:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Saturday, January 19, 2008 ::

Bobby Fischer RIP

Edited text from the two links:

Bobby Fischer, who died on Thursday aged 64, was a high school dropout who may have been the greatest chess player of all time, but ended his life in eccentric seclusion.

He turned the chess world on its head when he wrested the world chess title from Soviet domination in 1972, beating world champion Boris Spassky, in a Cold War chess showdown in Reykjavik known as the match of the century. But while the theatrics made him a celebrity he also succeeded in alienating himself from all but a small band of friends and chess enthusiasts. Despite having a Jewish mother, Fischer was a vicious anti-Semite, using broadcasts at far-flung radio stations to accuse Jews of everything from his legal woes to an alleged conspiracy to kill off elephants.

Fischer returned to chess in 1992 with a rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia, then in the throes of the Balkan wars. At a press conference he spat on a US government notice warning him he was breaking sanctions and proceeded to defeat Spassky once again, winning more than three million dollars on which he boasted he would never pay tax.

In 1996 he created Fischer Random Chess (Chess960). Fischer's goal was to create a chess variant in which chess creativity and talent would be more important than memorization and analysis of opening moves. His approach was to create a randomized initial chess position, which would thus make memorizing chess opening move sequences far less helpful.

In 2004 Fischer was taken into custody at Tokyo's Narita airport for travelling on a passport which Washington said was revoked.

With Japan deliberating for months on whether to send him to the United States, Iceland came to his rescue in 2005, granting him citizenship in tribute to his role in making the island.

"The Jew-controlled United States is evil. They talk about the axis of evil. What about the allies of evil? What about the US, England, Japan, Australia and so on? These are the evil doers," said Fischer.

I can see the biopic already.

Labels: Chess, RIP

:: Dan 19.1.08 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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People playing chess on roller coasters
[via grom]

Labels: Chess, Humour

:: Dan 19.7.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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Andrew Marr's Start of the Week on Radio 4 this morning was particularly interesting. It included discussion with chess master Garry Kasparov about his new book How Life Imitates Chess (added to wishlist), Prof. Jeffrey Sachs giving a hint of some of the subjects he'll be covering in this year's Reith Lectures (starting Wednesday), and Norman Lebrecht on the classical music record industry. Worth a listen. The MP3 download trial [17MB] and the podcast seem to be down at the time of writing but the streaming version is working (see first link, above).

Edit: Download and Podcast now working

Labels: Academic, Chess, Radio4

:: Dan 9.4.07 [Arc] [0 comments] [links to this post] ::
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