66 Fun Facts About Bobby Fischer

Which Nixon adviser made a personal phone call in 1972 to urge Fischer to play for the world title?

Henry Kissinger placed the call because the match against the Soviet champion had become a Cold War contest, and Fischer, who had been holding out over money and conditions, finally flew out.

In which city was the 1972 world title match, dubbed the Match of the Century, played?

Reykjavík hosted the whole match only after a plan to split it with Belgrade, Fischer's own first choice, fell through.

What was unusual about Fischer's three years as world chess champion, from 1972 to 1975?

He played no competitive games as champion, sitting out his whole reign before letting the title go in 1975, and he stayed away from serious play for almost 20 years.

What did Iceland's parliament grant Fischer in 2005 to free him from detention in Japan?

Full citizenship came by a special law in March 2005, after Japan had refused to release him on lesser papers, and within days he was free.

Fischer grew up in Brooklyn, but in which city was he born in March 1943?

Chicago is on a birth certificate naming a German father who never entered the United States; his mother took the children through California and Arizona before settling in Brooklyn.

At 14, Fischer became the youngest-ever winner of which event, which he went on to win eight times?

The US Championship fell to him in January 1958, two months before he turned 15; he won it all eight times he entered, and that first win sent him to his first world title qualifier.

Which variant, randomising the starting position of the back-rank pieces, was Fischer's invention?

Chess960 is named for its 960 possible starting positions, which Fischer wanted so that games could no longer be decided by memorised opening preparation.

Who was named World Champion by default in 1975 when Fischer refused to defend his title?

Anatoly Karpov became champion in April 1975 without playing a single game for the title, after Fischer resigned it by telegram rather than play under FIDE's rules.

What did Fischer do at the 1963/64 US Championship that no player had ever done there?

Won every game: his 11–0 sweep is the event's only perfect score, and one official congratulated the runner-up on winning the tournament and Fischer on winning the exhibition.

Which 1969 Fischer book is regarded as essential reading in chess literature?

My 60 Memorable Games was written with help from Larry Evans, and Fischer unusually put some of his own draws and losses among the annotated games.

Which actor played Fischer in the 2014 film "Pawn Sacrifice"?

Tobey Maguire also produced the film, which cost a reported $19 million and took in under $6 million worldwide.

The 1993 film "Searching for Bobby Fischer" is actually about which young chess prodigy?

Joshua Waitzkin was a seven-year-old New Yorker hailed as a new Bobby Fischer; the film follows his father Fred's memoir, so the champion of the title is never a character in it.

Why was Fischer arrested at Tokyo's Narita Airport in July 2004?

His US passport had been revoked in 2003, and he spent months in detention fighting deportation to face charges over his sanctions-breaking 1992 rematch.

Fischer's 1992 rematch with Spassky, which led to a US arrest warrant, was played in which sanctioned country?

Yugoslavia was under UN sanctions, and Fischer spat on the US Treasury order forbidding the match in front of the press; the warrant that followed meant he never went home again.

What did the 13-year-old Fischer give up on move 17 of his 1956 "Game of the Century" against Donald Byrne?

His queen was the bait: Byrne took it and got a rook, two bishops and a pawn thrown back at him before being mated, and a magazine editor gave the game its grand name.

Which grandmaster did Fischer beat 6–0 in the 1971 Candidates semi-final, right after sweeping Mark Taimanov by the same score?

Bent Larsen had been his rival as the best player outside the Soviet Union, which made the whitewash a shock; the two sweeps are the only perfect scores in Candidates match history.

Mark Taimanov, punished by Soviet officials for losing 6–0 to Fischer, had which other profession?

Concert pianist: after the last game he told Fischer, "Well, I still have my music," but officials took his stipend, stopped his foreign travel and kept him off the concert stage too.

How did Fischer lose the second game of the 1972 world championship match?

