Bobby Fischer
Robert James Fischer (Chicago, March 9, 1943 - Reykjavik, January 17, 2008) was an American chess Grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. Fischer won the United States Chess Championship eight times, first triumphing at fourteen years of age. In 1964 he won the championship with a score of 11-0, the only perfect score in that tournament's history. To qualify for the 1972 World Chess Championship, Fischer swept his games against Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen 6-0. Fischer then won his world title challenge against Borís Spassky of the USSR in Reykjavik, Iceland, after winning a preliminary qualifying match against Tigran Petrosian in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Icelandic match was heralded as a true Cold War matchup between the United States and the Soviet Union, and drew more world attention than any other chess championship in the history of the sport. In 1975, Fischer refused to defend his title because an agreement on the conditions of the game could not be reached with FIDE. As a result, Anatoly Karpov of the Soviet Union was named the World Champion by default. Fischer subsequently stopped playing regularly.
He resurfaced in 1992 to play an unofficial rematch against Spassky. The event took place in Yugoslavia, which at the time was under a United Nations embargo. Fischer won the match, but his participation sparked a dispute with the United States government, which had previously warned him that if he played in that country he would be violating an executive order imposing sanctions against Yugoslavia. The chess player ignored the warning and played, so his government issued a drag order against him. Fischer fled to Eastern Europe, eventually ending up in Japan, where he became involved with an important local chess player, Miyoko Watai, with whom he lived and over the years was recognized as his wife. However, in 2004, he was arrested at the Narita airport and detained for several months for trying to travel using a passport that had been revoked by the US government. Faced with the risk that he would be deported, tried and imprisoned in his country, the Icelandic Althing granted him citizenship and a passport, which allowed him to travel to the capital, Reikjavik, where he lived until his death in 2008. for kidney complications
During his career he made numerous and lasting contributions to chess. His book My 60 Memorable Games, published in 1969, is considered a notable read in sports. He also patented a modified timing system for chess games that generated a new game modality in which a predetermined amount of time is agreed upon after each move, which was called "with increment", "with bonus" or simply "on Fisher way. He also proposed a variant of the game: Fischer's Random Chess, also known as 960 Chess, since in this modality the initial position of the pieces is randomly assigned among the 960 possible initial positions.
Early Years
Robert (Bobby) James Fischer was born at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, on March 9, 1943. His mother, Regina Wender Fischer, was a naturalized United States citizen, having been born in Switzerland; His parents were Polish Jews. Raised in St. Louis, Regina became a teacher, nurse, and later a doctor.
After graduating from high school, still in her teens, Regina traveled to Germany to visit her brother. It was there that she met geneticist and future Nobel Prize winner Hermann Joseph Muller, who convinced her to move to Moscow to study medicine. There she enrolled at the IM Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, where she met Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, also known as Gerardo Liebscher, a German biophysicist, whom she married in November 1933.
In 1938, Hans-Gerhardt and Regina had a daughter, Joan Fischer. The resurgence of antisemitism under Stalin led Regina to go with Joan to Paris, where she became an English teacher. The threat of a forthcoming German invasion led them both to travel to the United States in 1939. Regina and Hans-Gerhardt had already separated in Moscow, although they were not officially divorced until 1945.
At the time of the birth of her son Bobby Fischer in 1943, Regina was homeless and held different jobs and taught classes at different schools to support her family. She raised her children as a single mother and also became involved in the political activism. In 1949 she moved with her children to Manhattan and the following year she moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she studied for a master's degree in nursing and later began working in that field.
Beginnings of Chess
In March 1949, six-year-old Bobby and his sister Joan taught themselves how to play chess, simply by following the basic instructions on a set purchased at a candy store. Joan soon lost interest in chess and her mother had no time to play. Thus, Fischer played many of his early games against himself. When the family was vacationing in Patchogue, Long Island, Bobby found a book of old chess games and studied it intently.
