Lonnie Best
English 165
4 Nov. 1994

The Amazing Bobby Fischer


          It does not take a chessplayer to realize that Bobby Fischer is an absolutely amazing man. Aside from his numerous chess accomplishments, he has an astronomical I.Q. with an exceptional memory; in the world of chess, no player has ever proved to be as devoted as Bobby Fischer. Fischer is "generally acknowledged as the greatest chessplayer of all time" (Pandolfini 1). Robert James Fischer was born in Chicago, Illinois, on March 9, 1943. His parents were divorced in 1945, and his mother moved him and his sister to Brooklyn a year or so later. "At the age of six he acquired a chess set and soon became deeply absorbed in the game" (Hooper and Whyld 115). This was the beginning of a legend.

          Bobby Fischer had many incredible chess accomplishments. At age twelve, Fischer began to visit the great Manhattan Chess Club ,which had the best players in the country, and "even then hardly anybody could beat him" (Schonberg 258). At age thirteen, Fischer beat International Master, Donald Byrne, in what was generally acknowledged as the "game of the century." "The winning moves were perhaps the most insightful ever played by a youngster" (Pandolfini 2). In 1957, at age fourteen, he won the U.S. Junior Championship, which was a nice accomplishment for a young man of his age. However, that same year he won the U.S. Senior Championship overtaking the renowned Samuel Reshevsky, which was an amazing accomplishment for a man of any age. Fischer became the youngest grandmaster in the history of chess at age fifteen. "At 16 he was able to earn his living from chess" (Hooper 115), and he added status to any tournament he attended. Now the only steps left were to win the Candidates Matches and then the World Championship Match. In 1971, step one was completed with superior dominance, leaving only the World Championship Match. In 1972, Fischer domineered Borris Spassky to become the World Champion.

          Contributing to Bobby Fischer's numerous chess accomplishments, was his high I.Q. and enormous memory. "There is probably no other topic that intrigues chessplayers as much as the inner machinations of the mind of Bobby Fischer" (Brady V). Chessplayers universally feel that they can improve their own game by understanding how Fischer's mind operates, but it does not take a chess player to realize that Fischer has enormous mental capabilities. A political scientist, at Fischer's high school in Brooklyn, had an opportunity to study Fischer's personal records. He was amazed to see that Fischer's I.Q. was in the range of 180, a very high genius. In addition, Fischer has an incredibly retentive memory. On one occasion, right before the World Championship Match in Reykjavik, Fischer toured Iceland for a few days. One morning he called Frederick Olaffson, who was Iceland's only grandmaster. Olaffson's Icelandic speaking daughter answered the phone and Fischer said, "Mr Olaffson, please." The girl explained that her father and mother were out of the house and would not return until dinner. Fischer did not know one word of Icelandic and he did not understand the little girl. Fischer had to hang up with an apology. Later that day Fischer met up with another Icelandic chess player that spoke English. After explaining what had happened, Fischer "then repeated every Icelandic word he had heard over the telephone, imitating the sounds with perfect inflection, so well, as a matter of fact, that the Icelander translated the message word for word" (Brady vii). Another amazing example of his the mental capacity was witnessed by Frank Brady:
In 1963 Fischer played in and won the New York State Open Championship at Poughkeepsie, New York. During the last round I was involved in a complicated ending with Frank S. Meyer . . . Fischer, on his way to the washroom, briefly paused at my board -for perhaps five seconds- and then walked on. A few months later, he visited me at my office . . . "How did that last round game turn out?" he inquired. I told him I had won, but with difficulty. "Did you play Q-B5?" he asked. I told him quite frankly I couldn't remember what I had played. He immediately set up the exact position to "help" me remember, and then demonstrated the variation I should have played to have secured a much more economical win. The main point is . . . he remembered not only the position but also his fleeting analysis as he had passed my board months previously. (VII)
"It is said that he has never forgotten a game he has played or an analysis he has read" (Schonberg 264). Fischer can also remember most of his speed games, in which both players are limited to five minutes to make all of their moves. After the World Speed Chess championship at Hercegnovi, Yugoslavia, in 1970, "Fischer rattled off the scores of all his twenty-two games, involving more than 1,000 moves, from memory!" (Brady VIII). Not only does he remember speed chess directly after a match, he has also been known to remember for years. "Fischer met the Russian Player Vasiukov and showed him a speed game that the two had played in Moscow fifteen years before. Fischer recalled the game move by move" (Brady VII). It is plain to see that these qualities were instrumental in producing the chess accomplishments of Bobby Fischer, but his I.Q. and memory capacity could have gone nowhere without one final quality.

          Bobby Fischer had an overwhelming desire to win. One of his teachers remarked about his abnormal competitive urge.
"No matter what he played, whether it was baseball in the yard or tennis, he had to come out ahead of everybody. If he had been born next to a swimming pool he would have been a swimming champion. It just turned out to be chess." (Schonberg 261) "The boy, of a poor family and without any friends, had an overwhelming urge to win, to dominate, and chess became his outlet" (Schonberg 261).
Fischer was a monomaniac, he had an obsession with one idea and that was to be the "Best Chessplayer of All time." People who were around Fischer would say that he studies chess day and night, and that they have never seen him do anything but chess. Fischer was totally dedicated to chess and had no room for girls or friends. The only people he saw socially were chessplayers. "Regarded as anti-social, resentful of all authority, he increasingly became alienated from his fellow men" (Hooper 115). Fischer satisfied his emotional life through the losses of his opponents, and that was why it was so important to win. After Fischer took the World Championship title from Spassky, Spassky later commented "Fischer has a burning desire to win every game."

          Bobby Fischer's chess career was full of accomplishments that earned his peer-given title "The Best Chessplayer of All Time." His I.Q. and memory were essential to his success, and without his total devotion, he would have never became legend.

Work Cited

Burger, Robert E., Foreword by Frank Brady The Chess of Bobby Fischer. New York: Mc Graw - Hill Company, 1979.

Hooper, David and Whyld, Kenneth The Oxford Companion To Chess. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.

Pandolfini, Bruce Bobby Fischer's Outrageous Chess Moves. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1985.

Schonberg, Harold C. Grandmasters of Chess. New York London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1981.

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