Bobby Fischer's Pathetic Endgame

The Atlantic Monthly ^ | December 2002 | Rene Chun

[Norman Conquest]

Didn't nitwit Barbara Streisand also drop out from Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School?

[ex-Texan]

Bobby Fischer is a true world class genius and chess 'god.' His accomplishment of defeating single handedly the 'Russian Mafyia' that controlled the chess world is staggering beyond belief. Unbelievable! He did it on his own, with not even token help from anyone. Then to come out of retirement in 1992 to defeat Boris Spassky was another staggering victory. It is unmatched in the world of chess.

What do I know about chess? I used to play regularly in the 1970's, and occasionally in the 1980's. In 1985 I played a good friend who is a Master, and who had defeated the Oregon champion. I played him to several draws and beat him in only one game. I haven't played at all since about 1988.

I think Bush senior's crazed antics to prevent Fischer from playing Spassky was pretty much the low point in his admistration. Fischer is a true American hero and should have been granted a New York City ticker tape parade after his 1992 Victory. He is a hero in much the stand-alone way of fictional heros in Ayn Rand's novels. Instead of the rewards of a hero, he has been forced to live in exile. Such cruelty to an American icon is beyond the imagination of most well-balanced people. It relects the type of draconian revenge of imposed by Russia and Hitler's Germany. 'Bad form,' as the Brits would say.

I wish Bobby Fischer well and wish him peace. I think GWB should invite Bobby Fischer home for a White House visit. If Fischer wants to claim that money sitting in California, all he should have to do is set up a trust with a new tax identification number.

Sorry, but that is how I feel.

[tictoc]

Good article, .577, thanks.

Now I'm off to play a few blitz Internet games. If I run into Bobby I'll tell him you said hello, and that you still refuse to disclose the money you made reselling the contents of his storage locker.

Don't thank me, it's a pleasure to bring two old friends back together again.

By the way, people, Bobby has no personal web site. But if you dig crazy chess players, check out the various web sites maintained by Sam Sloan, who is mentioned in the article.

Grade A insanity. You have been warned.

[hinckley buzzard]

The comparison to John Forbes Nash is very apt. Bobby Fischer came into public awareness around 1968-69, and it was clear from the outset that he was a brilliant but unstable hothouse
creature. The psychosis that has taken over was flickering even then in his reclusiveness and infantile petulances.

But unless you were around for the Spassky match, you can't imagine what that was like even for us rank chess amateurs, and non-chess players for that matter.

Russian chess masters were like supermen; it was a given that no one could match them at the world level,
especially a wierd kid.

It was every bit a ColdWar contest, just as the Olympics used to be, and generated as much interest.

In short, Fischer almost offhandedly spotted Spassky to a two game lead, which by any standard should have been insurmountable. He then came back, and by the end, the titan Boris Spassky was not only mentally, but physically, a beaten and exhausted man. Fischer had only gotten stronger.

You can sit there and trash him for his mental illness if you want, but whatever you do with your life it won't begin to approach the impact Fischer had on the U.S. during the not-very-vintage year of 1972.

[Tokhtamish]

Bobby Fischer, Orson Welles, Mozart, etc. Boy wonders have a way of self-destructing because they never learn wisdom to go with the cleverness.

[timestax]

Fisher is all ate up!

[Skooz]

Audio of some of Fischer's bizarre interviews may be found here.

But beware. Listening to these interviews is a case study in paranoid schizophrenia. The guy has totally lost it.

[Nogbad]

bump

[Tribune7]

The one-time chess champion of the world is now a Manila disk-jockey. That guy from ABBA should do a musical.

[Dan Day]

The Atlantic seems to be the only true general interest magazine left in America. Not focused on news, politics, sports, or any other specialization, and, unlike its evil twin, Harper's, without a political ax to grind, whether ours or anyone else's. This is probably why hardly anyone reads it.

Whenever I've found myself looking for something to read and a copy of the Atlantic Monthly happened to be at hand, I've always been completely astounded at just how well written it is. And how thorough, informative, and almost inhumanly unbiased.

One article I read was a lengthy piece on farm subsidies, which sounds like the dullest subject in the world, but they made it fascinating, and covered it so well I felt as if I had gained a first-rate understanding of the subject and its many ramifications.

They also wrote one of the classic, and incredibly prescient, articles warning of a coming clash between the Islamic world and the West, fully ten years ago: Jihad vs. McWorld

First class all the way.

[sharktrager]

I think Bush senior's crazed antics to prevent Fischer from playing Spassky was pretty much the low point in his admistration. Fischer is a true American hero and should have been granted a New York City ticker tape parade after his 1992 Victory.

Hero? The guy as been virulently anti- Semitic since the 60's, and hated the US long before the 92 incident.

Genius? Yes. Hero? Not since 1975.

[Joe_October]

Looking for Bobby Fisher was a great movie. I don't think they found him though bump.