Chess genius Bobby Fischer, the first American to beat ex-Soviet Union in World Chess Championship (in early 70-ties),
passed away 2 days ago.
Fischer was a wonder-kid in chess.
The story of his life is a sad one after he refused to defend his World Chess title, then gradually became paranoid and was on the run from the American authorities, who tried to prosecute him for breaking the embargo with Yugoslavia.
While this news doesn’t have any relation to Go, I mentioned it because Chess was my obsession before I learned Go. The difference is that I never played in a Chess tournament, but I used to read a lot of books about Chess; not so much technical books (those too), but more anecdotal ones about the lives of grandmasters, about world championships, etc.
One of my favorite books at that time was called something like “The match of the century” and it described in great journalistic detail the match that made Fischer famous, when he challenged and defeated Boris Spassky.
Fischer was may hero when I was a kid…
