Robert Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was born March 9, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois. He is a grandmaster and former world chess champion, who on September 1, 1972, became the first American chess player to win the FIDE 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. Garry Kasparov wrote that of all world champions of chess, the skill gap between Fischer and his contemporaries was the largest in history. Fischer is also well known for his eccentricity, unconventional and irrational behavior, and outspoken political views. Despite his prolonged absence from competitive play, or perhaps because of it, Fischer is still among the best known of all chess players.
Fischer's victory over the Soviet champion Boris Spassky to win the world championship in the "Match of the Century" was seen as a symbolic victory for the West that catalyzed interest in the game internationally. His opponent was portrayed, in the United States in particular, as the product of an impersonal, mechanical, and oppressive system of state control, while Fischer was the solitary genius overcoming the Soviets' claim to dominance. As a national hero, Americans were willing to forgive his behavior and views as eccentricities, and in popular culture he became a symbol of the genius whose brilliance is so great that he is destroyed by it.
It was the candidates' cycle that started in 1969 that put Fischer on the road to the World Championship. The first step in the championship process was the zonal tournaments around the world. The U.S. Championship that year was also the zonal, with the top three finishers qualifying for the next stage, the Interzonal. Fischer, however, had sat out the U.S. Championship because of disagreements about the tournament's format and prize fund. To enable Fischer to compete for the title, the third-place finisher, Grandmaster Pal Benko, gave up his coveted place in the Interzonal, for which he received a modest $2,000 payment from the United States Chess Federation (USCF). All the other participants also had to agree to defer to Fischer, which they did. This unusual arrangement was the work of Ed Edmondson, then the Executive Director of the USCF.
Fischer proceeded to win the Interzonal by a remarkable 3.5 points, finishing with seven consecutive wins (one by default). He continued his display of chess prowess in the Candidates matches, defeating his opponents with a lopsided series of results which still has not been equalled by the world's top players. Both Mark Taimanov (USSR) and Bent Larsen of Denmark, the second best non-Soviet player after Fischer himself, were crushed 6-0 (+6 -0 =0). Larsen later explained in a ChessBase interview that his one-sided loss was due in part to his condition during the match: "The organizers chose the wrong time for this match. I was languid with the heat and Fischer was better prepared for such exceptional circumstances... I saw chess pieces through a mist and, thus, my level of playing was not good." Critics, however, feel that Larsen is exaggerating, still bitter from his terrible loss.
Only former World Champion Tigran Petrosian, Fischer's final opponent in the Candidates matches, made any impression against Fischer's skill and strength. Fischer won the first game to complete a remarkable streak of twenty consecutive wins, a feat which has been compared to throwing back-to-back no-hitters in baseball. Petrosian broke the streak by beating Fischer in the second game. After three draws, however, Fischer won the next four games to win the match by a comfortable score, 6.5-2.5 (+5 =3 -1). In 1971 Fischer had finally earned the right to challenge the World Champion, Boris Spassky, whom he had never beaten before.
The match between Spassky and Fischer took place in Reykjavk, Iceland, from July through September, 1972. Fischer lost the first two games, the first on a blunder, the second by forfeit when he refused to play his game. It seemed that Fischer was going to forfeit the entire match until Spassky intervened surprisingly, and yielded to Fischer's demands to move the next game to a back room, away from the cameras. After this controversial incident, Fischer proceeded to win seven of the next 19 games, losing only one and drawing 11, for a final score of 12.5 - 8.5, to win against Spassky.
The outcome of this match cemented two milestones in Fischer's career--the ambition of being the World Chess Champion, and being the highest rated player ever according to the Elo rating system (a rating of 2780 after the Spassky match, although he had been as high as 2785 in 1971). The win over Spassky was also considered something of a Cold War propaganda victory for the United States, confirming as it did that the strongest player in the world, in a sport dominated by the Soviets since World War II, was now an iconoclastic American who defeated the mighty Soviet chess establishment almost single-handedly.
Fischer was scheduled to defend his title against his challenger Anatoly Karpov in 1975. Fischer had not played any tournament games since winning the title, and he laid down numerous conditions for the match. FIDE agreed to all of his demands but two, rejecting Fischer's demands on how the match would be won. Fischer claimed the usual system (24 games with the first player to get 12.5 points winning) encouraged the player in the lead to draw games, which was not good for chess in his opinion. Fischer instead wanted a match of an unlimited number of games, with the first player to score ten wins winning the match, draws not counting. Many detractors argued that this proposal was unrealistic and would turn the match into a test of stamina rather than skill.
Most controversial of all Fischer's conditions however was his demand that, in the event of each player winning nine games, the champion (Fischer in this case) would retain his title. This meant that Fischer only needed to win nine games to retain the championship, while Karpov had to win by a score of ten to eight. Because FIDE would not change the rules to give Fischer more of an advantage than previous champions had enjoyed, Fischer resigned in a cable to FIDE president Max Euwe on June 27, 1974. Soon after his clash with FIDE, Fischer disappeared and did not play competitive chess for nearly twenty years.
After 20 years of not competing publicly, Fischer emerged from isolation to challenge Spassky (then placed 96-102 on the rating list) to a "Revenge Match of the 20th Century" in 1992. Fischer, who insists to this day that he is still the World Champion because he never lost a title match, demanded that the organizers bill the match as "The World Chess Championship," although at this time Garry Kasparov was the recognized FIDE champion. The purse for this match was reported to be $5 million, with two-thirds to go to the winner. The United States Treasury department informed Fischer, before the match, that his participation was against the law, and, following the match, obtained an arrest warrant for him. Fischer won the match, 10 wins to 5, with 15 draws. Many grandmasters observing the match said that Fischer was past his prime. In the book Mortal Games, Garry Kasparov wrote: "He is playing ok. Around 2600 or 2650. It wouldn't be close between us." Fischer has not played any competitive chess since the 1992 match.
On July 13, 2004, Fischer was arrested at Narita International Airport in Narita, Japan near Tokyo for allegedly using a revoked U.S. passport while trying to board a Japan Airlines flight to Ninoy Aquino International Airport near Manila, Philippines. Fischer used a genuine passport that the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland issued to him in 1997, but which was revoked in 2003. He has been wanted by the United States government since 1992 when he played a chess match with Spassky in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which violated the presidential executive order #12810 of George H. W. Bush based on UN sanctions against engaging in economic activities in Yugoslavia. Fischer's supporters have stated that other U.S. citizens were present at the match, specifically reporters, and were not prosecuted.
Seeking ways to evade deportation to the U.S., Fischer wrote a letter to the government of Iceland in early January 2005, asking for Icelandic citizenship. Sympathetic to Fischer's plight - but reluctant to grant him the full benefits of citizenship - Icelandic authorities granted him an alien's passport. When this proved insufficient for the Japanese authorities, the Al ingi agreed unanimously to grant Fischer full citizenship in late March for humanitarian reasons as they felt he was being unjustly treated by the U.S. and Japanese governments. Meanwhile, the U.S. government filed charges of tax evasion against Fischer in an effort to prevent him from traveling to Iceland.
As confirmation of Fischer's new citizenship reached Japanese authorities, they agreed to let him out of custody to fly to his new home country. Although Iceland has an extradition treaty with the U.S., according to Icelandic law, Icelandic citizens may not be extradited from Iceland and they reaffirmed their perception that the U.S. government had singled Fischer out for his political statements.
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