Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall—From America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness

by Frank Brady

Endgame is acclaimed biographer Frank Brady’s decades-in-the-making tracing of the meteoric ascent—and confounding descent —of enigmatic genius Bobby Fischer.  Only Brady, who met Fischer when the prodigy was only 10 and shared with him some of his most dramatic triumphs, could have written this book, which has much to say about the nature of American celebrity and the distorting effects of fame.  Drawing from Fischer family archives, recently released FBI files, and Bobby’s own emails, this account is unique in that it limns Fischer’s entire life—an odyssey that took the Brooklyn-raised chess champion from an impoverished childhood to the covers of Time, Life and Newsweek to recognition as “the most famous man in the world” to notorious recluse.
 
At first all one noticed was how gifted Fischer was.  Possessing a 181 I.Q. and remarkable powers of concentration, Bobby memorized hundreds of chess books in several languages, and he was only 13 when he became the youngest chess master in U.S. history.   But his strange behavior started early.  In 1972, at the historic Cold War showdown in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he faced Soviet champion Boris Spassky, Fischer made headlines with hundreds of petty demands that nearly ended the competition.
 
It was merely a prelude to what was to come.
 
Arriving back in the United States to a hero’s welcome, Bobby was mobbed wherever he went—a figure as exotic and improbable as any American pop culture had yet produced.  No player of a mere “board game” had ever ascended to such heights.  Commercial sponsorship offers poured in, ultimately topping $10 million—but Bobby demurred.  Instead, he began tithing his limited money to an apocalyptic religion and devouring anti-Semitic literature. 
 
After years of poverty and a stint living on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, Bobby remerged in 1992 to play Spassky in a multi-million dollar rematch—but the experience only deepened a paranoia that had formed years earlier when he came to believe that the Soviets wanted him dead for taking away “their” title.  When the dust settled, Bobby was a wanted man—transformed into an international fugitive because of his decision to play in Montenegro despite U.S. sanctions.  Fearing for his life, traveling with bodyguards, and wearing a long leather coat to ward off knife attacks, Bobby lived the life of a celebrity fugitive – one drawn increasingly to the bizarre.  Mafiosi, Nazis, odd attempts to breed an heir who could perpetuate his chess-genius DNA—all are woven into his late-life tapestry.
 
And yet, as Brady shows, the most notable irony of Bobby Fischer’s strange descent – which had reached full plummet by 2005 when he turned down yet another multi-million dollar payday—is that despite his incomprehensible behavior, there were many who remained fiercely loyal to him.  Why that was so is at least partly the subject of this book—one that at last answers the “Who was Bobby Fischer?”

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Chess, History, Audiobook, Sports, Biography Memoir

402 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2011

About the author

Frank Brandy is the author of numerous critically acclaimed biographies. Internationally recognised as the greatest authority on the life and career of Bobby Fischer, he is also president of New York City's Marshall Chess Club and was the founding editor of Chess Life.

Reviews

[BlackOxford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Batman: What Did Bobby Fischer See?

The philosopher Thomas Nagel wrote a now famous paper in 1974: ‘What Is It Like to Be a Bat?’ His concern was the nature of consciousness. For him “an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism- something it is like for the organism.” What he concluded is that no amount of description - of the organism itself, of its environment, of its history or upbringing - is sufficient to either derive or explain the subjective experience of such an organism, except to a sufficiently similar organism.

It is clear from Frank Brady’s biography that Bobby Fischer is so unlike any other human organism, that his experience - what he saw, how he judged what he saw, and why he acted in response to what he saw - is entirely impenetrable. This has to do in part with his 180 IQ score, perhaps with his marginally autistic personality, certainly with his profound talent for the game of chess. But ultimately the problem of ‘interpreting’ Bobby Fischer is much more general. As Thomas Aquinas insisted, each individual human being is his or her own species, and therefore fundamentally unknowable in Nagel’s terms.

