Bobby Fischer
Chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. Many consider him to be the greatest chess player of all time
Fischer in 1960
Here's a time line of Bobby Fischer's life
- 1943 - Born at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, on March 9
- 1956 - Won a brilliancy known as "The Game of the Century"
- 1956 - US Chess Champion
- 1957 - Youngest grandmaster up to that time
- 1957 - Youngest candidate for the World Championship
- 1963 - US Championship with 11 wins in 11 games
- 1969 - Published: "My 60 Memorable Games"
- 1970 - He won the 1970 Interzonal Tournament by a record 3½-point margin
- 1970 - Won 20 consecutive games, including unprecedented 6 - 0 sweeps, in the Candidates Matches
- 1971 - Became the first official FIDE number-one-rated player
- 1972 - Became world champion by defeating Boriss Spassky of the USSR, in a match held at Reykjavik
- 1975 - Refused to defend his title when an agreement could not be reached with the FIDE
- 1976 - 1991 - Became reclusive and sometimes erratic, disappeared from both competitive chess and public eye
- 1990 - Patented a new chess timing system
- 1990 - Invented Fischerandom, a new variant of chess known today as "Chess960"
- 1992 - unofficial match against Spassky in Yugoslavia and got into conflict with US government
- 1992 - 2003 Lived as an émigré
- 2004 - arrested in Japan for using a passport that had been revoked by the US government
- 2004 - 2008 - granted an Iceland passport and citizenship allowing him to live in iceland until his death in 2008
"I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different. A piece of garbage like Kasparov might be called a chess genius, but he's like an idiot savant. Outside of chess he knows nothing."
— Bobby Fischer