In 1950 the family moved to Brooklyn, first to an apartment at the corner of Union Street and Franklin Avenue and then to a two-bedroom apartment at 560 Lincoln Place. It was there that "Fischer soon became so engrossed in the game that Regina feared he was spending too much time alone." As a result, on November 14, 1950, her mother sent a postcard to the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, to place an ad asking if other boys Bobby's age might be interested in playing chess with him.. The newspaper turned him down because no one knew how to classify it, but referred his query to Hermann Helms, the "Dean of American Chess," who told him that Master Max Pavey, former Scottish champion, would be giving an exhibition of simulcasts on January 17, 1951. In a first public appearance, Fischer played in that exhibition, and although he held out for fifteen minutes drawing a crowd of spectators, he ultimately lost to the chess master.
One of those spectators was the president of the Brooklyn Chess Club, Carmine Nigro, an American chess expert and instructor. He was so impressed with his game that he decided to introduce him to the club and teach him. Fischer noted of his Time with Nigro: “Mr. Nigro was possibly not the best player in the world, but he was a very good teacher. Meeting him was probably a decisive factor for me to continue with chess.” In 1952 Nigro organized the first chess tournament in which Fischer participated in his house. In the summer of 1955, at the age of 12, he joined the Manhattan Chess Club. Fischer's relationship with Nigro lasted until 1956, when the latter moved to a distant district. That same year, Fischer began attending the Hawthorne Chess Club, based in the home of master John "Jack" W.Collins. Although Collins has been described as his teacher, he suggested that their relationship be more accurately described as tutoring. At home, Fisher played regularly against him and other players, studying from books in his personal library and dined there repeatedly.
Paul Nemenyi as Fischer's father
In 2002, Peter Nicholas and Clea Benson of The Philadelphia Inquirer published an investigative report claiming that Bobby Fischer's biological father was actually Paul Nemenyi. This was not confirmed by Fischer. Nemenyi, a Hungarian mathematician and physicist of Jewish descent, was considered an expert in fluid and applied mechanics. Benson and Nicholas continued the investigation into Bobby Fischer's paternity and gathered additional evidence from court records, personal interviews, and even an FBI investigative summary written by J. Edgar Hoover, confirming their earlier conclusions.
Throughout the 1950s, the FBI investigated Regina and her circle for alleged communist views and because of her time in Moscow. FBI files note that Hans-Gerhardt Fischer never entered the United States, while they record that Nemenyi took a keen interest in Fischer's education. Not only were the two reported to have been in a relationship in 1942, but Nemenyi made monthly child support payments to Regina and paid for Bobby's education until his own death in 1952. Meanwhile, his son, Peter Nemenyi, told friends that Bobby Fischer was his half-brother, and shared with him the financial support he continued to receive after his father's death.
Professional chess
Bobby Fischer's professional career coincided with the rise of the Soviet school of chess which, subsidized by the State, dominated the discipline from 1948 until the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, with Fischer's hiatus and even after said disintegration, the players trained in said Soviet school were at the top of chess for years.
The 1957 United States Championship had a Zonal category for the International Chess Federation (FIDE) in terms of the world title Candidate system. Fischer, already junior champion of the United States and having finished ninth in the previous edition of the absolute championship, won first place, and qualified for the Interzonal Tournament in Portoroz (today Slovenia) the following year, in which he obtained sixth position: a magnificent result that allowed him to enter the Candidates tournament and automatically obtain the title of Grandmaster.
Soviet GM David Bronstein said of Fischer's stay in Portorož: "It was interesting for me to watch Fischer, but for a long time I couldn't understand why this 15-year-old played chess so well." Fischer became the youngest person to be classified as a Candidate (to world champion) and the youngest Grandmaster in history at 15 years, 6 months and 1 day. "By then everyone knew we had a genius in our hands."
