An
American chess player, who in 1972 became the first American chess
player to win the
world championship (dominated after 1917 by the
Russian
Chess System). He was born Robert James Fischer in
Chicago,
Illinois.
Fischer learned to play
chess when he was 6 years old, and at the age
of 13 he became the youngest national junior chess champion in the United
States; at 14 he was the youngest senior champion. In 1958, after becoming
the youngest international
grandmaster in the history of
chess, Fischer
left
high school and established himself as the only player in the Western
countries to earn a living solely by playing chess. He became known as a
brilliant competitor whose success derived mainly from
surpise attacks
and
counterattacks.
Fischer set a modern tournament record by capturing the 1964-1965
US championship with 11 wins in 11 matches. By 1968 he had won
the US championship eight times. In the 1970-1971 world Championship Candidate
matches, Fishcer won 20 consecutive games. In 1972 Fischer, the first officially
recognized American world champion, defeated titleholder, Boris Spassky
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in Reykjavik, Iceland.
In 1975 the International Chess Federation refused to meet Fischer's
conditions for a match with the Soviet challenger, Anatoly Karpov, and
the title was awarded to Karpov.
Fischer did not compete publicly again unitl a 1992 rematch with Spassky.
Defying orders from the US government not to violate United Nations sanctions
against the warring republics of former Yugoslavia, Fischer traveled
to the Adriatic island resort of Sveti Stefan and to Belgrade, Serbia,
for the rematch. He won the match with ten wins to Spassky's five.
Editor's note: Bobby Fischer died in Reykjavik, Iceland on January 18, 2008
E2 nodes of interest
Bobby Fischer on September 11, 2001
Bizarre anti-Semitic interview with Bobby Fischer
Charles Mingus Meets Bobby Fischer in the Locked Ward at Bellevue
Searching for Bobby Fischer
A Bust to the King's Gambit
Bobby Fischer Goes to War