Robert James Fischer

Fischer showed great skill in chess from an early age: at the age of 13 he became the US Junior Chess Champion, at 14 he won the US adult championship, at 15 he became the youngest Grandmaster at the time and the youngest contender for the world championship. At the age of 20, won the 1963/64 U.S. Championship with 11 wins in 11 games, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. Winning the 1970 inter-zonal tournament by a record margin of 3.5 points with two 6-0 victories in the candidates' matches, by July 1971 he had the highest FIDE rating at the time.

Fischer won the 1972 World Chess Championship by defeating Boris Spassky of the USSR in a match in Reykjavik, Iceland, after which he stopped playing in official chess competitions. In 1975 Fischer put forward conditions for a world championship match, which were deemed unacceptable by FIDE. Attempts to come to terms with him were unsuccessful, and FIDE stripped Fischer of his title and the new world champion was Soviet grandmaster Anatoly Karpov, who had won the qualification round (candidates' matches).

After losing the world title, Fischer became a recluse. In 1992, he won an unofficial rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia, which led to a conflict with the U.S. government and an order for his arrest. Fischer lived in Europe, then in South Asia, was arrested in Japan in 2004 and detained for several months. In 2005, he received an Icelandic passport and citizenship under a special Althingi act allowing him to live in Iceland, where he lived until his death in 2008.

Fischer made many long-term contributions to the development of chess. In the 1990s, he patented a modified chess timing system that increased the time after each move, and its use is now standard practice in the best tournaments and matches. He also invented the Fishrandom, a new version of chess known today as Chess-960.

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