Many players have since surpassed Fischer's record for early grandmaster status; It should be noted, however, that the American reached it with very limited resources, at a time when chess information, particularly that which reached the United States, was minimal; alone and without coaches (while Soviet players received official support), and without the help of powerful game programs and databases available to current players. It took thirty-three years for the Hungarian chess player Judit Polgár to establish a new record.
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Fischer played nine times in the Rosenwald Tournament in New York, where the United States Championship was decided. In his first participation he could only win a couple of games, although one of them, his victory against Donald Byrne, projected him to international fame as it was published in specialized magazines around the world. At the age of 13, Fischer won through a combination game. In his remaining eight appearances, he obtained the national title in all of them with at least one point advantage over the second classified. In the 1963 edition, he also managed to be crowned champion, winning in all the games; an unprecedented feat since figures such as Samuel Reshevsky, Larry Evans, Pal Benko and Robert Byrne participated in the contest.
Chess Olympics
Fischer attended four chess Olympiads with the United States team. In all of them he achieved outstanding results, including two silver medals and one bronze defending his country's first board. In Leipzig (Germany), in 1960, he tied with the Latvian grandmaster (Lithuania was under Soviet rule at the time) and world champion at the time, Mikhail Tal; At the end of the game, Fischer told the champion: "You don't play badly", to which Tal replied: "It's the first time you've admitted it, and if you had beaten me you would say that I played like a genius". However, in the second round of the tournament, he also played against the Ecuadorian César Muñoz Vicuña, from Guayaquil, Ecuadorian chess master, civil engineer and, for several years, president of the Ecuadorian National Sports Federation, who defeated Fischer through a strong defense. Sicilian that he accompanied with the dragon variant and the Yugoslav attack.
In Varna (Bulgaria), two years later, Fischer would meet the legendary Mikhail Botvinnik, whom he dominated throughout the game although he would save the tie thanks to the help in analyzing the adjourned position from his teammates, especially from Efim Geller, reaching a theoretical draw final at a material disadvantage. In the Olympics in Havana (Cuba), the Soviet Union team reserved the world champion Petrosián, for which Fischer faced the then runner-up Boris Spassky with whom he signed a draw after fifty-seven moves in a game that began with the Spanish Opening or Ruy López. In his last "Olympic" presentation, in Siegen (Germany), Spassky, already as world champion, defeated the Brooklyn Grandmaster. Fischer in total won 40 games, drew 18 and lost 7 in the highest team competition in chess, with a percentage of effectiveness of 75.4%.
International tournaments
In the heritage of the 1959 Candidates tournament, in Yugoslavia (it was played in three cities: Bled, Zagreb and Belgrade), Fischer finished in fifth place, tied on points with Svetozar Gligorić, a great international chess figure; this time Fischer lost all four of his games against Tal. In 1962, he triumphed at the Interzonal in Stockholm (Sweden), with a two-point advantage over Tigrán Petrosián (1929-1984), who would be crowned world champion a year later, and Geller. However, in the Candidates tournament in Curaçao (Netherlands Antilles), Fischer would finish in fourth place, behind Petrosián, Paul Keres and Geller, and would denounce in a magazine article that the Soviets played as a team, assisting each other, and agreeing to tables. easy between them to share the points and reserve, and keep other players away from the preferential positions. Fischer's accusations could not be proven, but soon after FIDE would change the rules of the world championship, replacing the Candidates tournament system with that of individual matches.[citation required]
Fischer temporarily withdrew from professional chess for a few months between 1964 and 1965, dedicated himself to giving exhibitions and did not participate in the candidate cycle that culminated in the world title match between Petrosyan and Boris Spassky in 1966, nor did he attend to the Tel Aviv Olympics (Israel). In 1967, however, he would appear at the Interzonal de Sousse (Tunisia) in a new attack for the world title. After ten rounds, Fischer was leading the standings with a record of seven wins and three draws, when he decided to quit the tournament early, citing a "loaded schedule." His game against Reshevsky is memorable from that contest, since Fischer appeared in the game room a few minutes before losing by default, and with half the time allotted on his clock he defeated his opponent with relative ease.[citation required]
