Bobby Fischer is dead!!!

 

“The United States is evil. There’s this axis of evil. What about the allies of evil — the United States, England, Japan, Australia? These are the evildoers.” — Bobby Fischer

Ex chess World champion, Bobby Fischer, is dead! I am not kidding, this is real news and not some hoax. It was a shock, reading that news item. I know it should not have been, after reading/hearing all his rantings over the years, but still it was. That mystery around Fischer will be missing from now. Has Fischer really left behind a void?? Debatable. But no one can deny the fact that Fischer was a real genius over board and his death is going to have an impact on all chess players’ minds. The reason for his death is unknown.

What is the impact? What will happen now?

• Be ready for the conspiracy theories. Don’t be surprised if you hear that U.S poisoned Fischer, or there was a secret service team dispatched to eliminate Fischer.
• Less news for news papers and Philipines/Icelandic radio stations. They won’t hear anymore anti-semitic remarks from Fischer.
• People will keep debating who is the strongest between Kasparov and Fischer.
• Karpov *can* boldly claim that he’d have crushed Fischer, had their WC match happened in 1975.
• No more updates to his classic “My 60 memorable games“, nor any more fake “My 61 memorable games” possible.
• People who stole money from Fischer, if at all it was true, will sleep peacefully from now.
• U.S. authorities can forget about Fischer breaking the U.N. sanctions imposed on Yugoslav (in 1992) and start pursuing other useful things.
• No one will know for sure what happened in Pasadena jailhouse.
• No one will claim any more that all games between Russian players were setup or prearranged.
• Chess community will eventually forget Fischer and move on. He will be just another page filler in a chess history book.  

One thing is for sure: Fischer’s games will be studied and admired by generations and generations of chess players to come.

Let’s forget all the bad things surrounding Fischer and lets just enjoy his games. Hopefully our posterity will remember him for what he was over a Chess board than what he was as a person.

Rest in Peace Fischer; We already miss you

External links:

• Articles reporting his death
  • Associate press article
  • Canadian press article
  • Reuters article
  • CNN-IBN article
  • Key dates/facts from Fischer’s life.
• Official (?!) Fischer site
  • This site is treasure trove of Fischer info. Starting from his Icelandic passport to Garry Kasparov’s appearance fees, you will find many interesting things here. Don’t miss his radio interviews!
• Chessbase article on Fischer’s radio interview.