Life Summary: Bobby Fischer, World’s Greatest Chess Player

Bobby Fischer began playing chess at age 6 and quickly became a grandmaster by age 15. Although he spent most of his teens and 20s blowing the chess world away with his skills, he ended up a recluse in exile with no interest in competitive chess in his later years. This is the life of the only man to have ever won 11 out of 11 games in the history of the US Chess Championship.

1943 – Robert James Fischer is born in Chicago, USA to a Jewish schoolteacher mother. His mother is homeless at the time of his birth and the man listed on his birth certificate may not be his actual father. He has an older sister who is 5 years older.

Age 2 – His parents divorce and his father leaves the USA for good. His mother moves them to California, then Arizona before settling in Brooklyn. 

Age 6 – His older sister buys him his first chess set and they learn to play together. His mother begins a master’s degree in nursing and eventually will end up working as a nurse.

Age 8 – He starts taking lessons at the Brooklyn Chess Club and plays chess against a Scottish chess champion at an exhibition. He meets the president of the Brooklyn Chess Club through that and the president becomes his chess teacher.

Age 9 – The man who may be Bobby’s real father, who had been paying for Bobby’s schooling and making monthly child support payments to his mother, dies.

Age 12 – He starts to win against adult players at chess clubs. 

Age 13 – He wins the United States Junior Championship, being the youngest player ever to win. He later wins the Lessing J. Rosenwald Trophy Tournement by defeating an international chess master. The Chess Review calls it “The Game of the Century”. His chess teacher moves away and they lose contact. He gets a new mentor from the Hawthorne Chess Club. 

Age 14 – He wins the United States Junior Championships again and his first United States Championship, making him the youngest person to hold that title. He will go on to win it 7 more times.

Age 15 – He attains the rank of grandmaster of chess—the game’s highest designation of skill. 

Age 16 – He drops out of high school because it takes his time away from chess. His mother moves out of their apartment for medical training and leaves her son to live on his own.  

Age 17 – He gets involved with the Worldwide Church of God and begins to believe that the world is coming to an end. Shortly after, he tells a magazine that women cannot be great chess players. 

Age 21 – In the United States Championships, he wins 11 games, loses and draws none. It is the only perfect score in the history of the tournament and blows the chess world away. From then on, he begins demanding special treatment from tournament directors—special seating, special lighting, quiet. He begins to worry that opponents are trying to poison his food and that hotel rooms may be bugged. He starts being afraid of flying in case Russians hide booby traps on the plane. He starts playing less chess. 

Age 26 – He publishes My 60 Memorable Chess Games for serious players. 

Age 29 – Bobby competes against world champion, Boris Spassky in Iceland. He refused to play the match in front of cameras and insisted the match take place in an isolated room. He wins $250,000. He is invited to the White House, interviewed for television and magazines and pursued by commerce. His bodyguard, Saemi Palsson will go on to be a lifelong friend of his.

Age 30 – He turns down millions of dollars of financial offers to play new matches and associates himself with the Worldwide Church of God, contributing to them significantly. He believes that the world is coming to an end.

Age 32 – He is asked to defend his title at the World Championships but refuses and is stripped of the world champion title. He then becomes a recluse and disappears from competitive chess. 

Age 34 – Bobby leaves the Worldwide Church of God and begins attacking its methods and leadership.

Age 38 – He stays with grandmaster Peter Biyiasas for 4 months and wins him in chess continuously. He begins openly criticising Jews.

Age 45 – Searching for Bobby Fischer—a book about him—is published by Fred Waitzkin. He meets German chess player Petra Stadler and begins a relationship with her.

Age 47 – His relationship with Petra ends. 

Age 49 – He wins $5m in a rematch against his old nemesis, Boris Spassky. Before the match, he presents a letter from the US Treasury Department saying that his participation in the match constitutes defiance against American sanctions in Yugoslavia and spits on it in front of reporters. He goes into exile after that and moves to Hungary. 

Age 54 – His mother dies.

Age 56 – He talks about an international Jewish conspiracy in telephone interviews with a radio station in the Philippines, and says that the conspiracy is bent on destroying him and the world. 

Age 57 – He moves to the Philippines. He meets a 22-year-old who later has a baby girl, Jinky, who she claims to be his daughter.

Age 58 – When 9/11 happens, he tells a radio talk show host in the Philippines that it is “wonderful news” and he hopes the country will soon be taken over by the military and that they will arrest all Jews. In response to his statements, the US Chess Federation cancels his membership. 

Age 60 – The USA revokes his passport. 

Age 61 – He is arrested by Japanese authorities when trying to board a plane to Manila and jailed for 9 months for trying to leave the country on an invalid passport. He claims then to be married to Miyoko Watai, president of the Japanese chess federation. Japan wants to deport him. Fischer writes to Germany and Iceland asking for citizenship. Iceland grants him citizenship and he is released.  

Age 62 – He moves to Iceland.

Age 64 – He dies of degenerative kidney failure in Iceland. He is buried in Iceland. A legal battle over his estate soon begins between his supposed Japanese wife, his supposed Filipino daughter, his 2 American nephews, and the US government (because of unpaid taxes).

2 years after his death – His body is exhumed for DNA testing at the request of his supposed daughter. The test conclude he is not her father. The Icelandic district court rules that Miyoko Watai and Fischer were married in 2004 and she thus inherits his estate. His nephews are to pay her legal costs. 

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Photographs: Dutch National Archives, German Federal Archive. Compiler: Sy
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