By forfeit over the cameras, which left him 2–0 down; Spassky, unwilling to win by default, agreed to play game three in a small back room, and Fischer took over from there.

Which British financier put up an extra $125,000 to lure Fischer to the 1972 match?

Jim Slater, a London financier, took the prize fund to an unheard-of $250,000 while Fischer was still refusing to fly out, and that gesture is credited with saving the match.

What happened to US Chess Federation membership in the year after Fischer's 1972 title win?

It doubled, near enough: the federation counted about 31,000 members in the summer of 1972 and about 59,000 a year later, a surge remembered as the Fischer Boom.

Fischer accused the Soviets of collusion after which 1962 Candidates tournament, prompting FIDE to switch to knockout matches?

Curaçao saw three Soviet players draw quickly among themselves to save their strength; Fischer cried foul in Sports Illustrated, Moscow called it sour grapes, and the pact is now widely accepted as real.

Which game show got Fischer to Moscow in 1958, when its producers arranged plane tickets for him and his sister?

I've Got a Secret put the young US champion in front of its panel and paid the fares; in Moscow he demanded a game with world champion Botvinnik, was refused, and beat the local masters at blitz instead.

Before the 1958 Interzonal, what did the teenage Fischer say he would do against the grandmasters?

Draw with them and beat the weaker players was his plan, and it worked: he qualified for the Candidates, which made him, at 15, the youngest grandmaster there had ever been.

Fischer dropped out of which Brooklyn high school at 16, a school also attended by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond?

Erasmus Hall gave him a gold medal for his chess, and he still dropped out at 16, because classes took time away from the board.

Which former Scottish champion did the seven-year-old Fischer play in a simultaneous exhibition in January 1951, holding on for 15 minutes?

Max Pavey was the master his mother was pointed to after a newspaper could not classify her advert for chess-playing children; Bobby lost, but a club president in the crowd took him on as a pupil.

Which Pasadena-based church did Fischer follow and fund for years before denouncing its founder as a false prophet?

The Worldwide Church of God reportedly received about $61,000 of his 1972 earnings; when its founder's prophecies failed he walked away, saying its leaders had cleaned out his pockets.

How did Fischer play a 1965 Havana tournament without leaving New York?

Teleprinter relay from the Marshall Chess Club got him round a State Department ban on travel to Cuba; sessions at the Capablanca Memorial ran up to twelve hours and he still tied for second.

Fischer's 1992 rematch with Spassky set a record for which of these?

The largest prize fund in chess, $5 million, went to an unofficial rematch with no title at stake: Spassky was by then ranked around 100th in the world, and beating him still paid Fischer more than $3 million.

Fischer's 1988 patent covered which chess clock innovation, later standard in top play?

A time increment added after each move was his cure for the blunder-strewn scrambles before the flag falls; the patent was granted in 1989, and digital clocks later made the idea routine.

Which teaching method does the million-selling 1966 primer "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" use?

Programmed instruction has the reader answer a question on each page, then turn over for Fischer's answer; unusually for a chess book it needs no chess notation, and it has been called the best-selling chess book ever.

At the 1962 Varna Olympiad, Fischer needed only 24 moves to beat which Argentine grandmaster?

Miguel Najdorf went down in the very Sicilian line that bears his name, a defence Fischer relied on throughout his own career.

Which former world champion, in a 1957 two-game match in New York, beat the 14-year-old Fischer 1½-½?

Max Euwe won one game and drew the other; fifteen years later, as president of the world chess federation, he held up the start of the 1972 title match for two days while Fischer stayed at home in New York.

Which of these languages did the teenage Fischer teach himself so that he could read foreign chess magazines?

Russian, because the best chess writing was Soviet; a poor student at school, he still read Russian chess journals regularly and learned enough of the language to follow them.

Fischer's 20 consecutive wins against top opposition in 1970-71 was topped in history only by whose 25 straight wins?

