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Bobby Fischer of the U.S. right, and Boris Spassky of Russia, play their last game together in Reykjavik, Iceland, in this Aug. 31, 1972 file photo. Fischer who renounced his U.S. citizenship, has died at the age of 64, Iceland's Channel 2 television reported Friday, Jan. 18, 2008.
(AP Photo/J. Walter

By GUDJON HELGASON, Associated Press Writer
6 minutes ago

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Bobby Fischer, the reclusive chess genius who became a Cold War icon by dethroning the Soviet world champion in 1972 and later renounced his American citizenship, has died. He was 64.

Fisher died in a Reykjavik hospital on Thursday, his spokesman, Gardar Sverrisson, said Friday. There was no immediate word on cause of death.

Born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Fischer was wanted in the United States for playing a 1992 rematch against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia in defiance of international sanctions. In 2005, he moved to Iceland, a chess-mad nation and site of his greatest triumph.

Garry Kasparov, the former Russian chess champion, said Fischer's ascent in the chess world in the 1960s and his promotion of chess worldwide was "a revolutionary breakthrough" for the game. But Fischer's reputation as a genius of chess was eclipsed, in the eyes of many, by his idiosyncrasies.

"The tragedy is that he left this world too early, and his extravagant life and scandalous statements did not contribute to the popularity of chess," Kasparov told The Associated Press.

He lost his world title in 1975 after refusing to defend it against Anatoly Karpov. He dropped out of competitive chess and largely out of view, emerging occasionally to make erratic and often anti-Semitic comments, although his mother was Jewish.

Spassky said in a brief phone call from his home in France that he was "very sorry" to hear of the death of his friend and rival.

An American chess champion at 14 and a grand master at 15, Fischer dethroned the Spassky in 1972 in a series of games in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, to claim America's first world chess championship in more than a century.

The match, at the height of the Cold War, took on mythic dimensions as a clash between the world's two superpowers.

Fischer played — and won — an exhibition rematch against Spassky on the resort island of Sveti Stefan, but the game was in violation of U.S. sanctions imposed to punish then-President Slobodan Milosevic.

In July 2004, Fischer was arrested at Japan's Narita airport for traveling on a revoked U.S. passport and threatened with extradition to the United States. He spent nine months in custody before the dispute was resolved when Iceland granted him citizenship.

In his final years, Fischer railed against the chess establishment, alleging that the outcomes of many top-level chess matches were decided in advance.

Instead, he championed his concept of random chess, in which pieces are shuffled at the beginning of each match in a bid to reinvigorate the game.

"I don't play the old chess," he told reporters when he arrived in Iceland in 2005. "But obviously if I did, I would be the best."

Born in Chicago in March 9, 1943, Robert James Fischer was a child prodigy, playing competitively from the age of 8.

At 13, he became the youngest player to win the United States Junior Championship. At 14, he won the United States Open Championship for the first of eight times.

At 15, he gained the title of international grand master, the youngest person to hold the title.

Tall, charismatic and with striking looks, he was a chess star — but already gaining a reputation for volatile behavior.

He turned up late for tournaments, walked out of matches, refused to play unless the lighting suited him and was intolerant of photographers and cartoonists. He was convinced of his own superiority and called the Soviets "Commie cheats."

His behavior often unsettled opponents — to Fischer's advantage.

This was seen most famously in the showdown with Spassky in Reykjavik between July and September 1972. Having agreed to play Spassky in Yugoslavia, Fischer raised one objection after another to the arrangements and they wound up playing in Iceland.

When play got under way, days late, Fischer lost the first game with an elementary blunder after discovering that television cameras he had reluctantly accepted were not unseen and unheard, but right behind the players' chairs.

He boycotted the second game and the referee awarded the point to Spassky, putting the Russian ahead 2-0.

But then Spassky agreed to Fischer's demand that the games be played in a back room away from cameras. Fischer went on to beat Spassky, 12.5 points to 8.5 points in 21 games.

Americans, gripped in their millions by the contest, rejoiced in the victory over their Cold War adversary.

In the recent book "White King and Red Queen," the British author Daniel Johnson said the match was "an abstract antagonism on an abstract battleground using abstract weapons ... yet their struggle embraced all human life."

"In Spassky's submission to his fate and Fischer's fierce exultant triumph, the Cold War's denouement was already foreshadowed."

___

Associated Press Writer Jill Lawless in London contribued to this report


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My condolences. A great mind has passed away.

