Bobby Fischer: In Memoriam (1943-2008)

Robert James Fischer

My personal Chess hero--the man who inspired me to become a Chess player--Bobby Fischer, is dead.

He died January 19, 2008 of Kidney failure in Reykajavik Iceland. He was 64.

I like him a lot. I learned great Chess from reading his books, especially the pocket Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, and My 60 Memorable Games.

Some years ago, I heard he was living in Baguio City . I decided to search for him in Baguio, to maybe get his autograph, or perhaps an interview. Best would be to have a picture taken with him. But I got nothing.

I discovered he was living near the vacation house of his friend, Filipino grandmaster Eugene Torre. But Bobby would not let anyone visit him on anytime of the day. He was living like a hermit. But I had a chance to see a glimpse of him. Although I did not realized it was him.

His picture always embedded on my mind is the thin debonnair well-dressed young man who dominated the world of Chess in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.

When I finally caught a fleeting glimpse of him in Baguio, I realized how much he had changed. He was balding, bearded, and snob. He was a complete opposite of what had been pictured in my mind.

Yet, I still admire him. After all, he was the one who made Chess hip and sexy (indeed, Fischer revolutionized Chess into a popular sport). And he was the one responsible why I dream of Chess a lot. Why I spend half of my waking life playing chess wether it be under the Cubao overpass, or in one of the online Chess games in the internet.

For me Bobby was the ideal World Champion, an intellectual athlete. He was, indeed, far from the stone-faced Boris Spassky, whom he demolished in the 1972 Reykjavik World Chess Championship.

In 1975, a rising young Chess Soviet superstar named Anatoly Karpov won in the candidates finals to earn a title match against reigning champion Fischer.

But Fisher, hounded by personal demons and petty demands, refused to defend his title. Karpov was declared winner by default.

From then on, Bobby would isolate himself from the world that adored him. Indeed, he began to hate the world that loved him. Friends who still saw him noticed how far removed he had been from the Bobby they knew.


Maybe Bobby's genius is something that we ordinary mortals could not understand. Or maybe an extraordinary genius of his magnitude could never understand his ordinary world.

One thing is sure, though. Bobby Fischer will forever be one of the world's greatest Chess Champions.

So long Bobby, have a nice jouney!