Robert James “Bobby” Fischer (born March 9, 1943) is a chess grandmaster who on September 1, 1972, became the only US -born chessplayer ever to win the World Chess Championship.

In 1975 he officially lost the title when FIDE, the international chess federation, refused to accept his conditions for a title defense. Later world champion Garry Kasparov wrote that of all world chess champions, the skill gap between Fischer and his contemporaries was the largest in history.

Fischer’s victory over the Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in the ” Match of the Century ” not only sparked interest in the game around the world, but was seen as a symbolic victory for the capitalist West. Particularly in the United States, Spassky was portrayed as the product of an impersonal, mechanical, and oppressive system of state control, while Fischer was depicted as a solitary genius who had heroically overcome the Soviets’ dominance: the American David who had slain the Communist Goliath. Ironically, the reclusive Fischer (the title of the popular film Searching for Bobby Fischer alludes to his legendary withdrawal from competition) is better known today for his anti-Americanism, anti-imperialism, and anti-Semitism. However, Fischer’s inflammatory statements have done little to diminish the professional and popular recognition of his singular achievements on the chessboard.

Early years

Robert James Fischer was born at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. His mother, Regina Wender, was a naturalized American citizen, of German Jewish descent, who was born in Switzerland, raised in St. Louis, Missouri, and later became a teacher, registered nurse, and physician. Fischer’s father was listed on the birth certificate as Wender’s first husband, Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, a German biophysicist ; the couple married in 1933 in Moscow, U.S.S.R., where Wender was studying medicine at the First Moscow Medical Institute. However, a 2002 article by Peter Nicholas and Clea Benson of The Philadelphia Inquirer suggests that Paul Nemenyi, a Hungarian physicist of Jewish ancestry, may have been Fischer’s biological father. Gerhardt and Regina Fischer divorced in 1945 when Bobby was two years old, and he grew up with his mother and older sister, Joan. In 1948, the family moved to Mobile, Arizona, where Regina taught in an elementary school. The following year they moved to Brooklyn, New York, where Regina worked as an elementary school teacher and nurse.

In May 1949, the six-year-old Fischer learned how to play chess from instructions found in a chess set that his sister had bought at a candy store below their Brooklyn apartment. He saw his first chess book a month later. For over a year he played chess on his own. At age 7, he joined the Brooklyn Chess Club and was taught by its president, Carmine Nigro. When Fischer was 13, his mother asked John W. Collins to be his chess tutor. Collins had coached several top players, including future grandmasters Robert Byrne and William Lombardy. Fischer spent much time at Collins’ house, and some have described Collins as a father figure for Fischer. Fischer attended Erasmus Hall High School together with Barbra Streisand, though he later dropped out. Many teachers remembered him as difficult. According to school records, he has an I.Q. of 187 and an incredibly retentive memory.

The Match of the Century

Fischer’s career-long stubbornness about match and tournament conditions was again seen in the run-up to his match with Spassky. Of the possible sites, Fischer preferred Yugoslavia, Spassky Iceland. For a time it appeared that the dispute would be resolved by splitting the match between the two locations, but that arrangement fell through. After that issue was resolved, Fischer refused to play unless the prize fund, which he considered inadequate, was doubled. London financier Jim Slater responding by donating an additional $125,000, bringing the prize fund to an unprecedented $250,000. Fischer finally agreed to play.

The match took place in Reykjavik, Iceland, from July through September, 1972. Fischer lost the first two games in strange fashion: the first when he played an insanely risky pawn-grab in a dead-drawn endgame, the second by forfeit when he refused to play the game in a dispute over playing conditions. Fischer would likely have forfeited the entire match, but Spassky, not wanting to win by default, yielded to Fischer’s demands to move the next game to a back room, away from the cameras whose presence had upset Fischer. The rest of the match proceeded without incident. Fischer won seven of the next nineteen games, losing only one and drawing eleven, to win the match 12.5-8.5 and become the 11th World Chess Champion.

Fischer’s win was painted as a Cold War propaganda victory for the United States: the iconoclastic American almost single-handedly defeating the mighty Soviet chess establishment that had dominated world chess for the past quarter-century.

Fischer was also the (then) highest-rated player in history according to the Elo rating system. He had a rating of 2780 after beating Spassky, which was actually a slight decline from the record 2785 rating he had achieved after routing Taimanov, Larsen, and Petrosian the previous year.

