Bobby Fischer Is Exhumed

"The remains of Bobby Fischer, the American chess champion, were exhumed Sunday night in the cemetery of Laugardaelir Church in Iceland, according to a report in The Reykjavik Grapevine.


The exhumation was ordered to see if Fischer is the father of nine-year-old Filipino girl as part of a fight over his estate."

Further details here.

Bobby Fishcher dead at age 64

The most complete coverage of Fischer's life and career will most likely be at Chessbase, here.

Here's an essay I wrote about Fischer back in 2004, entitled The Search Continues.

Fischer's dispute with Swiss bank

01.08.2006 Without giving a reason the Union Bank of Switzerland, one of the world's largest, has transferred the assets of the legendary chess world champion Bobby Fischer to a bank account in Iceland, where Fischer now resides. The sum of three million Swiss Francs (US $2.4 m or €1.9 m) was transferred without Fischer's permission and against his will.

Nobody knows why.



Bobby Fischer goes public on UBS
Criticises the bank for using discriminatory measures

In an lengthy interview with Morgunbladid, Reykjavik, last Saturday July 29th, chess legend and world champion Bobby Fischer revealed that he has been in a long and difficult dispute with the Union Bank of Switzerland, one of the world’s major banks, since he received in April 2005, soon after his arrival to Iceland from a detention in Japan, a notification that the UBS intended to terminate his account, which he had held with the bank for over 13 years since 1992.

The UBS asked Mr. Fischer for his banking details in Iceland in order to transfer all his assets and deposits with the bank, around three million dollars, notifying him at the same time about its unilateral decision to terminate all business relationship with him, without stating any reason or clarification for the action. Then, against Mr. Fischer's repeated protests, the UBS, after some extension of the deadline, went ahead in August 2005 and transferred all his funds to the Landsbanki in Reykjavik. The UBS even liquidated some of Fischer's gold coins, from his match with Boris Spassky in Sveti Stefan in 1992, and other investments, without his prior approval at a time when the rate for gold was very unfavorable.

According to Morgunbladid Mr. Fischer was not willing to receive his financial funds from the UBS in this way, he reserved his rights to take appropriate actions and asked Landsbanki to return the remittance immediately to the account of the UBS where the funds have been floating while this dispute continues."

"I'm not Bobby Fischer" | Salon.com News

"March 11, 2006 | This week in San Diego, 64 hunched and pensive brainiacs have been competing for the coveted title of United States Chess Champion. The winner, to be decided Sunday, will take home $25,000.

That's chump change compared to the millions that young stars like Daniel Negreanu are making in poker. But there's plenty at stake for 18-year-old Hikaru Nakamura, the controversial boy king defending the crown.



This stocky Asian-American teen from White Plains, N.Y., is shattering the history books to become America's winningest chess prodigy ever. By 10, he achieved the rarefied title of master. At 15, he was the country's youngest grandmaster. In December 2004, he sealed his coronation by taking home the 2005 U.S. championship. As of Friday morning, after seven long and brutal days of play, he's in the top three of his group, and gunning for a repeat.

But don't call him a geek. While chess gets written off as nerd play, Nakamura represents a brash new generation of champs reared on video games, hip-hop and the Internet. Known for his speed and aggression, he has been dubbed 'the world's most impolite player' -- fighting words in one of the last sports that still prizes modesty and grace. While other players discuss the art and beauty of chess, Nakamura talks like a street fighter. After getting skipped over one year for the chess Olympiad team, he crushed a rival player and called it 'payback.' In one notorious interview, he cockily anointed himself the best player in America and deemed his peers conniving foreigners. 'There aren't really any 'American' grandmasters that are higher rated than me,' he said. 'That's actually why I still work alone. It's very hard to trust anybody.'

He's just as brash in play. While grandmaster etiquette calls for accepting a draw during a deadlocked game, Nakamura consistently breaks rank by refusing to concede. "I don't give up!" he snaps by way of explanation. Online, he's nicknamed "the King of Blitz" for his top-ranked mastery of high-speed smackdowns. Opponents have been known to strike back beyond the board. During one tournament, a kid got so angry he allegedly chucked a basketball at Nakamura's head. But Nakamura has only been emboldened by his bad-boy image. As Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, editor of New in Chess magazine, puts it, "Nakamura likes being the fighter and the loner. He's the lone American taking on the world."

