Bobby Fischer... Lord of the Squares and an Inconvenient Jew

Some here might remember Bobby Fischer. Fifty years ago he was famous as the greatest chess genius in history. However, time rolls on and today the name "Bobby Fischer" often draws a blank look. Usually among the young. This is wrong. He deserves to be remembered. And not just for his chess heroics or his intense, questioning stare.

Fischer was a very dangerous chess player. The greatest chess prodigy of all time and at his peak probably the greatest player that ever lived. When he was just thirteen years old there were few if any left in New York state who could beat him. For him to come out of nowhere as it were (the US... not the well oiled, honed and highly polished chess machine of Europe... especially Russia) is miraculous. He might as well have walked out of the jungles of Borneo, so unlikely was his rising.

He won one famous match, "the game of the century" against an international master even though midway through he sacrificed his queen.

He was thirteen.

As he matured his FIDE rank rose astronomically. In 1971 it peaked at 2895. The highest ever recorded at the time and some 125 points higher than second place.

Fischer was crushing top ranked grandmasters while still in his teens. In the summer of 1972 he played against the reigning chess champion of the World, Boris Spassky, and despite forfeiting one game after not showing up because of a demand not being met, he still went on to crush Spassky 7 to 3.

Fischer was on top of his world. But after winning the World Championship he turned his back on chess and became something of an international recluse, moving from place to place and country to country and rarely surfacing. At one point living in a basement apartment in Pasadena. He forefeited the title in 1975 when FIDE refused to meet his demands in a contest against the challenger, Anatoly Karpov. In 1977 he played three games against an MIT computer and won all of them.

Strangely, at some point in his life, despite being at least half Jewish himself, Fischer developed a toxic animosity towards Jews. He would today be what's called a "self-hating Jew".

Something needs to be clarified here: in latter-day Judaism you get your tribal card from your *mother*, NOT your father. Of course the Bible says the exact opposite. The reasoning behind it is that while people may not know who the child's father is, there's no denying who the mother is.

That not-so-subtle snipe at Jewish women may have found its target in Fischer's mother, Regina Wender. Wender was indisputably Jewish. His father on the other hand is something of a mystery. Regina was married to a gentile biophysicist named Hans-Gerhardt Fischer at the time and he is named as Bobby's father on the birth certificate. However they hadn't lived together in a while and she had some affairs along the way. One was with a Jewish physicist named Paul Nemenyi. Bobby and Nemenyi looked rather alike - so it's possible he was his father - but then so did Bobby and Hans-Gerhardt Fischer.

Fischer had a volatile relationship with his mother. She was a brilliant and driven, yet neurotic woman; who moved out of their apartment when he was just sixteen to pursue her own interests. However, Nemenyi continued to support him and even testified on his behalf, against his mother, in a court deposition.

Regarding his anti-Semitism. Fischer definitely detested Jews and reviled them in extreme terms. At one point writing he thought it was time people started shooting random Jews on the street. He memorably went on a bizarre, profane and impassioned rant about Jews as a call-in guest on a Philippine radio show:

https://en.chessbase.com/post/listen-to-bobby-fischer

For their part the Jews generally seem to have adopted a course whereby they proudly claim Fischer as full-blown Jewish genius; while at the same time reviling him as an anti-Semitic head case.

In their minds Fischer's hostility arose out of thin air. He just WOKE UP ONE MORNING AND DECIDED TO HATE JEWS! No thought of anything Jews might have done that could have massaged it ever enters the picture. Still, in spite of all this he usually remained on good terms with other Jewish chess players.

Fischer re-emerged from obscurity in 1992 to play against his old nemesis become friend, Boris Spassky, and proceeded to spank him again: +10-5=15 (ten wins, five losses, fifteen draws). Because the match was played in Yugoslavia, which in 1992 was under US sanctions, Fischer was given a "cease and desist order" from the US Treasury. He memorably read the order then spit on it for the viewers at home:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U62ahOSpwQ&t=26s

The purse for the rematch was $5 million USD, with $3.35 million of the purse to go to the winner. The US government issued an international arrest warrant for Fischer for ignoring the cease and desist; and then turned around and tried to collect taxes on his winnings! But Fischer refused to pay up and never returned to the US. Becoming something of an international outlaw/genius.

Throughout all of this Fischer held stubbornly to his principles. He refused to cash in on his fame and rejected all endorsement and licensing offers. Offers that would have made his life much easier, saying, "They're not going to make a nickle off me!"

Eventually he moved to Japan settled down and got married. But while living there he was arrested in 2004, at the behest of the US State Department, and held in detention for six months. Fischer recognized the seriousness of his situation - the US wanted him back and in prison - so he began searching for a country that would take him in. After some negotiations, in 2005 Iceland offered him citizenship, remembering how Fischer had helped to put their little island on the map in the 1972 World Chess Championship.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=bobby+fischer+iceland&docid=608030433237804428&mid=F689CA99ECBF4DE5DF96F689CA99ECBF4DE5DF96&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

It was in Iceland that perhaps the most unusual turn in this unusual man's life occurred. As a rule, Fischer tended to keep people at an arm's length or more. However once he got to know and trust someone he would open up and become congenial. He became friends in Iceland with a man named Gardar Sverrisson. Their conversations often turned to matters philosophical and spiritual. Fischer asked Sverrisson what religion he belonged to. Sverrisson answered that he was a Catholic. For some reason this piqued his interest and he began reading up on Catholicism. Even buying a copy of the Catechism.

End game: Fischer had suffered from renal problems for some years and these took a turn for the worse in late 2007 or early 2008. While in the hospital he knew he was about to lose the big game. He told his friends he wanted a Catholic burial service. It's not known by us out here if he received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church. If he did, no one is saying. He was still a hot potato politically, so if he did it was kept under wraps in order to avoid trouble. Bobby Fischer died on January 17th, 2008.

What is known is that he did receive Catholic burial rites and that a few days later a Catholic mass was celebrated in his memory.

For my part I owe Bobby a debt of gratitude. I learned some important lessons, though indirectly, from him.

The summer of 1972 was a memorable time. Largely because all the kids in my group caught "chess fever" as a result of the coverage the World Championship in Reykjavik was getting. We were all playing chess. For some reason I got a reputation for being good at it. Maybe I was among my friends but the first time I played against someone who actually knew what they were doing I got nuked. But I learned some valuable things along the way:

1. You'd better consider that your opponent is closer to checkmating you than you are him.

2. In the game of chess someone wins - and someone loses. Resulting in a net 0.

3. Taking it even further I began to understand that life is more about losing than winning. There are 32 teams in the NFL. Thirty-one of them finish the season as losers. And of the thousands of Olympic wannabes who compete in an event, only one takes home the gold.

4. And then there's the big, final loss.

So, thank you Bobby for your part in that wonderful summer of '72. And for the lessons that came out of it.

Spare a prayer for his eternal soul.


Fitz