Death Checkmates Fischer

One of the greatest and most troubled minds in gaming history has lost his battle with Death herself. Bobby Fischer is dead. Known equally for his erratic behavior and brilliant mind, Fischer was an icon of the Cold War, when the 64 squares of the chessboard proxied for the world as the battleground of the United States and Soviet Union.

Fischer’s battle with Russian Grandmaster Boris Spassky was as strange as it was titanic, and it was one of the first great stories about a boardgame that I can ever remember. Chess still sucks as a game, but so many people took (and still take) it as a serious intellectual pursuit that it became the vanguard of insinuating games as a mainstream intellectual pursuit.

Fischer will also be remembered for dodging Garry Kasparov. Whether that was due to his mental state or fear of being defeated, the world will now never know.

Checkmate, Bobby.