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Bobby Fischer

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Fischer, (Robert James) Bobby

(1943–  ) chess player; born in Chicago. Raised in Brooklyn after his parents divorced in 1945, he learned to play chess when he was six and won the U.S. junior and senior titles at age 14. In 1972 he captured the world championship from Boris Spassky in Reykjavik, Iceland, while competing for what was then the largest purse ($250,000) offered in any sport outside boxing. Amid praise for his "classicist" style, the win set off a short-lived U.S. chess boom. A longtime nemesis of tournament officials for his tantrums and phobias, he failed in 1975 to agree to terms for a title defense against Anatoly Karpov and was stripped of his crown by FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Echecs). Afterwards he refused to compete in public, lived in virtual seclusion in the Los Angeles area, and was briefly active in the fundamentalist Worldwide Church of God.
The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.
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References in periodicals archive
“These handwritten notes from the World Champion and winner of the historic tournament, Bobby Fischer give an insight into one of the most significant speed chess tournaments of the 20th century.
This is a wonderful day, what goes around comes around." (This scene and others will be in Liz Garbus's film Bobby Fischer against the World, which will be shown this summer.)
Whereas the doctor at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital declared Bobby Fischer healthy, the doctor at Kings County told my mother that Robert should be hospitalized immediately, and that he would probably have to live in a mental hospital for the rest of his life.
Josh Waitzkin, eight-time national chess champion, world champion martial artist, and subject of the film Searching for Bobby Fischer, has written a book distilling his experience of the road to mastery.
Summary: Twenty years after I first saw him, tall and gangling and infinitely appealing, I finally sat down, alone, with Bobby Fischer. I wanted to talk about him.
NEW YORK - Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest chess players in the world, has died, a close family friend, Gardar Sverrisson, confirmed Friday, according to the New York Times' online edition.
A LEADING figure in British chess last night paid tribute to former World Champion Bobby Fischer, who died age 64 in hospital in the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik on Thursday night.
Written by British chess Grandmaster John Emms, Starting Out: King's Indian Attack is an in-depth guide for intermediate to advanced chess players to the King's Indian Attack, a favorite chess strategy of the legendary Bobby Fischer, among others including world-class Grandmaster Alexander Morozevich.
Bulgaria to invite chess master Bobby Fischer to competition
Chess player Bobby Fischer, who is wanted by the US for violating sanctions against the former Yugoslavia by playing a chess match there in 1992, has arrived in Iceland.
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