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Reclusive chess genius Fisher dies after long illness

Bobby Fischer, the reclusive chess genius who became a Cold War icon by dethroning the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky as world champion in 1972, has died, his spokesman said yesterday. He was 64.

Fischer spokesman Gardar Sverrisson said Fischer died in a Reykjavik hospital on Thursday. Icelandic media reported that he died of kidney failure after a long illness.

US-born Fischer, a fierce critic of his homeland who renounced his US citizenship, moved to Iceland in 2005.

Born in Chicago and reared in Brooklyn, New York, Fischer was wanted in the US for playing a 1992 rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia in defiance of international sanctions.

Russian former world chess champion Garry Kasparov said yesterday that Fischer's ascent of the chess world in the 1960s was "a revolutionary breakthrough" for the game.

"The tragedy is that he left this world too early, and his extravagant life and scandalous statements did not contribute to the popularity of chess," Kasparov said.

Rival and friend Spassky, reached in France where he lives, said in a brief phone call that he was "very sorry" to hear of Fischer's death.

A US chess champion at 14 and a grand master at 15, Fischer vanquished the Soviet Union's Spassky in 1972 in a series of games in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, to become the first officially recognized world champion born in the US.

The match, at the height of the Cold War, took on mythic dimensions as a clash between the world's two superpowers.

He lost his world title in 1975 after refusing to defend it against Anatoly Karpov. He dropped out of competitive chess and largely out of view, emerging occasionally to make erratic and often anti-Semitic comments.

He resurfaced to play the exhibition rematch against Spassky on the resort island of Sveti Stefan. Fischer won, but the game was played in violation of US sanctions imposed to punish Slobodan Milosevic, then president of Yugoslavia.

In July 2004, Fischer was arrested at Japan's Narita airport for traveling on a revoked US passport and was threatened with extradition to the US. He spent nine months in custody before the dispute was resolved when Iceland -- a chess-mad nation and site of his greatest triumph -- granted him citizenship.

In his final years, Fischer railed against the chess establishment, alleging that the outcomes of many top-level chess matches were decided in advance.

Funeral details were not immediately available.

Fischer moved to Iceland with his longtime companion, Japanese chess player Miyoko Watai. She survives him.
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