Nakamura's potent brew of balls and brains has earned him the obvious comparison: Bobby Fischer. But for Nakamura, Fischer, the wunderkind who became a wild-eyed, long-bearded paranoid, who vanished mysteriously during his prime, serves also as a cautionary tale. "He played too much chess and went crazy," says Nakamura. "I'm not a mad genius."

But his experience serves as a sort of modern parable about the game. Nakamura rode the fuel of new technologies to become a powerhouse player. But his hard, fast rise has left him feeling burned out and, unlike his coddled peers in Europe, ready to pull the plug. "When it's this hard to make a living," he says, "you're not going to keep the talent in the game. Eventually, they have to go into other things."

Click on the title to read more

Stalking Bobby Fischer

"Sometime in modern history, the Icelandic language and the game of chess came together to confound all but a few thousand souls on our planet.

I sat amongst them on Saturday, when Icelandic chess fans met in the lobby of a downtown bank to watch Fri�rik �lafsson, the Iceland�s first grandmaster, and Boris Spassky, the Russian world champion, play a couple of short matches.

I was there hoping Iceland's elusive new national Bobby Fischer might make an appearance, as was the Icelandic media who started speculating that he might over a week ago. I asked a man sitting next to me what he thought the chances were. He shrugged "who knew? "but personally believed that Fischer 'will never play again.'"

click on the title to read the entire article

Bobby Fischer Wants to Face Bulgaria's Topalov

"The legendary Bobby Fischer is willing to play against Bulgaria's chess master Vesselin Topalov, local Trud daily reported.

The newspaper cites an Australian reporter covering the World Chess Championship in San Luis. The reporter claims that Fischer is willing to face Topalov in a game of chess, but not the classical type of the game but a version invented by Fischer.

The Australian reporter has informed the manager of the Bulgarian chess master and says that he is preparing the game, Trud daily says."

Karpov ready to play against Fischer

"BUENOS AIRES, September 21 (RIA Novosti, Yury Nikolayev) - Multiple world chess champion Anatoly Karpov is ready to face Bobby Fischer, the Russian chess grandmaster told RIA Novosti Wednesday.



Karpov said the possibility of such a match depended solely on Fischer and getting sponsors. 'Fischer is hardly predictable. It depends on him, and of course, on the sponsors. Fischer is always interesting, but he wants to play his chess. That's no problem - we can play his chess.'

Karpov, who is currently the guest of honor at a chess festival in Argentina, said 'Fischer's chess' envisioned the initial position of the chess pieces defined by a computer. The pawns remain in their places, and a computer determines the other chess pieces' positions. "

Bobby Fischer: A grandmaster finds a new home

"The atmosphere was tense at Reykjavik airport. Iceland was awaiting its newest citizen and the press corps was ready. Bobby Fischer had been in jail in Japan for almost eight months and resembled a barbarian when he stepped off the plane. He did not greet the large welcoming committee. Soon enough he appeared at a news conference, however, looking a bit more civilized but ranting about American and Jewish conspiracies. It is unlikely that anyone in the crowd agreed with him. So why on earth would the Icelanders invite somebody like that to be a citizen of their country?
The answer is simple: Chess. It is very popular in Iceland. From ancient times there are stories of people in Iceland playing chess and in 1931, world champion Aljekin was honored with the Order of the Falcon - the nation's highest form of recognition - when he came to Iceland. Fischer was a child prodigy in chess and Icelanders have followed his development since the late fifties. He first came to Iceland in 1960, at the age of 17. He returned in 1972 to beat Boris Spassky in the fight for the world championship. Although Fischer often made demands that seemed unreasonable, he was still very popular in Iceland, as was his competitor.

Since 1972 Fischer has only played one official match, a rematch with Spassky in the former Yugoslavia. Unfortunately for him, the US was enforcing an embargo on "performing any contract in support of a commercial project in Yugoslavia, as well as from exporting services to Yugoslavia." A letter from the government to Fischer read, in part: "The purpose of this letter is to inform you that the performance of your agreement with a corporate sponsor in Yugoslavia to play chess is deemed to be in support of that sponsor's commercial activity.” To most Icelanders this seems far-fetched. At the moment no other individuals are being pursued for a similar violation of this act.