In this light Bobby Fischer is Everyman. The difference between him and others is that his fame and his eccentricity provoke the questions that we don’t typically ask about people we know about. We prefer to project ourselves into their situations and provide them motivations, responses, and rationalisations that are entirely our own. But with Fischer, his talent is so enormous, his behaviour is so strange, that it’s just not possible to judge him to be pursuing any purpose but his own, a purpose that even he may have never been aware of.

Brady can therefore only speculate about Fischer’s mental processes:

“It seemed that his strength grew not just from tournament to tournament and match to match, but from day to day. Each game that he played, or analyzed, whether his or others’, established a processional of insight. He was always working on the game, his game, refining it, seeking answers, asking questions, pulling out his threadbare pocket set while in the subway, walking in the street, watching television, or eating in a restaurant, his fingers moving as if they had a mind of their own.”

Indeed: “a mind of their own.” Fischer’s consciousness was devoted to one thing: chess. He had other interests - swimming, baseball, ice hockey - but these were obviously engaged in to further his pursuit of the game. With his intelligence and determination, he could have pursued any number of professional careers. Why chess grabbed him so totally at an early age and then dominated his life to the extent of eliminating any apparent self-reflection (and often logic) is the specific mystery of Bobby Fischer - the mind revealed only in his fingers.

It’s impossible to tell whether Fischer’s life is psychotic or cannily purposeful in a way that the rest of us just can’t comprehend. Was chess simply another symptom - along with his bizarre anti-Semitism, his quondam religious fundamentalism, his disdain for modern medicine and dentistry, his suicidal feud with the US government, and a general unprovoked nastiness - of a complex but deranged mind? Or were these consistent and rational responses to an understanding of the world that could only be achieved through Fischer’s unique position within it? Walking a mile in his shoes was never an option for anyone else.

I suppose that this mystery is what makes biography interesting. Biography can only articulate the mystery; but that appears to be all we need to find it worthwhile. A reminder perhaps that none of us really understands anyone else, and very likely not even ourselves. Whatever Bobby Fischer saw, no one else ever did, or ever will.

Postscript: Stefan Zweig’s Chess Story is a remarkable literary analysis of Fischer’s personality written a half century before events: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Kiekiat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 3.5 book, but I'm giving it four stars because of the clear writing. It would have been a true four-star book, to the extent such a rating actually exists, had the author been able to interview more primary sources during Fischer's "Wilderness Years" period--the time after 1992 when he replayed Boris Spassky in Montenegro. Fisher defeated Spassky in their rematch, though he was playing a Spassky who had slipped to number 100 in the world and was no longer the formidable champion Fisher challenged and defeated in 1972 in Reykjavik.

In fairness to the author, who was personally acquainted with Fischer, Fischer led such a peripatetic and clandestine life during these years that it must not have been easy to track down a lot of primary sources--and Fischer, long before, had sunk into a morass of paranoia and bizarre beliefs, doing his best to conceal his whereabouts and his identity.

Not all of this paranoia was unfounded, as he became a "fugitive from justice" after his rematch with Boris Spassky for violating a law banning Americans from travel to Yugoslavia for the purpose of making money.

Fischer's animus and paranoia toward Russian chess players may have had some basis in fact. Fischer, a master chess analyst, accused some Russians of conspiring to win tournaments by deliberately playing matches that ended in draws. If enough players did this then it made it next to impossible to for any opponent other than the Russians to win the match on points. I can barely place the pieces in correct order on a chessboard so am unable to explicate this theory; though it does appear that Fischer had some support among the chess elite in his accusations.

As happens, though, with many paranoid systems, the net is cast wider and wider. Fisher probably had paranoid personality disorder and I did not need Wikipedia to tell me this, though it is suggested there. By the time he defeated Spassky to win the world title, at age 27, he was already showing signs of this disorder. He refused to defend his championship against Anatoly Karpov in 1975 and sent a terse letter to FIDE (the world chess rulers) voluntarily relinquishing his title. After this time, he apparently lived in the Los Angeles area for many years, subsisting on royalties from his books and aided by his mother's Social Security pension. Likewise, he led a reclusive life and his personal relationships were often contentious and short-lived. He ended many friendships because of feeling his privacy had been breached if a friend allegedly reported some tidbit of information or gossip about him to the press or to others in the world chess community.

