Fischer Robert James (09.03.1943 – 18.01.2008)
U.S. Grandmaster born in Chicago. Fischer was the 11th World Champion, U.S. Champion and U.S. Junior Champion. Fischer’s father was a student of biophysics and his mother, Regina Fischer, was a mercy-nurse and a teacher. She studied medicine in Leningrad Medical Institute in USSR and as a result spoke Russian very well along with at least six other foreign languages. His father left the family when the boy was only two and his mother brought up the two children, Bobby and elder daughter Joan. She struggled to make ends meet and poor childhood left its mark on Fischer’s future. When he was 6 years old, his sister Joan taught him to play chess. He found studying basic chess rules easy and at the age of seven he already had a coach, Carmine Nigro. Within one year he was allowed to visit a chess club twice a week. By the age of thirteen Fischer got the title of National Master, won the U.S. Junior Championship and tied in fourth to eighth place in the Open USA Championship and eighth to twelfth in the Open tournament in Canada. In 1957, now a fourteen year old teenager, he won consecutively the Junior, Open, and U.S. Championships, which gave him the right to take part in the Interzonal tournament. At fourteen Fischer was awarded the title of International Master. Since childhood he was brought up on Soviet chess literature and he dreamed to visit the USSR. In the summer of 1958, Fischer and his sister were invited to Moscow where they spent two weeks playing games with Soviet chess players. At the Interzonal tournament in Portoroz, Fischer shared fifth to sixth places and earned the title of International Grandmaster. He was the youngest IGM in chess history and the youngest ever candidate for the World Champion title. He decided that school subjects would not be useful for him and with regards to education, he learnt several foreign languages which was important for chess. In 1958, the fifteen year old Fischer met future International Master Bernard Zuckerman and they played several games where Zuckerman found that Fischer had excellent skills; a brilliant memory and the ability to catch the point of problems. In December of 1958 the U.S. Championship was held in the Manhattan Chess Club, New York. The most interesting game was Fischer versus Samuel Reshevsky. Fischer won but he didn’t make a move by himself, he only repeated the White play of one of the games played in the USSR Championship not long ago! He was skilful in openings and middle-game and became a unique universal chess player. The results were obvious: 1959 finished third at the Mar del Plata tournament, finished equal with Paul Keres at the Candidates tournament in Zurich, first in the 1960 US Championship, equal first in Mar del Plata 1960, first in Reykjavik, second at Bled 1961 and a year later first in Interzonal tournament, Stockholm. In October/November 1960 in Leipzig, at the XIV Chess Olympiad, a new American chess star appeared – seventeen year old USA Champion, Robert Fischer. The USA team came second; Fischer lost to Svetozar Gligoric but in board results he was third after Karl Robatsch and Mikhail Tal. He won the 1960-1961 US Championship in New York and in 1961 he didn’t finish a match versus Samuel Reshevsky, when the score was 5½:5½. This match, sponsored by the millionaire chess player Jacqueline Piatigorsky, stopped because of a lot of disagreements between the players. In Bled 1961, Fischer finished second after Tal but succeeded in many games. He brilliantly beat Tigran Petrosian. Step by step Fischer was reaching the cherished dream. In 1962 at the Olympiad in Varna he got the best result on the first board. Later in Curacao, after a poor start at the Candidate tournaments, he only took the fourth place.
Mainly upset by the way that the five out of eight Soviet players behaved between themselves and blaming FIDE of bad regulations, he announced that he will not participate in international tournaments in the future. He was again the best in the 1962/63 US Championship, in Western States Open Championship 1963, at the Open New York Championship 1963 and again in the US championship 1963/64. In 1965, after tense negotiations, Fischer agreed to come to Havana for the Memorial Capablanca tournament but was forbidden to travel by the US Department. He played the games in New York using a telex machine and shared the second to fourth places behind Vasily Smyslov. When interviewed by numerous journalists about who was the strongest chess player in the history of chess, he did not hesitate to answer: Alexander Alekhine and Fischer. He won the 1965-66 US Championships and at the Piatigorsky Cup tournament he finished second only half a point behind Boris Spassky. Fischer’s game versus Lajos Portisch attracted the attention of the chess world and carried out interesting positional ideas. The same year at the Olympiad in Havana he got the silver medal at the first board. In 1967 he started well at the Interzonal tournament of Sousse. He led the tournament with seven wins and three draws before he withdrew because he couldn’t get his claims accepted. One of them was to get a day off for the Shabbat. The same year he made his eighth consecutive win at the U.S. Championship. At the XVIII Chess Olympiad in October-November 1968 in Lugano, Switzerland, Fischer refused to play because of bad conditions in the tournament hall. He said that the place was not suitable for playing chess because of smoking and he left Lugano losing a great honorarium, but he showed adherence to principles. Fischer’s financial claims often made an impression of an inordinate cupidity, but in fact it was not so. For example, he demanded to double the prize fund for a match with Spassky because it seemed to him that if he increased the fund, the importance of the match would also increase twofold. Some months later, after a match in Reykjavik, Fischer refused to sign a contract for ten million dollars only for using his name as an advertisement! Everything he did was only to increase the prestige of chess in the world. A scale of prestige in the USA is money, which is why he intended to get the highest fee just for his play and increased demands to the stipulations of the game. In 1970 Fischer took part in the Match of the Century; USSR versus the World. He showed himself as a sober-minded and reasonable Grandmaster. Obviously he considered his participation as one of the stages of preparations on his way to the chess crown. He played with Tigran Petrosian and won the mini-match with the score 3:1. A year later Petrosian wrote, with a light shade of irony and sadness, that in 1958 he was called to beat a young man who won Moscow masters but last year he had the great “pleasure” of losing to him in the Match of the Century. After the match of the century four questions were put to all the competitors. The first question was “What is chess for you? What attracts you in chess most of all?” Fischer answered that the ability of travelling, money and the chess atmosphere attracted him most of all. He said that he could earn money easier with the help of chess. He also added that in no other sphere could he achieve such success; even when he did not play chess it gave him an income because of publishing books and editing a chess column in a magazine. The second question was “What do you think about the sport and creative results of the match?” 
