It’s one thing to spark a renaissance in your industry. It’s another to strike curiosity and awe in the next infinite generations after you’ve done it. The ultimate story.
I keep coming back to Bobby Fischer every year. And every year, the craziest player in chess history continues to amaze me.
The story goes that as Fischer was dominating the world in chess, at cafes he would force his friends to play a new kind of chess.
He would mix up the first ranks of each of the players—knights, bishops, rooks astray—and then he would begin the clock with the hopes of all moves needing creative origins.
After being arguably the best chess player in history, Fischer persisted that he hated chess.
He claimed there was too much preparation and memorization for the game to be fun anymore.
And in his mission to give the world the intellectual euphoria that he once had for chess, he became an active ambassador for the game he once played with his friends in the cafe.
Today we call it Fischer Random (or Chess960).
Bobby Fischer’s life was one filled with brilliance, magic, hatred, and anger, all shrouded in a mysterious cloak that we will never get to uncover. Still, it inpsires me—and I hope he will strike awe in you as well.
For his full story, watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od3gG13tyf8&ab_channel=Thoughty2
The year was 1958—during the Cold War. At 14, Fischer was already the US champion in chess.
His mother was an esteemed physicist who took a solo role in Fischer’s upbringing. She was also the subject of an FBI investigation for the belief that she might be communist.
Bobby Fischer was known for his creativity and charisma.
He once predicted that he would beat Grand Master Miguel Najdorf in 25 moves, and went on to beat him in 24.
Fischer often had non-negotiable demands like extreme silence, abundance of rest days, and an exact schedule that would keep him happy.
If these demands were not met, he would simply refuse to play—even at the expense of the World Championship.
For a couple of years, Fischer’s would continue to be responsible for regular carnage over the chess board. He occasionally took a hiatus from chess, but never seemed to lose his grit.
Fischer credited most of his success to the thousands of hours he put into studying the game.
Sometimes though, Fischer would force his friends to play a new game: Fischer Random (Chess960). A version where the first rank of pieces would be mixed up, leaving 960 possible combinations for the board.
As we’ll see, Fischer’s relationship with regular chess was complicated, but he always had a love for Fischer Random.
An absolute phenom, he was