A Chapter in the Life of a Chess master: Bobby Fischer
"All I want to do, ever, is just play chess."
This quotation perfectly describes Bobby Fischer. The life of this genius revolved around chess. Nearly all the major events of Fischer’s life have been influenced by the game he fell in love with. Chess provided Fischer with an identity and what chess is
today has a bit to do with what Bobby Fischer made it.
Lets take a quick journey into the life of the man that was Bobby Fischer.
Fischer was born in Chicago, Illinois, on 9th March, 1943, into a Jewish family. Fischer became known to the world of chess at an early age of 13 when he won a chess game with exceptional brilliance. The match consequently came to be known as
the Game of the Century. Next year, Fischer took part in eight championships in the United States and won them all. He got the title of Grandmaster when he was only 15 ½. This made him the youngest person ever to become a Grandmaster. At 15 ½, Fischer was
also the world’s youngest chess player to qualify as a candidate for the World Championship.
Fischer set a record of achieving a perfect score of 11-0 in the US championships of 1963-64, a sort of win that no chess player has been able to better yet. He went on to make more records. By July 1971, Fischer had become the first top rated player with
the World Chess Federation. The month also marked a total of 54 months that Fischer had stayed number one in the world over. This was the third longest period that anyone had retained the number one status.
The year 1972 proved to be a significant one in the life of Bobby Fischer. He was at his peak chess rating of 2785, when he played Boris Spassky of USSR in the final match of the World Championship. It became a globally publicized event as it happened in
the proximity of the Cold War. In the world’s limelight, Fischer was able to defeat the Russian chess player and become world champion.
The following comment of Bobby Fischer about his rival has been widely quoted: “I'm not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I'm the best. You don't need a match to prove it.”
The great chess player had a disagreement with the World Chess Federation in 1975 that resulted in him not defending his title. The disagreement took place because Fischer could not agree with the Federation on the conditions of the match. From then on,
Fischer become more and more isolated and separated himself from competitive chess until 1992. That year, Bobby Fischer played Spassky again but this time, unofficially. The match took place in Yugoslavia. At that time, the country was under an embargo placed
by the United Nations. Playing the match in such a way resulted in a confrontation with the US government. As a result of this, Fischer was never able to enter the country again.
From then on, Fischer lived in different countries for short periods of time. When his US passport was revoked in 2004, he was present in Japan. This action was taken by the US government in response to Fischer’s increasingly anti-American and anti-Jewish
comments. In the month of March, year 2005, Bobby Fischer was given full citizenship by Iceland, the country in which he stayed till his death in 2008.
During his life and to this day, Fisher is considered one of the most exceptional talents that the world of chess has ever seen.
In remembrance of the great player, Garry Kasparov made the following comments: “Fischer’s beautiful chess and his immortal games will stand forever as a central pillar in the history of our game.”
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