One night in 1960, author and chess fan Frank Brady sat down for dinner in a Greenwich Village tavern.
Across the table from him was Bobby Fischer, just a teenager but already a grand master of the game. Fischer was never without his pocket chessboard, and as they lingered over dinner, he pulled it out and began to rehearse for an upcoming match. His eyes glazed, his fingers flew over the little board, and he seemed completely unaware of his surroundings as he whispered to himself about possible moves.
Brady found that in the presence of Fischer's chess genius, his eyes were full of tears.
He describes the scene in his new book, Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall — From America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness.
Fischer was a troubled genius. He dropped out of sight after winning the 1972 World Championship against Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. Today, he's better known as a paranoid recluse whose frequent anti-Semitic and anti-American rants drove away friends and angered the U.S. government.
Read full article here:
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/30/133272280/the-troubled-genius-of-bobby-fischer
No comments:
Post a Comment