As with many people suffering from Paranoid Personality Disorder, Fischer's net expanded like Richard Nixon’s “Enemies List” and included, eventually, the United States government, the Russian Chess Federation, a great many famous Russian chess players and people he referred to as Jews, which was basically anyone he didn't like or trust, Jew or Gentile. He made a number of hateful anti-Semitic remarks throughout his life and was also a Holocaust denier. He was often aided and befriended by Jewish people during his "Wilderness" period, yet was quite vocal about his Jew hatred even to his Jewish friends, many of whom gradually ended their friendships with him for obvious reasons.

That he got worse as he got older also fits with Paranoid Personality Disorder. It is postulated that this "disorder" is a way for a person that feels insignificant to feel quite important. The fact that Bobby was rated the number one chess player in the world for around nine years was not enough for him as he grew older and more reclusive. No doubt his paranoia helped fuel his need to feel important. If large cabals of people are out to get me, then I must be a pretty significant person.

Despite his undoubted difficulty finding primary sources, the author was able to dredge up a lot of interesting aspects of Fisher's years after he walked away from chess stardom.

For one, he apparently stayed abreast of the chess world, reading and analyzing various games and having some contact with those in that rarefied universe that would still speak to him.

He also traveled a lot, usually between Japan, where he had a long-term mistress and to the Philippines, where he had chess friends and maybe other dalliances. He went many other places as well, and it appeared the US government was not going to pursue extradition as long as he did not direct his paranoid hate at them.

Fisher also read a lot and read widely. It would have been interesting to have perused his Goodreads reviews.

Contrary to gossip rag innuendo, Fischer also maintained a good relationship with his mother and stayed in contact with her until her death when he was exiled in Iceland. He was also close with his sister.

This changed after 9/11, when Fischer made a public statement expressing glee at the US tragedy and ire at the powers that be. This was not wise, as I found out on here recently when I dared to criticize some practices of Amazon, which apparently has a stake in this site. On Fisher's next junket he was apprehended at Narita Airport in Japan and held by the Japanese for ten months. Iceland, the country he had put on the map, finally finagled and managed to grant him asylum and citizenship. He remained there for a few years, getting occasional visits from his former paramour in Japan whom he had since married. By all accounts, he was unhappy in Iceland because he was pretty much stuck there and could not risk travel to a country where the US might seek extradition for his heinous crime of playing a chess match in a land where atrocities were being perpetrated.

It's hard to sum up Fischer's life. Americans do not like stories of people who reach the top only to walk away. Even Richard Nixon made a comeback, for Christ's sake. It is also hard to argue that Fischer's life was a total waste of his genius. He was world chess champion, after all, and had some of the best chess playing years (based on a complicated point system) of any human that's ever played the game in modern history. His decision to leave competitive chess, probably a result of his worsening illness, was a great loss for the chess world and a sad example of the ravages of a mental illness afflicting a genius who, at one time, was the best in the world at what he loved most.

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

ON THE INEXTRICABILITY OF COMEDY AND HORROR – SOME LESSONS FROM ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE AND ONE OF THE VILEST HUMANS OF THE LAST 60 YEARS

The very thing that made him great destroyed him. If that’s not a Greek tragedy I don’t know what is. But if nobility of character is a requirement in our tragedies, then look elsewhere.

1. d4 Nf6
2. c4 g6

Young Fischer read chess books all the time and constantly played through the games. His chess set became encrusted with crumbs and bits of food, and was never washed off. Years later, a chess collector bought the set and cleaned it. Fisher told him “You’ve ruined it!”

Two bizarre companions : on his trip to play in Cuba in 1956, aged just 14, Bobby rode in a car wedged between Forry Laucks, a fan of Hitler who wore a swastika lapel pin, and Norman Whitaker, a disbarred lawyer who had done time for con tricks (including claiming to know where the Lindbergh baby was) and child rape.

