... And still champion! Bobby Fischer dies ... although having "died" in his own trapped mind years ago.

Bobby Fischer in better days ... back in 1954 or so ... roughly a couple of years before winning the US Junior Championship at 13

He may be only a footnote in the History of the Twenty-first Century, but he will always be a Grand Tragedy of the Twentieth Century.

Like Mediawingnuts, Bobby Fischer loved the game of chess, was clearly (maybe pathologically) drawn into seclusion at times, was not mentally well from an early age--probably in his late twenties or early thirties at the very latest ... and was birthed by a Jewish mother.

That last factoid was in contrast to his ranting and raving about Jews, whom he came to despise, a truly bothersome aspect to his failing mental health. [Actually, my own mother, Jesus be with her, was only half-Jewish by ancestry.]

Oh yes, a really major difference: He was an accomplished genius and a champion and Mediawingnuts slogs out mediocre blog postings after never getting beyond a weak "B" USCF rating back a hundred years or so.

I've read just about every book or article on Bobby Fischer dating back to the late 1950s, and can state a few highlights:

He had an IQ of 181 (measured), but dropped out of high school at 16.

He became the US Chess Champion at 14--youngest ever!

He became a grandmaster (determined on a point system) at 15--youngest ever!

He became the World Champion in 1972 (when he beat Boris Spaasky in a well-remembered match) only to be stripped of the title in 1975 for his erratic behavior ... that continued pretty much until the day he died--probably day before yesterday, but there is even disagreement on that.

He won 20 consecutive games against grandmasters (a record), back in the early 1970s before the Spaasky match.

His kidneys failed him long after his mind failed him.

Somewhere in all of this he became an "Enemy of the State" here in America and even spent nine months in prison overseas relating to his lapsed passport. He lived in Japan, the Philippines and ultimately, Iceland, where he became a citizen.

Yes, he truly was a tragedy of the Twentieth Century--long before the advent of the 21st Century!

Terribly sad. My heartfelt sympathies go out to his eight year-old daughter, Jinky Ong and others who (thought that they) knew him at the end.