Wilhelm Steinitz needed nine years for his 25, because he barely played between 1873 and 1882; Fischer's 20 came inside a year, and the run ended in the second game of the 1971 Candidates final.

Which member of the US team stepped aside from the 1970 Interzonal so that Fischer, who had skipped the qualifying US Championship, could play?

The next man in line did the same; Fischer then won the Interzonal by 3½ points with seven straight wins at the end.

Which Hungarian-born mathematician and physicist did a 2002 Philadelphia Inquirer investigation, and an FBI file, name as Fischer's biological father?

Paul Neményi paid child support for the boy until he died in 1952, and his photographs look strikingly like the adult Fischer.

What did Fischer's mother demand in a five-hour White House picket in 1960?

Funding a US team for the Leipzig Olympiad was the one thing American chess officials said they could not afford; she picketed Eisenhower's White House, the team went, and it came home with silver medals behind the Soviet Union.

Fischer's 1961 match with Samuel Reshevsky ended prematurely after a scheduling dispute with which patron and sponsor?

Jacqueline Piatigorsky moved a game to the morning so that she could attend a concert by her husband, the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky; Fischer would not turn up, and with the score level Reshevsky was declared the winner.

Who was the only player to beat Fischer at the 1970 Herceg Novi blitz tournament, which he won by 4½ points?

Viktor Korchnoi took one game off him and was the only man to break even against him; the Soviet blitz specialists were the favourites, yet Fischer beat six of his eleven rivals 2–0.

In the 1970 USSR vs Rest of the World match, Fischer took second board and beat which former world champion 3–1?

Tigran Petrosian, dethroned only the year before, lost the first two games and drew the last two; the Soviet side still scraped home by a single point, 20½ to 19½.

What did Fischer publish in 1977?

Three wins over the MIT program Mac Hack were sent to a computer chess newsletter by Fischer himself, with a note that the machine was so weak he could give it great odds and still win.

Fischer was arrested in Pasadena in 1981 for what reason?

He resembled a robbery suspect and spent two days in a cell; he hit back with a self-published 14-page pamphlet titled "I Was Tortured in the Pasadena Jailhouse".

Fischer withdrew from the US team on arrival at which 1968 Olympiad, unhappy with the playing conditions?

Lugano never saw him make a move: he objected to the lighting and went home, and the Americans finished fourth without him.

Which book about Fischer did the American grandmaster Edmar Mednis write?

How to Beat Bobby Fischer came from a man who had done it: in 1962 Mednis handed him his first loss in the national championship, then made a book of the games Fischer lost.

Fischer became the first non-Soviet player to win an Interzonal since 1948 by winning which 1962 event undefeated?

Kotov said only Smyslov had shown such faultless endgame technique at 19.

Where was the 1967 Interzonal that Fischer walked out of while he was leading it?

Sousse, Tunisia, saw him take 8½ points from ten games and then quit in a row over a schedule built around his Saturday Sabbath, a walkout that kept him out of the world title race for another three years.

Where did Fischer live between 2000 and 2002, sharing a compound with grandmaster Eugene Torre?

Baguio, Philippines, was home to Torre, his second in the 1992 rematch; a radio station there put him on air on September 11, 2001, and he called the attacks "wonderful news".

Who was the chief arbiter of the 1972 title match?

Lothar Schmid rescued game three in its back room when Spassky made for the door: the arbiter got both men to the board, and twenty years later the German grandmaster refereed their rematch as well.

What did Boris Spassky do after losing the sixth game of the 1972 title match?

Joined in the applause: the beaten champion clapped with the audience for a game that put the challenger ahead for the first time, a lead he held to the end.

Which American grandmaster and Catholic priest served as Fischer's second at the 1972 title match?

William Lombardy had won the World Junior title with a perfect score, and he was a last-minute choice for the job.

During the 1972 match, the Soviet camp demanded that which item of Fischer's be examined for hidden devices?

