Robert James Fischer Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer (March 9, 1943 – January 17, 2008) was an American chess prodigy, grandmaster, and the eleventh World Chess Champion. He is widely considered to be the greatest chess player of all time.At age 13 Fischer won a "brilliancy" that became known as The Game of the Century. Starting at age 14, Fischer played in eight United States Championships, winning each one by at least a one-point margin. At age 15, Fischer became both the youngest grandmaster up to that time and the youngest candidate for the World Championship. At age 20, Fischer won the 1963–64 U.S. Championship with 11/11, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games (1969) remains a revered work in chess literature.In 1970, "Fischer dominated his contemporaries" by winning the 1970 Interzonal Tournament by a record 3½-point margin and winning 20 consecutive games, including two unprecedented 6–0 sweeps in the Candidates Matches. In July 1971, he became the first official World Chess Federation (FIDE) number-one-ranked player, spending 54 total months at number one. In 1972, he captured the World Chess Championship from Boris Spassky of the USSR in a match, held in Reykjavík, Iceland, publicized as a Cold War confrontation which attracted more worldwide interest than any chess championship before or since.In 1975, Fischer refused to defend his title when an agreement could not be reached with FIDE over one of the conditions for the match. Afterward, Fischer became a recluse, disappearing from the public eye until 1992, when he won an unofficial rematch against Spassky. It was held in Yugoslavia, which was under a United Nations embargo at the time. His participation led to a conflict with the U.S. government, which sought income tax on Fischer's match winnings, and ultimately issued a warrant for his arrest.In the 1990s, Fischer patented a modified chess timing system (which added a time increment after each move; now a standard practice in top tournament and match play) and created a new variant of chess called Fischerandom (Chess960).During the 1990s and early 2000s, Fischer lived in Hungary, Germany, the Philippines, Japan, and Iceland, and made increasingly anti-American and anti-semitic remarks on various radio stations. Possibly as a result, his U.S. passport was revoked. Fischer, unaware of his passport's revocation, traveled to Japan, where he was arrested by Japanese authorities, and detained for over eight months (in 2004 and 2005) under threat of deportation. In March 2005, Iceland granted Fischer full citizenship, leading Japanese authorities to release him from prison. Fischer flew to Iceland, where he lived until his death on January 17, 2008.
Even though he had a very high IQ, it is reported that he was a very poor student in high school and dropped out at fifteen.
2
Being deported to U.S. for violating U.N. sanctions. [July 2004]
3
Became a citizen of Iceland. [March 2005]
4
The last movie Fischer saw before his death was Ridley Scott's American Gangster (2007).
5
Inducted into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame in 1985 (one of two charter inductees).
6
Inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame in 2001 (one of five charter inductees).
7
Died at the age of 64, ironically the number of fields on a chessboard.
8
Born to Regina Wender, a naturalized American citizen of German Jewish descent, he was considered the son of her first husband, Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, a German biophysicist. They were married from 1933 to 1945, but some sources claim that his biological father was Hungarian physicist Paul Nemenyi.
9
Has an older sister, Joan.
10
Attended Erasmus Hall High School together with Barbra Streisand.
Due to his anti-American and anti-Semitic statements, he became a controversial figure in the final decades of his life. He, for example, asked the editors of Encyclopedia Judaica to remove his name from the publication because he was, and has never been, Jewish (1984) and denied the Holocaust in several interviews. On a radio show shortly after the 9/11 attacks, he proclaimed them "a wonderful news" (2001).
13
Fischer was wanted in the United States for violating economic sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing a chess match there in 1992. He fled to Japan and was arrested in July 2004 for trying to leave Japan on a revoked U.S. passport. Thus, he was detained in Japan awaiting deportation to the United States. He renounced his U.S. citizenship and tried to become a German citizen, but was denied. Finally, in March 2005, Iceland's parliament voted to grant him Icelandic citizenship. He remained a fugitive in the U.S. until his death.
14
In 1953, he played his first chess tournament at the age of ten at the Brooklyn Chess Club Championship. He came in fifth place.
15
Awarded the title of Chess Grandmaster in 1958.
16
Only American to win the FIDE World Chess Championship (1 September 1972).