Fischer Made Lives Of Present Day Chess Players Easier
By Arvind Aaron

A large number of chess lovers of the present day came into the game largely due to one factor: Fischer. The 1972 Match against Spassky often called the Match of the Century saw the Chicago born Fischer come from behind to win the match at Reykjavik. Chess gained global recognition and it owes Fischer for the stature it enjoys today.

Robert James Fischer was born on March 9, 1943 and died on January 17, 2008 following kidney failure. He was born in Chicago, raised in Brooklyn in New York and died in Reykjavik. He had lived in various cities like Munich, Budapest, South America and Japan. Fischer was held captive while trying to use a USA passport at Japan in 2004. After prolonged discussions over several months, Icelandic authorities bailed him out. He died at age 64 in the same city in which he was crowned world champion.

Fischer unseated Boris Spassky in the 1972 match when he was 29 and lost the 1975 world title match to Anatoly Karpov by default without making a move. In the real sense, Fischer had given up playing tournament chess in 1972 and he played just one match in 1992 against the same Boris Spassky at Yugoslavia and won again. 

Fischer had never been in India. He had played and won against IM Manuel Aaron in the Interzonals at Stockholm 1962. According to Manuel Aaron who was one of the players known to Fischer, Fischer came into negotiation to play a match against India's Vishy Anand at Dubai in the early 90's but it did not happen.

Fischer did make efforts to have talks about playing matches and some were at the initiative of Karpov. These two chess legends also met at a star hotel near Madrid's Barajas Airport for a possible match but it never happened.

Fischer lived 64 years and he is going to be remembered for scaling the mighty Soviets in chess. No world champion past or present or the ones in the future can win a match against any of the elite grandmasters 6-0 (Bent Larsen), 6-0 (Mark Taimanov) the way Fischer did. Then he beat Petrosian 6.5-2.5 and final nailed Spassky 12.5-8.5 by coming back from a two-game deficit. This tennis like 6-0, 6-0 score against Taimanov and Larsen will puzzle all chess players of the future as well. How could he do that?

Fischer was and is the favourite player for most chess players ever. Even the present world champion Vishy Anand had Fischer and Tal as his favourites. Anand liked Fischer's chess but refrained from commenting about his other side.

When we chess journalists write the last round report from Linares each year, we remember that it comes on Fischer's birthday March 9. In Fischer, chess has lost its greatest soldier.