One of My Childhood Heroes Has Died

Robert James “Bobby” Fischer died on Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008 at his home in Reykjavik, Iceland, after an extended illness.  He was 64 years old.  Yes he was a certifiable nut job in his later years, but it will likely be a long, long time—if ever—before the chess world will see another player with Fischer's ability.  He was one of my childhood heroes and the one who more than any other inspired me to learn the game of chess.



You can read a nutshell version of his most interesting life story on Wikipedia or any of a number of other Web sites, so I won't bother to repeat it here.  But I would like to put up a copy of a very famous game he played.  It was Oct. 17, 1956, and Bobby Fischer was only 13 years old when he faced off against Donald Byrne in the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament in New York.  Byrne had won the U.S. Open Chess Championship three years earlier and was awrded the title of International Master in 1962.  This game came to be known as “The Game of the Century” and has been disected and discussed thousands of times in chess circles.

   Donald  Bobby
   Byrne   Fischer
   White   Black

1   N-KB3  N-KB3
2   P-B4   P-KN3
3   N-B3   B-N2
4   P-Q4   O-O
5   B-B4   P-Q4
6   Q-N3   PxP
7   QxP    P-B3
8   P-K4   QN-Q2
9   R-Q1   N-N3
10  Q-B5   B-N5
11  B-KN5  N-R5
12  Q-R3   NxN
13  PxN    NxP
14  BxP    Q-N3
15  B-B4   NxQBP
16  B-B5   KR-K1+
17  K-B1   B-K3!!! (sacrificing the queen)
18  BxQ    BxB+
19  K-N1   N-K7+
20  K-B1   NxP+
21  K-N1   N-K7+
22  K-B1   N-B6+
23  K-N1   PxB
24  Q-N4   R-R5
25  QxP    NxR
26  P-KR3  RxP
27  K-R2   NxP
28  R-K1   RxR
29  Q-Q8+  B-B1
30  NxR    B-K4
31  N-B3   N-K5
32  Q-N8   P-QN4
33  P-R4   P-R4
34  N-K5   K-N2
35  K-N1   B-B4+
36  K-B1   N-N6+! (here it comes!)
37  K-K1   B-N5+
38  K-Q1   B-N6+
39  K-B1   N-K7+
40  K-N1   N-B6+
41  Resigns

"I regard Bobby Fischer as a mythological combination of sorts, a centaur if you will, a synthesis between man and chess."—Garry Kasparov

Aloha, Bobby.