I don’t know where Fischer originally claimed this, but I have seen it referenced a few times. For example
http://www.chessninja.com/dailydirt/2005/08/fischer_settles_in.htm
http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=cbmb (pdf)
As per wikipedia, Fischer died at age 64, which is coincidentally the number of squares on a chessboard.
Yes, I’m the Arbitur, I know the score.
From square one I’ll be watching all sixty-four.
Lyrics by Tim Rice
Don’t know why I didn’t pick up on this, I’ll just say…wow.
I don’t know if that’s true…I think people just focus on the ones who had unhappy lives.
Steinitz obviously went crazy at the end of his life (which might have been due to syphillis)
Lasker lived to 71, and except for near the end of his life, where he had to flee the Nazis and leave all his money and property behind, he was fairly happy.
Capablanca died young, but was happy enough.
Alekhine also died young, but was fairly normal, except for the potential Nazi collaboration thing, but that could have been a combination of the fact that he was a White Russian, and desired to protect his Jewish wife.
Euwe died at 80, and was normal.
Botvinnik died at 83, and again, was pretty normal.
Smyslov died at 86.
Tal was an alcoholic and died young.
Petrossian died young.
Spassky died at 70.
Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, and Anand are all still alive, and while Kasparov isn’t all that popular with the Russian government, and Kramnik has a weird kind of arthritis, none of them are particularly miserable.
As Paul in Saudi mentioned, chess champions do not live long and happy lives. Fischer’s sad life may be vaguely analogous to that of Paul Morphy the only other United States chess giant.
Personally, I can forgive Fischer’s rather strange behavior in his later life especially when contrasted with the brilliant chess wizardry of his earlier life.
R.I.P. Bobby
That appears not to be common knowledge.
Do you feel the same way about, say, Mel Gibson?
Ok…let me correct that by saying, “Spassky is 70 and still alive…” 
For which I’m duly grateful. He’s played some mighty fine chess of his own over the years - and it said much for Fischer’s skill that he could concede two games start to Spassky in Reykjavik 1972 through a combination of a schoolboy error in Game 1 and refusing to turn up for Game 2, and still hand him a dreadful hiding.
Wasn’t there some concern about mental telepathy during the Iceland chess match?
Honest. I seem to remember someone complaining about it - A Russian or Fischer, himself. (I’d a mentioned the city there, but I can’t spell it.)
And wasn’t the coverage grand! We had Shelby Lyman doing the blow by blows, and a bunch of other Masters chipping in. It was wonderful.
In one match it was down to a couple of pawns each. It was Fischer’s move and everyone in the studio was speculating frantically. No one had a clue of what Fischer was up to. And then he moved!
KAPOW!!!
It was all over and no one guessed that move. Thrilling? A total understatement
He was a lunatic, to be sure. But his games were so amazingly beautiful. They were the perfect balance of aggression, finesse, defense, and all the elements. There was a time when he had no peer, and had he stayed with it, that time would have lasted much longer. My personal dealings with him were maddening, but I still consider him to be the last undefeated world chess champion, and I blame the USCF for his disappearance and subsequent descent into madness.
There’s a fair bit of daylight between, “What Bobby Fischer believed,” and “What’s actually plausible.”
Amen, amen, amen.
I don’t think Fischer was an anti-Semite, I think he was suffering from very severe mental problems which happened to manifest themselves in bizarre anti-Semitic ranting. (He himself was born Jewish, after all.)
I think this is different from someone who is of normal mental state and still chooses to be anti-Semitic. Fischer was probably schizophrenic or suffering from dementia.
Yeah, really. A dick is a dick. Barry Bonds was a great and fairly liked player early in his career but I don’t hear anyone talking about that these days.
I agree with this. His hate-filled rants seemed more sad and pathetic than anything else. Watching a once brilliant mind devour itself was heartbreaking.
His games are still out there to be seen, so I can appreciate those. But considering what he has contriobuted lately, I won’t be missing him at all.
“I look at Bobby Fischer the way you might look at Barry Bonds.”
-one of my chess-loving coworkers, when I said I wasn’t sure if I should express my condolences (or any other emotion) on Fischer’s passing
With a lot of mental illnesses where people are paranoid, they tend to be extremely suspicious of what they view as the “power structure.”
For example a great many paranoid schizophrenics fear the CIA is always watching/listening in on them. I think we had a thread once wondering what the mentally ill were afraid of before the CIA. Well, it was the power structures in that place/time, be it the Catholic Church, the royal families et cetera.
Mentally ill-type paranoia lends people to buy into conspiracies way more often than usual, too. Jews are often portrayed as secretive, power-broker who operate in the shadows and secretly run the world by many anti-Semites, to an ill mind that’s the sort of fodder it is easy to buy into when you already believe the entire world is conspiring against you, what is one more conspiracy?
So yeah, I think Bobby Fischer was mentally ill and that is the reason he expressed anti-Semitic feelings.
I was sort of waiting for you to post in this thread. May I ask about this:
Underlining obvious - personal dealings? Have you…you know…played him? I knew you were ranked/maybe still are…but can you elaborate on your dealings with Fischer? I know your IM and EMAIL are diabled…but I’d be all ears.