quote:REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) -- Bobby Fischer, the reclusive chess master who became a Cold War icon when he dethroned the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky as world champion in 1972, has died aged 64.
Bobby Fischer became an increasingly anti-establishment figure after ending his chess career.
Spokesman Gardar Sverrisson said Fischer passed away in a Reykjavik hospital on Thursday. There was no immediate word on cause of death.
posted
Sigh. I'm sad to live in a world where my first reaction to the headline was "Huh. I wonder if the US took him down covertly" before having to go "Man, thats *too* paranoid."
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So you don't know whether you felt sadness or contempt?
Though I guess I have known people who were crazier than they needed to be. But I don't think I ever felt contempt because of it. I tend to think "There but for the grace of God go I."
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Anyone - anyone - can go crazy with the right readjustment of body chemistry. I feel piteous contempt for Fischer as well as sadness, and it's a shame he died with his delusions, never seeing past them.
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*sigh* So much for a chess 960 match between him and Karpov. Sixty-four seems an appropriate age, at least.
Chessbase says that he has had a serious illness for some time.
Edit: Susan Polgar made a list of what she felt were his ten greatest accomplishments.
- Youngest ever Grandmaster - Youngest US Champion. He won every US Championship he played in, 8 total - Defeated Spassky in 1972 to become the 11th World Champion - Youngest ever master in the United States and youngest ever US Junior Champion - Youngest ever to qualify and participate in the Interzonal - Won the 1962 Stockholm Interzonal by 2.5 points - Scored 11-0 in the 1963-1964 US Championship - Scored 6-0 against Larsen and 6-0 against Taimanov - Created Fischer Random and Fischer clock - 2780
posted
There are a lot of things about Bobby Fisher that make me wonder if he was suffering from some form of autism or related disorder. I noticed from an internet search that I am not the first person to have suggested this.
People who exhibit extraordinary genius, as did Bobby Fisher, seem unusually prone to mental illness. Perhaps someday science will uncover enough of the mechanisms that lead to mental illness to understand why this link exists.
In the mean time, it seems that brains are similar to many other instruments. It is just difficult to get both very high performance and reliability in the same package.
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Yeah, hearing he was 64 really caught me by surprise. Kind of the reverse of the Edmund Hillary thing, I guess.
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quote:Originally posted by Lisa: He was a vicious anti-semite, and I'm glad he's gone.
A vicious Jewish anti-semite. Apparently his mother raised him to be that way, I wonder what her deal was.
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: So you don't know whether you felt sadness or contempt?
Though I guess I have known people who were crazier than they needed to be. But I don't think I ever felt contempt because of it. I tend to think "There but for the grace of God go I."
I meant, If he was of sound mind and just being a jerk or worse when he said and did some of his infamous things, I'd feel contempt for that aspect of him. I'd feel sad for him if he was legitimately ill, of course.
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He was a talented man and I don't think enough can be said about his extraordinary skill.
That skill being, of course, to have his mind expand when confronted by the challenges of a black and white grid, and contract to a degenerate raisin in the face of everything else.
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