OK, Bobby. I realize that you’re isolated from the world, totally paranoid, and all the rest of it. After all, I was a chess freak during my childhood back in the 1960s, so I have a pretty good idea of what a totally messed-up, wires-crossed, bizarro-world your brain must be.
But still, in this interview, you make Louis Farrakhan come off like Mister Rogers.
Kindly go back under whatever rock you crawled out from under, and stay there. No amount of chessboard brilliance can make up for this sort of garbage.
More complete transcript here (9 October entry); MP3 of this interview available here.
Unfortunately, no. He’s been known to be a terrible anti-Semite for at least the last decade. Here in Budapest, where Fischer lived until about ‘99, he gave one live radio interview, and he just went off about the "fuckin’ Jews" this and “dirty Jews” that. The radio announcer asked him wasn’t he, in fact, Jewish, to which Fischer replied “No, and if you come into the bathroom, I’ll prove it to you.”
Cripes. He’s a nutjob, that’s it.
Fischer has only played one serious chess match (with Boris Spassky) in the last 30 years. There are stories of him playing weird openings on the Internet (but it could be a computer).
He never had any interests outside of chess, and dropped out of school early.
Interviews in his early years showed a rather immature personality with mildly eccentric views.
Unfortunately he has been getting more paranoid, with occasional ‘outbursts’ over the years.
This latest sick interview is quite likely to be his current view.
I can’t really agree with a “fuck you” for Fischer because the poor man is obviously insane. He’s got Paranoid Schizophrenic written all over him. He’s just sick, not evil.
Actually practically all world-class chess players are both intelligent and sane. They may well concentrate on chess to the exclusion of other activities, but so do many other people at the top of their field.
Kasparov writes a column in the Wall Street Journal.
Kramnik just plays chess, but his book ‘My life and games’ is excellent.
Anand is a real ambassador for India, with a reputation for politeness.
Morozevich is a brilliant player, but quietly spoken. He likes to wear Armani suits.
Adams is another quiet person, both on and off the board.
I could go on, but that’s a sufficient sample. (I have met all of the above).
I’m not going to read the interview. The guy’s been a fucking nutjob for years. My husband the chess nut admires the hell out of his talent, but even he admits he’s a huge huge asshole.
Fischer wrote this rambling piece about his night in the Pasadena Jailhouse in 1982, a time when he was basically in self-exile from chess. Just more evidence of the sad and disturbing mind of Bobby Fischer.
Ha ha to you all–I actually met Bobby (a 60-year-old named Bobby-I cringe) back in 1972 just after he won the Championship. He was wearing a red suit, green shirt, and red tie. Nutso even then.