3. g3 c6
4. Bg2 d5

Erasmus High School, Brooklyn, 1956. One of Bobby’s classmates has a secret crush on him. “Bobby was always alone and very peculiar. But I found him very sexy.” It was Barbara Streisand. Now there’s a thought.

What’s the curious connection between Bobby Fischer and The Velvet Underground? Well, no, he never slept with Nico or Lou Reed either. Now there's another thought. I’ll tell you. On page 93 we find that he featured on a tv show called “I’ve Got a Secret”, on which guests have some strange or curious circumstance about them which the smartly dressed panel have to deduce by yes-no questions. Bobby’s secret was that at the age of 14 he was the US Chess Champion. Another guest on the show a few years later was John Cale. (His secret was : “I performed in a concert that lasted 18 hours!”)

When I came across this anecdote I thought… Youtube… and sure enough, Bobby’s appearance is right there. As is John Cale’s (who is frankly hilarious).

5. cxd5 cxd5
6. Nc3 Bg7

The author Frank Brady spent lots of time with Fischer and in 1960 he asked 17 year old Bobby how he was going to prepare for a particular international tournament. Fischer gets out his pocket set and starts to rattle off the opponents and the games he has studied. His analysis goes on and on and on. He flies through game after game on his set. Time means nothing. Long minutes go by, he’s still rattling through games and analysis. “He was talking to himself, totally unaware of my presence or that he was in a restaurant”… Brady concludes:

I began to weep quietly, aware that in that time-suspended moment I was in the presence of genius.

As the championship match with Spassky draws near, Fisher lugs a big red book round everywhere he goes. It contains games of all the champions, including 355 of Spassky’s games. He would ask someone who was with him to pick a Spassky game at random from the book, then he would from memory say who was Spassky’s opponent, where and when it was played, and then he would recite the game move for move. He had memorised more than 14,000 moves.

7. e3, 0-0
8. Nge2 Nc6

The road to the world championship was monastic. Back in Los Angeles in 1973 he told the press: “I want to meet girls. Vivacious girls with big breasts.”

He became a follower of a fundamentalist Christian church. Brady reports :

Church officials set him up with young, amply endowed women – all church members – but since no physical intimacy was allowed, Bobby soon became disillusioned.

9. 0-0 b6
10. b3 (! or !?) Ba6

After the big Spassky win, Fisher was inundated with big financial offers. He could have made millions. But he turned them all down, every one. Why? Because he was going crazy. And his money simply ran out. By the late 70s he was living on his mother’s social security allowance.

11. Ba3 Re8!
12. Qd2, 12...e5!?

To begin with young Fischer hated all formality and refused to wear anything but jeans and sneakers and t-shirts. Then as the world championship became a reality he had a sartorial Damascus experience and switched to cool Italian suits and proper haircuts. After that, in the 70s, when he began to fall out with everybody, he adopted the standard homeless person look, complete with big wild beard. He became a full-blown crank. He became The Compleat American Crank. The whole nine yards. Obviously the Russians wanted to kill him. But so did the Jews. And eventually, so did the US government. Every day was a struggle to stay alive with those evil sons of bitches monitoring his every move and trying to poison his food. He had all the fillings from his teeth removed. That was because you shouldn’t have silver in your body, it poisons you.

13. dxe5!? Nxe5
14. Rfd1?! Nd3!

Fischer developed a monomaniacal hatred of the Jews. His biological father was Jewish, his mother was Jewish, but he became America’s most famous antisemite. In fact because of his beef with the US governmant about sanctions-busting during the Yugoslavian war in 1992, he ended up not being able to return to the US, and he bounced around from Hungary to the Philippines to Japan and round and round. He became the Wandering Antisemite.

15. Qc2!? Nxf2!!
16. Kxf2 Ng4+

Fischer in later years refused to play normal chess, because he had invented Fischer Random Chess. This is where when you set up the pieces, the pawns stay where they always are, but the back row pieces are laid out randomly. Fischer was really cross when he found his idea had been thought of back in the 1920s. Then again, Fischer was cross about everything anyway.