The Washington Post was critical of the Icelandic parliament for granting Fischer citizenship, publishing an editorial citing the “shame of Iceland.” The Post’s criticism focused on Fischer’s statements about the US, Israel and Jews. However, Icelanders take a different view of the issue. Helgi Ágústsson, Icelandic ambassador to the US, wrote to the editor of the Post: “While of course respecting the Post’s right to criticize the decision, the Embassy strongly disagrees with the underlying assumption that granting citizenship to Mr. Fischer somehow reflects Iceland’s support of his statements. On the contrary, Iceland is an old friend of both the US and Israel, and a country with a strong tradition of religious tolerance could not disagree more with his remarks. Humanitarian concern was at the heart of Iceland’s decision to accept Mr. Fischer’s request for citizenship. The Washington Post actually points out that Mr. Fischer can be considered the subject of pity, rather than hatred. This is the essence of his case and his circumstances.” In other words, most Icelanders feel that the greatest chess master of all time should not rot in jail simply for playing chess.

Meanwhile, Fischer seems to be adjusting well to life in Iceland. He frequently goes to an antiquarian bookstore and has been seen sipping beer at local bar. He has not played chess, but he did give a lecture on the world chess championships between Russian masters Kasparov and Karpov, which he claims were fixed. The audience did not embrace those claims, but grandmaster Jóhann Hjartarson, Iceland’s highest rated chess player said that it was interesting to meet the legend and to hear him speak about chess."

Wired News: Unorthodox Chess From an Odd Mind

"Two dozen programmers from around the world have signed up to compete in Germany next month in the first computer chess tournament devoted to Chess960, a game variant invented by fugitive chess genius Bobby Fischer that's slowly gaining rank among grandmasters.

The rules of Chess960 are mostly the same as orthodox chess -- but the setup incorporates something once considered anathema to the game: chance. Pawns begin where they always do. However, the pieces behind them on the white side are arranged at random, with the proviso that bishops must end up on opposite colors, and the king dwell somewhere between the two rooks. The black pieces are lined up to mirror the white.

That makes for 960 different starting positions in the game, instead of just one. The point of Chess960 is to free chess from the yoke of memorization.

The opening phase of a chess game as currently played has been subject to a hundred years of scholarship and play, and today players are hard pressed to find so much as a viable pawn push within the first 20 moves that hasn't been thoroughly analyzed."

Read more of this interesting article by clicking on the title link above.

IcelandReview - Fischer Considering Match

"Chess grand master and new Icelandic citizen Bobby Fischer is considering playing another chess match, according to the online edition of daily newspaper Morgunbla. The controversial player had vowed never to return to traditional versions of the sport which made him famous, and that he would only be willing to compete in matches of "random chess". A Fischer creation, random chess involves placing the pawns in the same positions as normal chess, but all the other pieces in random places behind them.

American-Russian businessman Alex Titomirov is behind the offer. He came to Iceland in late May with Boris Spassky, Fischer's opponent in the famous match of 1972, to discuss the idea with the reclusive Fischer.

Fischer will meet with his supporters in Iceland today to decide whether to accept the offer. If the contest goes ahead, it will probably take place within a year, against an as-yet unnamed foreign player. "

Josh Waitzkin, Subject of "Searching For Bobby Fischer," wins World Championship in Martial Arts. : Khalsa News Network- KNTimes.com

Khalsa News Network- KNTimes.com: "International Chess Master Josh Waitzkin defies odds winning the Middleweight World Championship Title in Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands (Fixed Step), and becomes the Middleweight World Co-Champion in Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands (Moving Step), after competing in the 7th Chung Hwa Cup International Tai Chi Chuan Championships in Taiwan December 5th. Waitzkin, who came to fame as the subject of the highly acclaimed book Searching For Bobby Fischer (written by his father, Fred Waitzkin), was immortalized in the Paramount film of the same name as a chess prodigy winning his first National Championship.

Waitzkin went on to dominate the scholastic chess circuit, winning 8 National Chess Championship titles before the age of 19. Waitzkin began studying Tai Chi Chuan with Grandmaster William CC Chen (NYC) in '98. He has since won an unprecedented total of 13 National Championship titles over the last five years in the Middleweight, Light Heavyweight, and Heavyweight divisions. He now adds two World Championship titles to his credit.

In November of '04 Waitzkin signed what is reported to be a $300,000 book deal with Simon and Schuster's Free Press (rep’d by Amanda Urban, ICM) for his second book, an autobiographical discussion of the learning process and performance psychology, scheduled for release in 2006."

Fischer Wants to Renounce Citizenship

Excite News

Chess Legend Fischer Faces Long Detention

Excite News

Fischer Appeals Japan Deportation Order

Excite News

Bobby Fischer today

Bobby Fischer today

(Fischer May Seek German Citizenship to Avoid Extradition

Japan Rejects Bobby Fischer's Deportation Appeal, AP Reports