Chess legend Fischer dies at 64

The guy was off his rocker, despite his wealth, he once was taken to a Southern California jail in the early 1980s, because he was wondering around in a bunch of shabby clothes.

“The low point of Fischer’s California sojourn came on May 26, 1981, when two Pasadena police officers stopped him for an ID check. By then he had unkempt hair, a scraggly beard, and tattered clothes, and looked like an aging hippie down on his luck. He also generally fit the description of a man who had recently committed two bank robberies in the neighborhood. “

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200212/chun

And this quote:

“Perhaps the most telling sign of his rapid mental deterioration was that he insisted on having all his dental fillings removed. “If somebody took a filling out and put in an electronic device, he could influence your thinking,” Fischer confided to a friend. “I don’t want anything artificial in my head.””

From this Atlantic piece, about the 1972 world chess championship in Reykjavík:

Fischer's accomplishment cannot be overstated. A brash twenty-nine-year-old high school dropout, armed with little more than a pocket chess set and a dog-eared book documenting Spassky's important games, had single-handedly defeated the Soviet chess juggernaut. Spassky had a wealth of resources at his disposal to help him plot moves, including thirty-five grand masters back in the Soviet Union. Fischer, on the other hand, had two administrative seconds who served essentially as companions, and Bill Lombardy, a grand master, whose role was to help analyze games. However, Fischer did almost all the analysis himself—when he bothered to do anything. "After the games were adjourned, all the Soviets would go back to Spassky's hotel room to plan for the next position," recalls Don Schultz, one of the seconds. "Lombardy said to Fischer, 'That's a difficult position. Let's go back to the hotel and analyze it.' Fischer said, 'What do you mean, analyze? That guy's a fish. Let's go bowling.'"

Fischer gave the United States an astonishing cold war propaganda victory over the Soviets. He did this by himself.

The Soviets used their superiority in chess as proof of the superiority of communism to capitalism. Fischer shoved that down their throats, for all the world to see. He didn't just eke out a win, in effect he spotted the first two games to his opponent before he got around to playing serious chess. Then he outplayed both Spassky AND all his advisors. It was an intellectual tour de force.

Sure, he went nuts, and he said some terrible things. Lots of people are nuts, but almost none of them accomplish what Fischer did.

I fell in love with chess, largely because of Fischer. I was twelve when he won the championship. The game is unbelievably complex, yet he had a special insight into it. I remember I read a story about a chess fan who metFischer at some chess event. The guy showed him one of his best games, in chess notation, that he was particularly proud of. Fischer glanced at it for a few seconds and simply said “good game”. Disappointed by the apparent brush off, he pressed him again. Fischer, without referring to the notes, set up a board and showed him better moves that he could have made. I’m from Buffalo. My two childhood heroes were Bobby Fischer and O.J. Simpson. Say it ain’t so...

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CRAZY!