17. Kg1 Nxe3
18. Qd2 Nxg2!!

In the 1980s he was living a lot in Hungary and was befriended by the Polgars (chess royalty) and Lilienthal (an aged grandmaster). All of them Jews. This did not stop Fischer from launching into tirades of antisemitic abuse including Holocaust denial and the works while lunching in their homes.

Once Lilienthal stopped him – “Bobby, did you know that I am in fact a Jew?” Bobby smiled and replied “You are a good man, a good person, so you are not a Jew.” It was becoming apparent that Fischer tended to use the word “Jew” as a general perjorative. Anyone – whether Jewish or not – who was “bad” in Bobby’s opinion was a Jew. Anyone who was “good” – such as Lilienthal – whether Jewish or not, was not a Jew.

19. Kxg2 d4!
20. Nxd4 Bb7+;

P273 :

Single , tall, rich, handsome, middle-aged American man with good personality desires to meet beautiful young Hungarian girl for serious relationship. One or more photos please.

21. Kf1,Qd7!;
White Resigns.

On youtube I found the following, one of many interviews Fischer did for a Philippine radio station (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D7APJ...) –

Fischer : I’d like to see a whole lot of top Jews get executed – certainly many tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Jews should get executed in the US and the rest go to some kind of concentration camp to be re-educated.

Interviewer : But Bobby, execution, it’s too much, eh?

Fischer ; Well… maybe I said too few.. maybe it should be in the millions, should be executed.

(Laughter)


And now a word from your reviewer:

While making notes for this very review, I had a near death experience. I pulled the cap of my pen off with my teeth and a small plastic component, the very cap of the cap, so to speak, detatched itself from the main body of the pen top and propelled backwards by my intake of breath nearly lodged itself in my windpipe. Had this pen top component moved only another inch further backwards I would have, I think, become the first GR reviewer to give his life in the service of online book reviewing. So, as you see, comedy and horror were once again completely inextricable.

Careful with those pen tops, fellow reviewers.

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

B-K4 (Bishop to King Four). That's not a move specific to this book, or one in which Bobby used against Spassky to win the World Championship game. He could have used the move at some point. In fact, he had to have, a thousand times even. That's how often he played the game. How many could be played in the span of a life? A million? If so, Bobby did.

His sister, Joan, bought Bobby his first chess set. Just a plastic, pocketbook dime store model. She did it to keep him busy and because he loved games. Figuring things out, even at such a young age. Puzzles, crosswords, mazes. Chess would become the ultimate puzzle of his life. His sister played some at first, but Bobby eclipsed her quickly. His mother as well. Day after day he would play both sides of the board, plotting against himself. But the game of Chess is meant for two. 64 squares. 32 pieces. A million moves to be acquired, mastered. Living in New York City at the time, raising two kids as a single mother while working and studying to be a nurse, Regina would still find the time to introduce Bobby to others who played the game. He lost this first match to a Master, and he broke down in tears. He was only seven. To Bobby's credit, Pavey (this Chess Master), crushed another seven players within the same roundhouse game. But a man named Carmen Nigro noticed the young, determined boy that night. He invited Bobby to attend the Brooklyn Chess Club. From that moment Bobby became consumed with the game, and it would lead to being named our nation's prodigy.

At the age of thirteen he won the Junior U.S. Championship. One year later he became the youngest U.S. Chess Champion in American history. It would take longer, age 29, to achieve his lifelong goal: the World Championship, but in winning he became the first native-born American to ever hold the title. In his rise, he'd probably broken more records than any before him, and maybe since. After the 1972 match with Boris Spassky, Fischer pretty much walked away from it all. Was it intentional? The book says no, except that he now desired to study the many other things he'd put off for chess: Religion, language, courtship. The problems that surfaced over the next twenty years were the same that Fischer had shown before and during that 1972 Championship match, only more cripplingly so. Saying that Bobby could be a difficult person to get along with, is putting it mildly. For reasons that I can't fully understand (the book tries), Fischer had become a paranoid, distrusting, and hateful person to certain sects of people (Russians, Jews, the Media, and America). During and after the Championship match money seemed to have taken precedence over the game. In his mind, the name Bobby Fischer had become a commodity not to be used by anyone but him. At other times, he could be extremely gracious and giving, and money mattered for nothing. By the mid-eighties he was virtually penniless, living from room to room around the city of Los Angeles (unrecognizable to most with a beard and long hair).