His chair was X-rayed and taken apart, and the light fittings above the board dismantled, after the Soviets alleged a concealed device was scrambling Spassky's play; the search turned up a pair of dead flies.

Why were Fischer's remains exhumed by court order in 2010?

To obtain DNA for a paternity claim made for a nine-year-old girl, the court had the grave opened; the test ruled him out, and his widow was later named heir to the estate.

When Fischer was jailed in Japan in 2004, Boris Spassky wrote to which leader asking to share his cell?

George W. Bush got an open letter in which Spassky pointed out that he had played the very same rematch and asked for the very same punishment: "Put me in the same cell with Bobby Fischer, and give us a chess set."

In 1957 Fischer's mother wrote directly to whom, seeking an invitation for her son to a Moscow youth festival?

Nikita Khrushchev's government said yes, but too late for the 1957 festival; the trip came a year later, and the 15-year-old made straight for the Moscow Central Chess Club and beat its young masters at speed chess.

Which soft-drink company sponsored the 1957 match in which 14-year-old Fischer beat Filipino master Rodolfo Tan Cardoso?

Pepsi-Cola backed the match, which Fischer won 6–2; a year later Cardoso upset David Bronstein in the last round of the Interzonal, leaving Bronstein half a point short of the Candidates the 15-year-old Fischer reached.

How did Fischer spend spring 1964 instead of playing the Interzonal that led to the world title?

Touring with simultaneous exhibitions filled a gap he had made himself: after accusing the Soviets of fixing the 1962 Candidates he swore off the qualifying cycle, which cost him any shot at the 1966 title.

The 1992 rematch opened at Sveti Stefan, an island resort off the coast of which present-day country?

Montenegro's Sveti Stefan staged the opening games and Belgrade the rest; playing there broke sanctions, and the American arrest warrant that followed kept Fischer out of his own country for the rest of his life.

Which opening move did Fischer play almost exclusively as White, calling it 'best by test'?

He played 1.d4 only once in a serious game, during a blitz tournament, yet rivals still found him hard to prepare for.

Six-year-old Fischer learned chess from the instructions in a set his sister bought where?

A candy store near the family's apartment sold the set. Short of opponents, Bobby played many of his first games against himself.

Which Soviet star won all four of his games against the 16-year-old Fischer at the 1959 Candidates tournament?

Mikhail Tal won the tournament and, a year later, the world title. The two became friends, and when Tal fell ill at the 1962 Candidates, Fischer was the only player to visit him in hospital.

Which Olympic swimming champion appeared on the same 1972 Bob Hope television special as Fischer?

Mark Spitz, fresh from seven golds in Munich, played a dentist in one sketch, while Fischer sat down at a chessboard opposite Bob Hope in a Russian fur hat.

Sæmundur Pálsson, who went to Japan in 2005 to help free Fischer, had served him in 1972 as what?

Bodyguard: Pálsson, a policeman, guarded Fischer at the 1972 match and stayed a friend; when he arrived three decades later hoping to take him away, the authorities at first refused to let the two meet.

Which opening did Fischer declare 'busted' in a 1961 article, a year after Spassky beat him with it?

The King's Gambit 'loses by force', he wrote, offering his own defence as the refutation. He then played the gambit himself as White in three tournament games and won all three.

At whose home did the Hawthorne Chess Club meet when Fischer began attending in 1956?

Jack Collins owned a huge chess library that the 13-year-old read avidly between blitz games. Bobby ate almost as many dinners at his house as at home.

For which magazine did Fischer write a 'Checkmate' column from 1966 to 1969?

Boys' Life is the Boy Scouts of America's monthly, so his readers were Scouts. Fellow grandmaster Larry Evans took the column over when Fischer stopped.

What was Fischer's mother Regina studying in Moscow when she married the German biophysicist Hans-Gerhardt Fischer in 1933?

Medicine stayed her obsession: when Bobby was 16 she moved out to pursue her medical training, leaving him alone in the family's Brooklyn apartment.