Chess Icon Bobby Fischer Dies at Age 64

America's only world chess champion, Bobby Fischer, died in Iceland yesterday at around noon from kidney failure. Friends are reporting that he has been seriously ill for some time now. Bobby Fischer was once known as a national hero and was seen by many as the greatest chess player ever born. Born in Chicago in 1943 the child superstar was easily provoked by the attentions of the paparazzi and his fans and was also known for his rude gestures, mood swings and unpopular opinions. Fischer won a United states championship at fourteen, and become the youngest grandmaster just a year later at fifteen. His world wide reputation was a result of his infamous win in 1972 Iceland where he beat the world chess master title holder Boris Spassky. Fischer was enraged by the playing conditions forced on him, in particular the noises from the television cameras in the chess hall. He lost the first game, forfeited the second and demanded the remaining games be played in a isolated room about the size of a common janitor's closet. This match has been used as an analogy to the cold war since that time and was considered a blow against the red's by America.

After what many consider the showdown of the century, Fischer dropped out of the limelight. He lost the world chess title in 1975 when he mysteriously refused to play Russian born Anatoly Karpov. Then like an avenging angel he defied the United States to play and defeat Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia during the Balkan wars. The United States being who they are took a dim view of this behavior and the brilliant Bobby Fischer became a fugitive from justice. Fischer, famous also for his anti-Semitic comments claims he was a victim of a Jewish Conspiracy. After the tragedy of September 11, 2001 Fischer appeared in a radio interview on a Philippines radio station and allegedly claimed that news of a plane hitting the Pentagon "wonderful news" and said that America's foreign policy provoked the attacks. In 2002 Atlantic magazine reported that he described his enemies as "Jews, secret Jews, or CIA rats who work for the Jews." Bobby Fischer was arrested at a airport in Japan for traveling on an expired passport and spent nine months behind bars fighting deportation. In March of 2005 Iceland offered him citizenship and Japan released him and he moved to Iceland renouncing his United States citizenship to become a resident of Iceland.

Fischer has been compared to Albert Einstein and other intellectual giants on the 19th and 20th century. No matter what your opinion of Bobby Fischer he was a chess legend and hero to many.