Bobby Fischer

Bobby Fischer (Robert James Fischer) , 1943-2008, American chess player, b. Chicago. In 1958, he became a grandmaster, the youngest to that time. In the Interzonal and Candidates' matches in 1970 and 1971 he won an unprecedented 20 straight games to qualify to challenge Boris Spassky for the world championship. When he overwhelmed Spassky in 1972, he became the only American world titlist and, according to a consensus of contemporary grandmasters, the strongest chess player in history. From then until 1992, Fischer did not play a single game of chess in public. He forfeited his world title in 1975 after a rules dispute with the International Federation of Chess, and turned down lucrative offers to play again. In 1992 he was indicted after participating in a exhibition match with Spassky in Yugoslavia, against which the United States had an economic boycott. He subsequently lived abroad as a fugitive and was arrested (2004) in Japan for traveling on a revoked passport. Threatened with deportation to the United States, he was allowed to leave (2005) for Iceland after that nation granted him citizenship.

Bibliography: See D. Edmonds and J. Eldinow, Bobby Fischer Goes to War (2004).