward, Fischer said they put him in a windowless, smoky cell, where he didn't see natural light for days at a time. It also drove him to reevaluate his life: Fischer ended up marrying his partner at the time, chess player Miyoko Watai, from prison on September 6, 2004.
But he couldn't focus on his happiness for long.
51. He Found Asylum
During this time, Fischer was terrified that the US would extradite him, and cast about desperately for another country to land in. Eventually, Iceland granted him asylum through an alien passport, in part thanks to his 1972 match with Spassky that had “put Iceland on the map”.
From then on, Fischer was determined to live a reclusive existence once more. Yet his legacy wasn't so simple.
52. He Had A Dark Side
Despite his own Jewish heritage, Fischer became virulently anti-semitic as time went on, engaging in all kinds of paranoid conspiracy theories about Jewish people. In the background of this hatred, some commenters believe Fischer suffered from paranoid personality disorder, which seemed to further fuel his inexcusable theories.
His end, however, was almost as bitter as these beliefs.
53. He Never Returned Home
By the end of 2007 Fischer was only 64, but suffering from degenerative kidney failure that would kill him on January 17, 2008. And it was all his fault. Originally, he only had a urinary tract blockage, but refused—whether because of his paranoia or not—to have surgery or even to take medication.
Fischer was buried in a small Christian cemetery near an Icelandic village, having spent over 15 years in exile.
54. His Parentage Got Called Into Question
When it comes to Bobby Fischer's life, the drama doesn't seem to end. In 2002, The Philadelphia Inquirer published an investigative report into his parentage, and put forth an explosive theory: His father wasn't Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, but rather the Hungarian mathematician and one-time child prodigy Paul Nemenyi.
The evidence, moreover, is convincing. Not only did the suspiciously brilliant Nemenyi and Bobby's mother likely have an affair in 1942, but Nemenyi was also interested in Bobby's upbringing and paid child support until he passed in 1952.
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