The “Fischer Boom” Years

“The Match of the Century” received front-page media coverage in the United States. With his victory, Fischer became an instant celebrity. He received numerous product endorsement offers (all of which he declined), and appeared on the covers of Life magazine and Sports Illustrated, and, with American Olympic swimming champion Mark Spitz, on a Bob Hope TV special. Membership in the United States Chess Federation doubled in 1972 and peaked in 1974 ; in American chess, these years are commonly referred to as the “Fischer Boom.”

Fischer gave the Worldwide Church of God $61,200 of his world championship prize money. However, 1972 was a disatrous year for the church, as prophecies by Herbert W. Armstrong were not fulfilled, and the church was rocked by revelations of a series of sex scandals involving Garner Ted Armstrong. Fischer, who felt betrayed and swindled by the Worldwide Church of God, left the church and publicly denounced it.

Contributions to chess theory and technology

Fischer made a number of contributions to chess theory, including establishing the viability of the so-called “Poisoned Pawn” variation of the Najdorf Sicilian (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Qb6!?). Although this bold queen sortie in order to snatch a pawn was once considered dubious, Fischer succeeded in a series of games of proving it to be sound. Fischer won many games with this line; his only loss ever with it in a serious game was in the 11th game of his 1972 match with Spassky.

Fischer also wrote an article entitled “A Bust to the King’s Gambit” in 1961 for the first issue of Larry Evans ‘ American Chess Quarterly, after Spassky beat him with that opening in their first game ever against each other. Fischer was reportedly so enraged by that loss that he immediately started working out how to make the King’s Gambit more favorable for Black. He recommended 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d6, which has since become known as the Fischer Defense to the King’s Gambit. After Fischer’s article was published, the opening was seen even less frequently in master-level games. Ironically, Fischer himself won a game with it in the 1963 U.S. Championship – against Evans – although Fischer played 3.Bc4 (the Bishop’s Gambit ) rather than 3.Nf3, which he had analyzed in his article.

In 1988, Fischer filed for U.S. Patent 4,884,255 for a new type of digital chess clock. Fischer’s clock gave each player a fixed period of time at the start of the game and then added a small increment after each completed move. The Fischer clock soon became standard in most major chess tournaments. The patent expired in November of 2001 because of overdue maintenance fees.

On June 19, 1996, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Fischer announced and advocated a variant of chess called Fischer Random Chess, also known as Chess960, that is intended to allow players to contest games based on their understanding of chess rather than their ability to memorize opening variations.

Writings of Bobby Fischer

• My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fischer (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1969, and Faber and Faber, London, 1969). This book is considered a classic text by most chess masters.
• Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess by Bobby Fischer, Donn Mosenfelder, Stuart Margulies (Bantam Books, May 1972, ISBN 0-553-26315-3 ). Uses programmed learning to help beginners learn how to see very simple chess combinations. This book is widely used by chess instructors.
• Bobby Fischer’s Games of Chess by Bobby Fischer (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1959). An early collection of 34 lightly-annotated games including the famous “Game of the Century” vs. Donald Byrne.
• Checkmate by Bobby Fischer, from 1966 to 1969 in Boys Life.

Notable chess games

• ” The Game of the Century ” – Donald Byrne-Fischer, New York 1956, Grunfeld, 5.Bf4 (D92), 0-1 Just 13 years old, Bobby played in a bold combinational style.
• Robert Byrne-Fischer, 1963-64 U.S. Championship, Neo-Grunfeld 0-1 Some have called this game from Fischer’s historic 11-0 U.S. Championship win, “The Real Game of the Century.” From an almost symmetrical position, Fischer as Black beats a grandmaster in just 21 moves. Former Chess Life editor Larry Parr reckons that Byrne’s resignation after Fischer’s 21…Qd7! is the fifth most famous resignation in chess history. Parr explains, “tournament commentators GM Nicolas Rossolimo and IM James Sherwin believed that White had a won game. ‘Fischer has nothing at all for his piece,’ declared Rossolimo, one of the finest tacticians who ever lived, before a large audience. Whereupon, White resigned!” Fischer (and Byrne) had seen deeper, realizing that Fischer was in fact winning by force.
• Fischer-Tigran Petrosian, Buenos Aires Candidates Final 1971, 7th match game, Sicilian Defense: Kan. Modern Variation (B42), 1-0 Even Petrosian, the master of defense, was not able to bear the pressure of Fischer’s rooks.
• Fischer-Boris Spassky, World Championship 1972, 6th match game, Queen’s Gambit Declined, Tartakower (D59), 1-0 One of the most beautiful and most important games of the match.