Bobby Fischer Is Dead At 64

A number of readers wrote in to make sure we know that former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has died in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he had lived since 2005. No cause of death was given.

Re:Truly Unfortunate

[Volante3192]

When I compare Fischer's early life to that of his later, it seems to parallel another brilliant nutcase: Ted Kaczynski (The Unabomber). The man had like three degrees, published over ten papers, and then spent his life in a cabin sending out bombs.

While two cases don't make a solid trend, you wonder how many slip under the radar.

the thin line?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this is just the 'proof is in the pudding' to use an old saying to comment on another old saying: 'there is a thin line between genius and insanity'. And sometimes, genius looks like insanity because the 'normal' people don't have the capacity to understand the genius. Granted not necessarily in the circumstances referenced by you.

One year for every square.

[rasman1978]

Seems appropriate somehow.

Re:Why such hate?

[Erwos]

When did "neurotic" come to mean "hateful and bigoted"? Stalin led the USSR to victory in WWII - that doesn't mean I'm going to start eulogizing the guy, because we all know what a total bastard he was in so many other ways.

I never said anything bad about Bobby Fischer, but judging from the articles I'm seeing, he's said plenty bad about me as a Jewish-American. Why should I shed tears over the guy? Or is it somehow different when you spew rhetoric against groups rather than individuals?

Re:Why such hate?

[apankrat]

> Actually, the man succumbed to mental illness.

Fischer's demise is oddly similar to that of Luzhin from The Defence [wikipedia.org] novel by Nabokov. The main character was also a genius chess player that was drifting between the clear mind and the insanity. What's even more odd is that the novel dates back to early 1930s.

Re:Why such hate?

[hey!]

Because he was, not to put too fine a point on it, as crazy as a sack full of ferrets. His way of looking at things had all the perspective of a one eyed bureaucrat peering through a broken microscope.

It makes no sense at all to discuss his pronouncements on current events as if there were any possibility he would express any understanding of their human dimensions. It's not hate, it's indifference. And it's not really very far removed from the kind of indifference that is politically acceptable because its common. The only reason people don't sound so callous when they discuss war or economic policy is because they're tuned to the same wavelength as the others around them. They know what kinds of real things seem real and what kinds of real things seem unreal to the people they're talking to, hardly the kind of nuance you'd expect a mind like Bobby Fischer's to grasp.

Bobby Fischer had pretty good reason to hate the American government. The indifference to the suffering of others thrown in with that is not particularly shocking, and the fact that he let it show publicly just demonstrates his utter lack of tact, a quality that in all probability he never felt the need for. The antisemitism was just garden variety self-loathing, obviously ugly as well as bat-shit crazy, but not so incomprehensible.

Mental Malfunction

[Philotechnia]

When a mind possessed of analytic capacities such as Fischer's turns those powers on the world, the result is inevitability some kind of psychosis. The world simply requires a more synthetic approach. While the content of Fischer's diatribes is certainly controversial, let's be wise enough to see they likely stem from the fact that he was a man trapped in his mind, unable to escape the analytical powers of his mind and live more holistically in the world. Even if the content of his politics had changed, it wouldn't change the fact that they were based in a mental misappropriation of the world.

Lets not remember the man for his faults, which boil down to misapplied genius if not true biological mental illness. Instead, let's remember the man for the great intellect that he possessed, and let his later political endeavors serve as reminder to us all of what can happen when we analyze the world from too great a distance instead of simply living inside of it.

Vivere in pace, Mr. Fischer, wherever your soul now resides.

Boy's Life

[Nom du Keyboard]

I remember Bobby Fischer once provided chess problems to Boy's Life magazine. It was a generous thing for him to do, and was my first exposure to the problem-solving side of chess itself.

As for Fischerandom Chess, I had a similar idea years ago where each side arranged their first row into their own preferred order, which was then revealed to their opponent at the commencement of play. It was a combining of Chess with Stratego that I called Modern Chess. Of course, my idea never caught on since, unlike Bobby Fischer, I Am Not A Chess Grand Master.

I'm sorry that his views over the later years became so hard to justify, or even understand in any rational sense, but I'll always remember my first contact with his name.

Re:Why such hate?

[Anonymous Coward]

O.J. Simpson was a damn good football player and good enough to win for San Francisco a Super Bowl championship. So what if he murdered 2 people. Are we not all murderers to some degree?

Re:Why such hate?

[siriuskase]

This is a perfect example of what I hate about the cult of celebrity. If he had never been the great chess champion, we would have never known of his antisemitism or his extreme opinions to being used as a propaganda tool. Yes, greatness in one arena tends to go hand in hand with being nuts, possibly from pressure or possibly from the same personality flaws that made him great at chess. He acted quite nutty during the Spasky match; the public debate at the time was whether it was just an act. But, it did serve to psych out his opponent and amuse the rest of us. But, Fischer and other celebrities rarely have great expertise outside of the field that got them famous in the first place and I do wish that their opinions on politics, religion, and parenting were not considered news worthy.

Am I the only one who gets it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop me if I'm wrong here, but a chessboard is square with 8 board positions on a side. A chess king tips over at age 64 and you guys rant about politics??? This is a clear sign that in fact god doesn't play dice, he plays chess, and he's got quite a sense of dark humor too!

A story from Bobby's youth....

[sampson7]

There's a wonderful and somewhat tragic tale from Bobby's youth that I think explains so much. (I'm sorry I don't remember which book I read it in, so I can't give credit.)

Bobby was living in New York City as a teenager and playing chess at an amazingly high level. He was also, clearly, a mentally troubled young man, and many of his chess playing friends noticed the instability as well as the genius. A number of friends convened a meeting and discussed taking up a collection to try to get Bobby some professional psyciatric help, which it was clear he needed even then. The meeting is going along, and most agree to encourage Bobby to get help.

Towards the end of the meeting, someone asks "What if Bobby gets well and stops playing good chess?" The meeting then breaks up and nothing ever came of it.

In many ways, Chess is about black versus white. My former chess teacher always prefered that we use the terms "light" and "dark" squares, rather then black and white, and I think it makes a very apt metaphor for Bobby's life. He lived some of his life on the light squares, accomplishing one of the greatest mental-athletic endeavors of all time. For this, he is rightly lionized as one of the great geniuses of the 20th century. He also led many of his years on the dark side of the board as well. Homeless in Los Angeles. Travling around penniless and without recognition for over 20 years. Finally reaping considerable financial rewards in Yogoslovia at the cost of his freedom.

Finally, people note that Bobby in his later years was an anti-semite and said some truly disturbing things. Yet that's not how I see it. Rather than spiteful, his ramblings should be chalked up to the mental illness that clearly ravaged his brain throughout his later life. Just as the deranged homeless man on street should be pitied, so should Bobby. He lived in the largely Jewish chess community of New York for years, and while he may have had issues, his hatred of Jews only reached full blown proportions as his mental health declined. Clearly, he did not suffer fools. But I see no evidence that his dislike for stupid people was anything other than color/creed blind until later in life. Truly, these were the untreated manifestations of the illness that his chess colleagues recognized all those years ago in New York.

RIP Bobby, and I hope that you find the peace in the next world (whether that be in the big chess board in the sky or simply as worm food) that eluded you in this one.

Game of the Century

[daffmeister]

Just to pull this discussion back a little from mental instability and mention his chess, his "game of the century", played at the age of 13 against a former US Open champion, is quite remarkable.

You can see a version with commentary [bobby-fischer.net] or an interactive chessboard version [chessgames.com].