Bobby Fischer; World Champion Known as the 'Bad Boy of Chess'

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Chess Champion Bobby Fischer Dead at 64

The chess world is mourning the loss of reclusive chess master Bobby Fischer. Fischer died in a hospital in Iceland yesterday at age 64.

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Mr. Fischer entered international competition in August and September 1958 at the interzonal competition held in Portoroz, Yugoslavia. He tied for fifth place, which qualified him to be named an international grandmaster, the youngest player ever to be awarded the distinction.

As a player, he was known for his boldness and unpredictability. He did not wait for his opponent to make mistakes but attacked relentlessly and rarely repeated gambits.

"He was a classicist," said Brady, who played speed chess against Mr. Fischer hundreds of times. "He didn't go into great fireworks and deep sacrifices. He was almost like Bach instead of Beethoven, plus he played every aspect of the game."

Brady also called him "probably the most booked-up player of the game," meaning that he was familiar with chess gambits and chess masters from the earliest days of the game.

In 1970, he won the unofficial world five-minute championship in Yugoslavia with 17 victories, 4 draws and 1 loss. After the tournament, he recalled from memory all of the more than 1,000 moves from his 22 games.

Mr. Fischer's truculence manifested itself early in his career. In July 1961, he began a scheduled 16-game match with Samuel Reshevsky. Reshevsky was an Orthodox Jew and would not play on the Sabbath, so the 12th game, which had been scheduled for a Saturday evening, was postponed until the next morning. Contending that he was not accustomed to playing in the morning, Mr. Fischer refused to appear, thus losing the game, and ultimately the entire match, by default.

Living in a small walk-up apartment in Brooklyn at the time, Mr. Fischer said he would like to enter the real estate business after winning the world championship.

That opportunity came in 1972, when Mr. Fischer and Spassky sat across from each other at a marble and mahogany chess table in tranquil, out-of-the-way Reykjavik. Larry Evans, a U.S. grandmaster, described Mr. Fischer at the time as "the most individualistic, intransigent, uncommunicative, uncooperative, solitary, self-contained and independent chess master of all time, the loneliest chess champion in the world. He is also the strongest player in the world. In fact, the strongest player who ever lived."

Constantly complaining about his chair, the lighting and the whirring noise of TV cameras, he defeated Spassky, breaking a 26-year Russian monopoly on the title. In a game long dominated by Europeans, Mr. Fischer became the first U.S. champion since Wilhelm Steinitz, a naturalized American from Bohemia, reigned from 1886 to 1894. Paul Morphy, a New Orleans prodigy and one of Mr. Fischer's heroes, was considered the unofficial world champion in 1858.

Mr. Fischer received a record purse of $250,000 at Reykjavik, thanks in part to his threatened walkouts and outspoken demands. He also transformed a genteel game into an international sport comparable to professional golf or tennis. Membership in the U.S. Chess Federation nearly tripled.

The match glowed with symbolic geopolitical overtones as well, even for those who knew little about chess. Fischer vs. Spassky, the lone American in a "High Noon" showdown with the product of the soulless Soviet machine, was the Cold War personified.

Reykjavik was the pinnacle of Mr. Fischer's career. From then on, his eccentricities overwhelmed his brilliance. In 1975, he lost his title by default, refusing to defend it against Anatoly Karpov after a dispute over match rules.