FISCHER, BOBBY

born March 9, 1943, Chicago, Ill., U.S. byname of Robert James Fischer American chess master, the youngest player in the world ever to attain the rank of grand master (1958). His youthful intemperance and brilliant playing drew the attention of the American public to the game of chess. Fischer learned the moves of chess at age 6 and at 16 dropped out of high school to devote himself fully to the game. In 1958 he won the first of many American championships. In World Championship Candidate matches during 197071, Fischer won 20 consecutive games before losing once and drawing 3 times to the former world champion Tigran Petrosyan (Soviet Union) in a final match won by Fischer. At Reykjavk, Ice., in 1972, Fischer became the first American player officially to hold the title of Chess Champion of the World when he defeated the then world champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. In doing so he won the $156,000 victor's share of the $250,000 purse. When playing White, he virtually always opened 1. P-K4. His victories commonly resulted from surprise attacks or counterattacks rather than from the accumulation of small advantages; yet his play remained positionally sound. In 1975, on Fischer's refusing to meet the Soviet challenger, Anatoly Karpov, the International Chess Federation deprived him of his championship and declared Karpov champion by default. Fischer then withdrew from serious play for almost 20 years, returning to defeat Spassky in a privately organized rematch in 1992. Additional reading Max Euwe, Bobby FischerThe Greatest? (1979); Frank Brady, Profile of a Prodigy, rev. ed. (1973, reprinted as Bobby Fischer, 1989).