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Mike you're right Fisher did lived in Baguio between 2000 & 2002, see story below:

Fischer has a Pinoy heir born in Baguio -- friends

By Vincent Cabreza
Northern Luzon Bureau
First Posted 20:02:00 01/19/2008


BAGUIO CITY -- A generation still remembers American chess genius Bobby Fischer as a recluse. It is hard to picture this bearded legend playing tennis matches at a country club or walking hand in hand with a Filipina.

But this generation will have to embrace this new image of the 64-year-old Fischer shaped before his death on Thursday in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Fischer played tennis at the Baguio Country Club and had romanced a 30-year-old woman from Davao in Baguio City before he went on exile to Iceland.

The man became an American icon for defeating Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky at the height of the Cold War and again in a highly publicized match in Yugoslavia in 1992 that later led him to renounce his American citizenship.

The American government sanctioned Fischer for playing in Yugoslavia. It said he violated the United Nations embargo imposed on Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic who fomented war in the Balkans.

Fischer became more notorious when he gave brazen speeches and interviews over various radio stations around the world that depicted the United States as an evil nation run by Jewish conspirators.

But the man who styled himself as a modern American outlaw made the American-built Baguio his home between 2000 and 2002 after he renounced his American citizenship, his Filipino friends here said on Saturday.

Fischer's certified Filipino heir was born in 2002 at the Saint Louis University Sacred Heart Hospital here. Her birth certificate bore her father’s name.

The 6-foot-tall Fischer used to consume large servings of Filipino cuisine and adored sinigang (a popular soup dish) while he stayed here for almost two years, said Marilin Torre, wife of Filipino grandmaster Eugene Torre.

Marilin said Fischer used to consume five balut (boiled duck eggs in embryonic stage) in one sitting every day, years before he decided to stay in Baguio.

Fischer asked Marilin to bring him 50 balut eggs when she went to Yugoslavia with her husband for Fischer's match with Spassky. Eugene served as Fischer's second in the match.

Eugene, Asia's first grandmaster, became Fischer's bosom friend and one of the few people he trusted until his death.

Fischer had lived a nomadic life, pursued by what he described as a cabal of Jews that controlled the world, so he entertained only a small circle of friends like Torre when he decided to stay in the Philippines, said Leonides "Des" Bautista, a close friend of another chess icon, Florencio Campomanes.

Despite his reputation, Fischer kept a normal home with his sweetheart in the city, according to Marilin.

A top executive of the Government Service Insurance System briefly hosted Fischer at the country club for three months in 2000.

Jimmy Tangalin, 49, a professional tennis coach of the club, supervised Fischer for a while, and found the man "kind and entertaining."

"It was Eugene who introduced me to Fischer. I knew about [Fischer's] celebrity status. But it was still a pleasant surprise. We just met, but he immediately opened up a conversation about Jews and the US. These conversations were awkward for me," Tangalin said.

Fischer leased a home inside the compound owned by former Baguio Councilor Elmo Nevada where the Torre family used to stay.

Elements of Fischer's bizarre reputation cropped up from time to time, Marilin said. "When he showered, he didn't use any shampoo. He preferred to wash with just water and soap. He brushed his teeth without toothpaste."

Why he decided to make "a former American colony and city" his home for a while still confounds his friends.

Bautista said Campomanes had a hand in bringing Fischer to the country back in the 1970s at the height of martial law.

Since then, Fischer occasionally visited the Philippines.

He had been a close friend of New York-based Filipino artist Isabel Diaz whom he sometimes accompanied to the country whenever she returned for a visit, Marilin related.

But he began to frequent Baguio when he became close to Torre, Bautista said.

Bautista said his first meeting with Fischer gave him some insight as to why Baguio was the American’s sanctuary.

"You don't recognize him. He wears a hat. For the older generation, we remember him as clean-shaven so we would not recognize him if he approached you. He had a beard and was balding. But when Eugene introduced us, he was so comfortable."

"Fischer lived in his own world," he added, and being incognito fitted well with a community where people minded their own business.

Bautista said the old Baguio culture developed this habit because residents were used to Caucasians who lived in the city.

"That's what Bobby loved about Baguio," he said.

Fischer never lost this connection to the city. When he was arrested by the Japanese authorities in July 2004 for holding an expired US passport, he telephoned friends in Baguio.

Marilin Torre said Fischer’s sweetheart, then already based in Davao, kept in close touch with Fischer even after another friend, Miyoko Watari, publicly declared that she would marry the controversial celebrity to keep him out of Japanese prison.
 

 


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