Brooklyn, 1949: Bobby Fischer’s youth

From a chess set bought in a candy store to grandmaster at 15: seven years that changed chess.

A Chicago child turned New Yorker

Robert James Fischer was born in Chicago on 9 March 1943. He grew up with his older sister Joan and their mother Regina, who raised her children on her own. Around 1948 the family moved to Brooklyn, New York. In that modest flat, among books and the noise of the city, the story begins.

1949: discovering the game

At six, Bobby found in a game box the board and the rule sheet his sister Joan had brought home from a candy store. He learned the rules on his own from that simple sheet, and then never wanted to stop.

“All I want to do, ever, is just play chess.”Attributed to Bobby Fischer, quoted in Frank Brady’s biography

Clubs and first teachers

As a child, Bobby went to the Brooklyn Chess Club, where he met Carmine Nigro, his first real teacher. Then came Jack Collins, a New York master who gathered young talents at his home and opened the door to theory. He also joined the prestigious Manhattan Chess Club. The boy was thin and shy, but adults were stunned by his memory for positions.

To read Soviet magazines, then at the cutting edge of theory, he taught himself enough Russian to follow the annotations. Necessity, and a challenge: the USSR had dominated the game since 1948.

1956: “the Game of the Century”

On 17 October 1956, at the Rosenwald Memorial tournament in New York, 13-year-old Fischer faced Donald Byrne, one of America’s best players. On move 17 he played 17…Be6!!, a queen sacrifice that knocked his opponent off balance. A few moves later Byrne was mated. The press called it “The Game of the Century”. Replay it on the board in the Rise dossier.

US champion at 14

In 1957 Fischer won the US Junior Championship. The 1957-58 national championship was the real breakthrough: he won it unbeaten at 14, the youngest champion in the country’s history. He would win eight titles in all.

1958: grandmaster at 15

At the Portorož Interzonal (Yugoslavia) in summer 1958, Fischer qualified for the Candidates tournament. That result earned him the international grandmaster title at 15, a record at the time. He left high school at 16 to devote himself to chess. Fourteen years later he would be world champion.

Key points

Born in Chicago on 9 March 1943, childhood in Brooklyn.
He learned the game at 6, alone, from a rule sheet.
“Game of the Century” in 1956 against Donald Byrne, aged 13.
US champion at 14, grandmaster at 15.

Sources

Frank Brady, Bobby Fischer: Profile of a Prodigy (1965) and Endgame (2011).
FIDE, list of grandmasters.
Bobby Fischer, My 60 Memorable Games (1969).