Bobby Fischer won every tournament he entered from December 1962 to the 1972 World Championship, with only two exceptions: the 1965 Capablanca Memorial Tournament (which was held in Havana and which Fischer played via teletype from New York), in which he was tied for second with Borislav Ivkov and Geller, half a point behind winner Smyslov; and the 1966 Piatigorsky Cup, in which he placed second, one and a half points behind Spassky. Fischer, in his entire career, never lost an individual matchup or match. He defeated the Filipino Cardoso in 1957, and in 1961 he left a duel with Reshevsky unfinished, which was drawn after 11 games, due to disagreements with the organizers; On his way to the world championship he claimed three unappealable victories (against the Dane Bent Larsen and the Soviets Mark Taimanov and Petrosián), and finally defeated Spassky in the already mentioned and famous Match of the Century. Twenty years later, in 1992, he played an exhibition match against his old rival (and friend) Spassky that was the rock for the scandal so that Fischer ended up being persecuted by the American courts due to his open insubordination.[citation required]
One of Fischer's distinguishing characteristics was the speed of his game. On very few occasions he found himself in time trouble, as he almost always played swiftly and correctly. This highlighted him as one of the best players in rapid games (called blitz, where each player has five minutes for the entire game). In 1970, the most important rapid game tournament held up to then was held in Herceg Novi (Montenegro, Yugoslavia). Fischer triumphed by scoring 19 of a possible 22 points against opponents such as former world champions Tal, Petrosyan and Smyslov and former hopefuls David Bronstein and Reshevsky. Only Fischer and Tal were able to replay from memory the games they had played once the competition was over.[citation needed]
That same year, the annual meeting between the Soviet Union and the rest of the world was held in Belgrade (Serbia, Yugoslavia). Bobby Fischer agreed to play board two, giving up board one to Larsen, who had fared better in previous months as the American had been inactive. Fischer had to face Petrosián, then world runner-up, whom he convincingly beat 3-1 (two wins and two draws). In the 1971 edition, the American won the Chess Oscar for the first time, a distinction that he would repeat the following two years.
Candidate Meetings
In 1972, he finally achieved the right to play in the World Championship. He obtained first place in the Interzonal Tournament in Palma de Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain) in 1970, in which he won fifteen of the twenty-four games he played (the last seven of the tournament in a row), something unusual considering the level of the tournament. Later, at the height of his strength, he overwhelmed the great teachers Mark Taimanov (Soviet) and Bent Larsen (Danish, the only one who had managed to defeat him in the Interzonal the previous year) in the Candidates cycle held throughout 1971). by the same result in their respective best-of-10 matches: 6-0. There had not been a similar result since 1876, when the first world champion Wilhelm Steinitz defeated Joseph Henry Blackburne, one of the best players, 7-0. of the time, although, in that case, Steinitz had the advantage of having just laid the foundations of modern chess that gave him an obvious superiority over the rest of the players.
In the case of Taimanov, it caused him serious problems with the Soviet communist government, which accused him of lacking character and of not having known how to "defend patriotic honor." In fact, this result caused a huge stir among the chess authorities of the Soviet Union, who not only accused Taimanov, but also the entire team of analysts who accompanied him during the match.
In the Candidates final, Fischer defeated the former world champion, the Soviet Tigrán Petrosián, by 6.5 to 2.5 in Buenos Aires (Argentina), thus earning the right to face Spassky with the world title at stake. His string of 20 consecutive victories (the last seven in the Interzonal, those in his confrontations with Taimanov and Larsen and the first in his match with Petrosian) constitutes a true milestone in the history of elite chess, as is the fact that he only conceded 2.5 points (one loss and three draws) in the 21 games he played in the three qualifiers of the Candidates cycle.