Fischer said that the match in Belgrade was an epoch-making event, noted the excellent organisation and added that he was going to come back to tournament activity. He hoped to soon become World Champion as he understood from the competition that he was the strongest. The third question was “What game ever played by you do you consider the best?” Fischer answered that the best game he played was with Donald Byrne at the New York tournament 1956. The last question was “What is your opinion of the modern system of championships?” Fischer thought that the system of Candidates’ matches was good enough but matches should be longer and should be held every two years; best chances to play the next match with Spassky B had Larsen and Korchnoi V. And Fischer also wanted to compete with Spassky but…. 1970 was a victory year for Fischer. This year he came first in the International tournaments in Zagreb and Buenos Aires, second at the first board at the Olympiad in Ziegen, first in the Interzonal tournament in Palma de Mallorca and first ahead of Mikhail Tal with 4½ points at the Belgrade tournament 1970.
1971 was also a triumphal year for Fischer. First he beat Mark Taimanov, then Bent Larsen with the brilliant score 6:0. The semi-final match with Larsen was the most interesting event at this Championship as Larsen intended to gain the chess crown from Spassky. The Soviet master, Vladimir Alatortsev, called the defeat of the Danish Grandmaster the “Psychological crush of Larsen”. The final match of challengers Petrosian versus Fischer was held in Buenos Aires in September-October 1971 and Fischer beat his opponent with the score 6½:2½. Journalists of this time claimed that the duel between Fischer and Spassky was the most outstanding event since the match between Alekhine and Capablanca in 1927. Psychologist Grandmaster Nikolai Krogius, wrote that the match began with nine days being late because of the “pro-Fischer” position of Euwe trying to save the match by any means and the tractability of Spassky. The first game was on July 11th and Spassky began the play with White. Fischer lost the first game, did not come for the next game and so lost by default then he won the third, fourth and fifth games. The fatal sixth game was a crucial moment in the match. Spassky lost the sixth, seventh and eighth games. The ninth game was a draw. Fisher won the tenth game and Spassky the eleventh one. The twelfth game ended with another draw. Fischer won the thirteenth game brilliantly and there was a series of draws from the fourteenth to the twentieth game. The twenty-first round was won by Fischer and he became the eleventh Champion of the World with the score 8½:12½. The official coronation of Fischer was held on September 1st 1972 in Reykjavik. Spassky said about Fischer that the following peculiarities made Fischer the number one chess player: very high technique of play, huge energy, efficiency during the game and Fischer feels the state of his opponent very keenly. After the victory in Reykjavik, the champion’s behaviour was rather strange. He declined to take part in any tournaments though he claimed that being champion he would compete in international competitions two or three times for the proper fee.
