Fortunately, there are smart and talented people who leave a deep mark on what they were and how they did, what they achieved and what they left to humanity as their mental legacy. Robert Bobby Fischer (Brooklyn, March 9, 1943 - Reykjavik, January 17, 2008), was neither a scientist, nor a composer, nor a writer, nor an actor, but at the same time, playing chess - admittedly, only when he wanted to - he was all of these a little bit. He had an IQ worthy of Einstein, his imagination with which he created moves and combinations at the board was worthy of the genius of a Beethoven who also composed while deaf, he was not a writer but his books were published with collections of genius parts and others wrote dozens of studies about him. Perhaps least of all he was an actor, although he was often on the stages of theaters or large halls, whose boards before and after him received the greatest dramatic or operatic artists. He didn't know how to act because he always played himself, and that - even for him - was not easy. Someone will say that, like most geniuses, he was also a weirdo, but maybe that's why he was so appreciated everywhere, if not equally loved everywhere.
PRE I AFTER BOBBY: Robert Fischer has done so much for chess and chess players that in the world of the magical game of 64 squares there can only be one "before" and "after" him. He was able to do impossible things, to tie even those who had no idea about chess or barely knew how to move pieces to a seat or to a small screen for hours. From today's perspective of the commercialization of television, where every minute costs a small fortune, it seems incredible to me that the former JRT devoted hours and hours to live broadcasts of chess games! Comparisons are not always appropriate, but in 16 years in Spain, for example, I have never heard any chess news on television! Maybe the genius Bobby pushed the boundaries here, I can't say because the news of his death caught me in Belgrade... I remember former inter-zonal tournaments, candidate matches, the duel between the USSR and the rest of the world in Belgrade in 1970, or the matches for the title of world champion that were aroused enormous public interest. Television broadcasted the games for hours, grandmasters Gligorić, Matanović, Ivkov, Kovačević and many others tried to explain to us pacers why Sg4 was better than Th8 and what one of the world grandmasters was planning when he pulled such and such a move... We didn't understand much , but we loved to stare at the big board in the hall or on the screen, passionately discuss while waiting for the experts' comments and root for someone according to personal preference... I remember is that somehow in those years, since this game went better than chess, we introduced the phrase "Come on, play, you're not a Fischer" into the preference terminology for those who think for a long time about what to play. For the most part, we all cheered for Bobby because we loved him way back in 1958, when he appeared at the Interzonal Tournament in Bled at the age of 15 in an unforgettable colorful and somewhat sloppy sweater... That's when his relationship with Yugoslavia began, his friendship with our chess great Svetozar Gligorić, a friendship that will last until Fischer's last days. Yugoslavia, even if it was abbreviated, was somehow fateful for the last 16 years of Bobby's life, which he spent abroad, as an exile, a stateless person, even a prisoner before another country to which he was also bound by fate, Iceland , gave her passport, offered hospitality, probably not expecting that Reykjavik would also go down in history as "the city where Bobby Fischer died".
DO TOP I BACK: Bobby's path to the top was at the same time a path of no return, first to the chess throne and then to what awaited him in the rest of his life. It all started in Iceland, in Reykjavik, in July 1972. Having first swept Larsson and Taimanov in the candidate matches with an unimaginable 6-0 and in the final Petrojsan with 6,5-2,5, Bobby earned the right to challenge the then world champion Boris Spassky. The match was a sort of continuation of the cold war that the two superpowers had waged in previous years over various topics, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Vietnam War. As once the race to the Cosmos and the Moon, now it was a question of national honor whose chess wit is stronger. The Soviets had a galaxy of great players, and Bobby, like a lone rider in a Western, was supposed to defend the power of the American intellect... The match was supposed to start on July 1 and was called the "duel of the century." Our newspaper sent its best reporters to Reykjavík, who wrote daily reports and reported on various sarcasm, chess opened and closed the news on radio and television... Spassky took the title from Petrosyan in a match in which the prize fund was 5000 dollars and before the duel in Reykjavik the prize was 50 times bigger, thanks only to Fischer. The match finally started, Bobby won the first game, but did not appear in the second game and lost by so-called contumation. Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State, begged him in a telegram to continue the duel "in the interests of America", while the Soviets advised Spassky that, if the opportunity arose, he would leave the match and take the title, but to the gentleman Spassky, "chess's Pushkin", such a thing did not happen. came to mind... Fortunately, Bobby returned to the table and by the end of the match, which was supposed to be played to 24 games, won 7-3 with 11 draws... It was never so many complaints, protests, threats, interventions by lawyers, but all that was part of the image and contributed to the popularization of chess.
When, after three years, in 1975, he was supposed to defend the title against Anatoly Karpov, Fischer set the following conditions: a match of up to 10 wins without counting draws and without limiting the number of games, and that in the event of a 9-9 result, he retains the title. The International Chess Federation did not accept and thus drove one of the greatest chess minds in the history of this game into self-isolation. Fisher was not swayed even by the fantastic offer of five million dollars. He did ask for money, big money, but he was never a slave to money and his demands were principled. He did much more for other chess players than for himself.
DINNER SPITTING: Many years later, everything Bobby asked for will be accepted, but without Bobby... He retired and only the narrowest circle of people, including Gligorić and some others from our chess, knew something about him. It helped that Fischer, 20 years after the events in Reykjavik, returned to chess in the famous "remake" match with Spassky at St. Stephen's. FR Yugoslavia was under sanctions due to the war in Bosnia and Croatia, but as if in a wonderland, the embargoed country managed to appear not only on the front pages of the world's newspapers, but also somewhere back, in the sports or chess sections... While the cannons of the American Sixth Fleet were almost visible from Miločer, a local Serbian businessman, typical of that time, Jezdimir Vasiljević, better known as boss Jezda, set aside five million dollars and brought Fischer and Spassky to the "rematch of the century". I was at St. Stephen's when, on the opening day of the match, Fischer spat on the fax of the State Department, which warned him of what would happen if he violated the sanctions imposed on the country he was in... At that moment, Fischer also spat on the United States of America, his homeland, to which he never came back. Admittedly, they haven't been in love for a long time, but the homeland is the homeland... The Serbian regime media, and in 1992 there were very few others, enjoyed Fischer's gesture for days, emphasizing that "brave Bobby showed the Americans", but that Bobby's move, one in the series, he did himself much more harm than good for others... After the match at Sveti Stefan, which Bobby won with 17,5-12,5 if that at all important, his fight around the world began. He first stayed for months at the Belgrade Intercontinental, then moved to Budapest, from there to the Philippines where, they say, he had a daughter in an extramarital relationship, from there to Japan, where he was arrested at Tokyo airport on July 13, 2004 at the request of the American authorities. He remained in prison until March 23, 2005. The Japanese did not extradite him to the Americans despite pressure, and in the meantime the good people of Iceland decided to offer him asylum. He got an Icelandic passport and settled in Reykjavik, unfortunately forever, where he became world champion back in 1972.
From Reykjavik he went to chess immortality.