Playing force
Starting in 1970, the International Chess Federation adopted the formula of the Hungarian scientist Árpád Élő to estimate playing strength in chess. Fischer, in the light of this system, reached the mark of 2785 points, a record that for a long time was considered the best performance achieved by a chess player. Over time, several notable players have broken the 2800 point barrier, including five world champions Garry Kasparov, Veselin Topalov, Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen, as well as grandmasters Levon Aronian, Alexander Grischuk, Ding Liren and Fabiano Caruana. This fact is linked to the phenomenon known as "Elo inflation".
The so-called “Meeting of the Century”
The 1972 world championship was held in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, where he faced Spassky. At this time, Fischer's Elo rating was 125 points higher than his rival's, whom he had not been able to beat on previous occasions. The meeting between the two took place in the context of geopolitical tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States. Former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik provided Spassky's team with an exhaustive analysis of Fischer's games; Igor Bondarevski would address the technical part; Efim Geller the opening repertoire; Nicolay Krogius psychological assistance; and Ivo Ney would be in charge of the physical development of the champion. Fischer's support was made up of Lombardy, the lawyer Paul Marshall (who played a prominent role) and Fred Cramer, from the United States Chess Federation. [citation required]
After the 30th move of the first game, the two players reached a completely symmetrical position (two dark-squared bishops and six pawns spread equally on both sides). But Fischer lost when he captured a pawn with his bishop, which, after the move of Spassky's pawn, was left with no escape, being easy prey for the king that was close to him. Then, Fischer did not show up for the second game citing disagreement with the organization. Finally Fischer beat him in the third game. The fourth game was drawn and, from the fifth, it was the American GM who prevailed. After a tense development, Fischer defeated his rival after 21 games (Spassky abandoned the last game by phone, which had been postponed...) and was crowned World Chess Champion on September 1, 1972 with a total of 7 games. won, 3 lost and 11 tables. Robert Fischer has been the only American to win that title.
In this position, after the bad play 41. Ad7, the departure was postponed. The target left before the resumption.
| Transcription of game 21 and last of the match: Whites: Spassky | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Withdrawal
Completed the next classification cycle three years later, in 1975, he defended the title of champion against the new contender, in this case the young Soviet Anatoli Kárpov (b. 1951), 24 years old. Then Fischer told FIDE that he did not want to defend his title in the same way that he had won it, but according to another scheme prior to 1948, which consisted, among other things, that the victory would go to whoever achieved 10 victories first (not counting the tables), the champion retaining the title in the event of a tie at 9. So far it can be said that it is an equitable and reasonable approach; personal taste, if you will, but reasonable (also in the event of a 12-12 tie, the champion retains the title in the 24-game modality).[citation required]
FIDE and the Soviet delegation did not accept in principle such a long modality of 10 victories, and limited it to 36 games. Later they ended up accepting that it was unlimited.
The issue of a tie at 9 did not seem reasonable or admissible to them. To better understand this controversial condition, it can be stated as follows: "The champion will be Kárpov if he wins 10 games, and Fischer if he wins 9" (in the 24-game modality, the applicant must win 12.5 points, and the champion 12 points). Many observers considered the 9-9 clause requested by Fischer unfair because it would require the challenger to win by at least two games (10-8). Botvinnik called the 9-9 clause "unsportsmanlike". David Bronstein and Lev Alburt considered the 9–9 clause reasonable.
FIDE disallowed this claim after a narrow vote of 35 votes to 32, but then Fischer flatly refused to play. There was no choice but to strip Fischer of his title and proclaim champion Karpov, who, with his victories in major tournaments and matches for the world championship over the next ten years, earned the world title. and, over time, he managed to win 160 elite chess tournaments.
