After 1972: silence, exile and legend

1972-1975: a title he would not defend

In September 1972 Fischer became world champion by beating Boris Spassky in Reykjavik. He would play no official game for almost twenty years. In 1975 he was due to defend his title against the young Soviet Anatoly Karpov. He set conditions to FIDE: the match would go to ten wins, draws not counting, and he would keep the title at 9-9. FIDE accepted some of the demands but not the 9-9 clause. Fischer refused to play, and on 3 April 1975 Karpov was proclaimed world champion without playing a game.

Years of withdrawal

Fischer then lived in California, away from the spotlight, and drew close to religious movements. In 1981 he was arrested in Pasadena by mistake, taken for a bank robber, and spent a few days in jail. He kept a deep distrust of American authorities.

1992: the Sveti Stefan rematch

In 1992 a Yugoslav businessman financed a rematch with Spassky, at Sveti Stefan and then Belgrade. Fischer won 10 games to 5, with 15 draws. But Yugoslavia was under a United Nations embargo: the US government warned him that playing there violated the sanctions. He spat on the letter in front of the cameras, and an arrest warrant was issued. He never set foot in the United States again.

Exile, arrest and Iceland

For years he travelled between Eastern Europe and Asia. In interviews he made antisemitic and anti-American statements that lastingly tarnished his image. In July 2004 he was arrested at Tokyo airport with a revoked passport and held for several months. Iceland, the country of the 1972 match, granted him citizenship in March 2005. He settled in Reykjavik.

2008: the end

Bobby Fischer died in Reykjavik on 17 January 2008, aged 64, of kidney failure. He is buried in a small cemetery near Selfoss, Iceland.

What he left to chess

• The Fischer clock (1988): each move played adds a few seconds, which avoids rushed endgames. It is now used in almost every tournament.
• Fischer Random Chess (Chess960), presented in 1996: back-rank pieces are placed at random, making opening theory useless.
• A chess boom: after 1972 the number of players exploded in the United States and elsewhere.
• Games still studied today, from the 1956 game to the Reykjavik games.

To go further: Fischer’s legacy, the timeline and the bibliography.

Sources

• Frank Brady, Endgame: Bobby Fischer’s Remarkable Rise and Fall (2011).
• David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Bobby Fischer Goes to War (2004).
• FIDE: history of the world title and the 1975 cycle.