In 1975 from March 18th-20th, in Bergen aan Zee (Holland) there was an extraordinary FIDE Congress by request of 35 national chess federations. FIDE discussed Fischer’s conditions made in 1974 in Nice, which were denied. The Congress accepted the first condition that the match was to be played without limit till 10 wins, draws were not considered. The venue and the date of the match were confirmed for Manila April 1st but Fischer never confirmed his participation and on April 4th 1975 Anatoly Karpov, winner of the Candidates’ final, was proclaimed the 12th World Champion. In the aftermath Fischer was a big celebrity promising to defend the title every year, but the longer he spent not playing chess the harder it would be for him to live up to his achievements of the previous two years. He issued a series of demands including asking for the title to be defended with first to ten wins. Negotiations for a 1975 match against Anatoly Karpov fell through and having not played for three years his chances would not, in my view, have been good. FIDE came to the opinion that Fischer wasn’t going to play (and in retrospect they were almost certainly right on this point) and so defaulted him and made his challenger, Anatoly Karpov, World Champion. Fischer then disappeared, apparently living on the streets or in reduced circumstances, occasionally being seen distributing dubious pamphlets. He published a book in 1982 “I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse!” about a 1981 arrest but otherwise had a low profile living with people in the U.S., Germany and elsewhere. Fischer was just about broke in 1992 and it was, classically for him, in a Yugoslavia that was tearing itself apart in civil war, with many new countries appearing, that he returned. There was sponsorship from a bank (Yugoskandic) that subsequently went bankrupt (Fischer earned and got paid at least $3m) and the match took place on the island of Sveti Stefan and then in Belgrade in Yugoslavia. His opponent was, as twenty years before, Boris Spassky. Fischer was warned by a fax from the U.S. State Department against playing the match because of U.S. sanctions against Yugoslavia. The U.S. government didn’t seriously follow this up until much later. Fischer publically spat on the fax in a press conference and the match was on. The match was played first to ten wins as he had always wanted and played with an electronic clock he had patented in 1988 which allowed increments to be added every time a move was made. As this kind of time limit became standard it was named after him even though others including David Bronstein had similar ideas. The first game, Fischer played with a logical Ruy Lopez, which reminded people of his better days, game nine was a win in an Exchange Ruy Lopez straight out of old preparation and the eleventh game was a highly entertaining sacrificial win but neither Spassky nor Fischer were what they had been and some modern players were very critical of the overall quality. Fischer took the match +10 -5 =15. This match was covered on the fledgling internet and it was the first time I’d ever heard of such a thing. It’s highly likely that I’d be doing something else without this match and its coverage. Fischer then stayed in Hungary for a time, both on his own and with modern players such as Judit Polgar and Peter Leko. In 1996 he pitched up in Buenos Aires with the idea of Fischer Random Chess. Apparently he was a bit disturbed how much chess theory had come along since 1972 and realised he couldn’t catch up. Then for a while he disappeared again but in 1999 he started ringing radio stations, speaking anti-Jewish, anti-American and anti-modern chess thoughts. Most famously he was being interviewed live when the September 11th 2001 twin towers attack occurred. He said “This is all wonderful news. What goes around comes around even for the United States”. All his broadcasts are fairly stressful to listen to but can be heard online at: http://www.fischer.jp/ In 2003 Fischer’s passport was revoked silently by the U.S. for the breaking of the trade sanctions with Yugoslavia in 1992 (and most probably his 9/11 comments), in 2004 he was arrested at Narita International Airport, Japan and detained until March 2005 when Iceland granted him a passport. The U.S. were serious about getting him back to the States and tried everything in its power to get it done but in the end Japan decided to allow him to travel to Iceland. With so many problems worldwide and the U.S. spending so much time and trouble to get him back, it did seem a little pathetic on their part and any trial wouldn’t have reflected well on anyone. Fischer travelled to and lived in Iceland until his death on January 17th 2007. Four months ago he went into hospital for treatment of long standing kidney problems but after a couple of months he was sent home to die as there was nothing more the doctors could do. His last and best ELO was published in 1975 and was 2780. Reuters made a statistic that said Fischer played 40 games a year from 1958 till 1972: 1958-37; 1959-80; 1960-68; 1961-41; 1962-68; 1963-26; 1964-11; 1965-32; 1966-35; 1967-47; 1968-26; 1969-1; 1970-7; 1971-21 and 1972-21. After 1975 he played with his former coach, master Collins, won 16, drew-3, lost-1. Main chess results: International Grandmaster (1958); 1970-1972 he was awarded an “Oscar” prize and his motto was: “All I want to do, ever, is to play chess”; 1972-1975 World Champion; winner of the 1957 U.S. Junior Championship and Senior Championship; he participated in the U.S. Championship: won first in 1963/64 and 1966/67. Best achievements: 1958 Portoroz, 5th; 1959 Mar del Plata, 3rd; 1959 Zurich, 3rd; 1959 Bled- Zagreb- Belgrade, 5th; 1959 Santiago, 4th; 1960 Mar del Plata, 1st; 1960 Reykjavik, 1st; 1961 Bled, 2nd; 1962 Stockholm Interzonal, 1st; 1962 Curacao, 4th; 1965 Havana, 2nd; 1966 Santa Monica, 2nd; 1967 Ohrid, 1st; 1967 Monte Carlo, 1st; 1967 Skopje, 1st; 1968 Netanya, 1st; 1968 Vinkovci, 1st; 1970 Rovinj-Zagreb, 1st; 1970 Buenos Aires, 1st; 1970 Palma de Mallorca, 1st and 1970 Herceg Novi, 1st. Played several matches: 1957 lost to Euwe -1/2: 1 1/2; 1957 won a match with Cardoso -6 : 2; 1958 drew a match with Janosevic -1 :1; 1958 won a match with Matulovic 2 1/2 : 11/2; 1961 drew with Reshevsky 5 1/2 : 51/2; 1961 played a match with Reshevsky but it was abandoned; 1970 drew a match with Uitumen; 1971 won a match with Taimanov 6 : 0; 1971 won a match with Larsen B. – 6 : 0; 1971 won a match with Petrosian 6 1/2 : 21/2; 1972 won a match with Spassky B. – 12 1/2 : 8 1/2. In 1975 Fischer declined to play a match with Karpov and the latter was declared the World Champion. He won a private match with Spassky in 1992. His major work My 60 Memorable Games was published in 1969.