Fischer retired at the age of 29. The most plausible explanation is that he had the right to set the conditions to defend his title of World Champion in the previous modality, and he would not play under the conditions imposed by FIDE but under his own, as he had conveyed:
As I made clear on my telegram to FIDE delegates, the conditions of the championship I proposed were not negotiable. Mr. Cramer informs me that the rules that the winner will be the first player to win ten games, uncounted draws, unlimited number of games, and if nine wins against nine match the champion recovering the title and prize fund divided into equal parts, were rejected by FIDE delegates. In doing so, the FIDE has decided against my participation in the 1975 Chess World Championship. Therefore, I renounce my title as FIDE World Chess Champion. Attentively, Bobby Fischer.[chuckles]required]
Fischer continued without playing and disappeared from public life. Karpov met with him in 1976 to arrange a meeting, but his attempt was unsuccessful. In 1981, the homeless-looking Fischer was arrested in Pasadena, California, when police mistook him for a bank robber.
In 1992, at the age of 49, he agreed to play a friendly exhibition match against his old adversary Spassky, then 55 years old. The match would start in Sveti Stefan, on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, and end in Belgrade, both enclaves of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a nation from the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Although it was notorious for being Fischer's reappearance after 20 years, this meeting was far from being a repetition of the famous one in 1972, since the Soviet Union had dissolved and there were no longer international interests or tensions; Spassky had become a French national and had fallen back in the international Elo ranking to 124th place; and finally, there was no official or unofficial title at stake. The financial section was relevant, since the exhibition included 3.65 million dollars as a prize for the winner and 1.35 for the loser. The United States Government prohibited Fischer from being involved in the party because of trade restrictions imposed on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by his involvement in the recent Bosnian war. Before the cameras, Fischer (who was playing with an American flag on the table) spat on the letter from the government of his country that ordered him to give up playing. The match was held and ended with the victory of the American. The authorities of his country issued a search and arrest warrant against him, which could cost him up to ten years in prison.
Over the years, Fischer made a number of anti-Semitic and anti-American pronouncements: and despite being of Jewish descent himself, he called himself an admirer of Adolf Hitler. On at least one occasion he spoke out for a hypothetical right-wing military coup in his country, followed by the destruction of synagogues and the execution of hundreds of thousands of Jewish ringleaders. In an interview on Philippine radio on September 12, 2001, he welcomed the terrorist attacks against the Twin Towers and the Pentagon that occurred the day before and spoke out in harsh terms against the United States and Israel.
Final years
In July 2004, Fischer was arrested at Narita airport in Tokyo, Japan, for using a passport that had been revoked by the United States government. The Japanese authorities kept him in custody for eight months without deciding whether to extradite him. Iceland finally granted him citizenship and a new passport in March 2005, documents with which he was able to travel there. This management of the European country was interpreted as a humanitarian gesture and as a sign of gratitude due to the popularity that Reykjavik, the country's capital, gained with the 1972 World Chess Championship in which Fischer participated. The United States did not stop demanding that he be extradited to stand trial, and regretted the decision of the Icelandic government. Three years later, on January 17, 2008, Fischer died at the age of 64 in Reykjavik due to kidney disease, and he was buried in a simple grave in a cemetery near Selfoss.
In June 2010, the Supreme Court of Iceland ruled that the body of Robert J. Fischer be exhumed in order to obtain a DNA sample to establish whether he had been the father of Jinky Young, a nine-year-old Filipino girl whose mother claimed to have had a relationship with the former champion. In July 2010, the body was exhumed and, after taking a DNA sample from it, it was buried again. In August 2010 it was reported that DNA testing had revealed that Young was not Fischer's daughter.
| Predecessor: Borís Spaski | Champion of the world of chess 1972-1975 | Successor: Anatoli Kárpov |
Movies
- Searching for Bobby Fischer (in the UK, Innocent Moves, and in Spanish: Looking for Bobby Fischer or Jaque to innocence).
- Bobby Fischer against the world.
- Pawn Sacrifice (located in Spain as The Fischer case, and The Masterplay in Mexico).