Chess genius Bobby Fischer, from American hero to paranoid fugitive

0 Comments | AFP, January, 2008

REYKJAVIK (AFP) — 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.

The US-born player had lived for the last two years in Iceland, after serving eight months behind bars in Japan in a new twist to a life that had gone downhill ever since his moment of glory at age 29.

The Brooklyn-bred genius made headlines around the world 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.

He was said to have an IQ higher than Albert Einstein's and once thought his gift would win him undying fortune. He would make...