Chess brought Fischer back to the world in 1992. Once again, money would play a big role. But bigger than the game? It's hard to tell. From 92' on he lived a life partially in fear of the United States for his part in violating economic sanctions. Eventually, Iceland (host of the 1972 Chess match, and who still adored him) became his final home. But in all his days, despite himself, Fischer still had friends (though he cast off many – anyone who he felt crossed him). Yet there were those who looked up to him, who looked after him, and those who loved Chess. Certainly, he was adored by fans and others who were amazed by his play. Personally, I am fascinated by Bobby the child (and his game of Chess), but not at all the man he became.

[Brett C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a very intriguing story. The chess legend had a unique story that kept me enthralled in its entirety. He grew up in a single-parent household with his older sister. He never knew who his real father was either and his mother was a multilinguist and world cultured medical practioner. Growing up a latchkey kid in Brooklyn, he excelled in puzzles, patterns, and games from an early age. At 13 he became the Junior Chess Champion and in 1972 became the World Chess Champion.

After achieving victory, he became alienated, developed odd perceptions of things, and became increasingly paranoid and anti-US government. As an avid reader he became anti-Semitic and a Holocaust denier. The irony is he was ethnically Jewish and raised non-observant Jewish. Yet he preached against the Jewish World Conspiracy and constantly interjected hate-rhetoric when giving interviews and speeches.

Something that stood out to me was during a trip to Italy in the 90s, he wanted to meet a member of the Mafia due to admiration for its structure and Code of Conduct.

Overall I learned a lot about this interesting character. A great and recommended read. Thanks!

[Wayne Barrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5

I am basing my rating, not necessarily on the quality of writing in this biography, but by how well it entertained and informed me. This is a clear case where someone like myself who loves the game of chess will be completely engrossed in the segments relating to the game, whereas someone who doesn't like the game, or simply doesn't know how to play, might be completely bored by this story. And when you talk about Bobby Fischer, you will be mostly talking about chess because chess was pretty much his life.

There is more to the story of Bobby's life than just chess and unfortunately it is not good. The man was an untapped genius and probably the greatest chess player in history, but he was also a twisted individual who spewed a lot of hate and ended up alienating himself from the world of chess, his friends, and his country.

Because of his fall from grace he has become largely forgotten by much of the newer generation in the U.S., but there was a time when Bobby Fischer was one of the most popular, beloved individuals in the country. His accomplishments in chess, especially his victory over the Russian, Boris Spassky, ranked right up there with the likes of the U.S. Olympic Hockey teams 'miracle on ice' victory. It is believed that Ali's famous line, "I am the greatest" was stolen from Fischer who made the claim about himself.

There were some negative influences, especially from his mother, that may have contributed to his mental depravity and then again, he may have just been one of those who was great in one aspect but was a screwed up person regardless of their genius.

His story, though great in the beginning, ultimately was a sad one. There is part of me that would like to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially considering what he accomplished for this country in the chess world, but there are some things that are hard to forgive. I won't give too much away from the hard facts of the story, but lets just say that as a chess player I admire him, but as a human being, can not forgive him. He didn't ask for it and he doesn't deserve it. So, Bobby Fischer, I acknowledge that you were probably the greatest chess player in history, but you were also an asshole.

This is a story of a fallen hero, and we generally sweep those under the rug, but this is a great biography of an American prodigy and his demise. It's hard to say whether any of my fellow readers would like this one if you are not a chess player, but it is still an interesting part of our history.

[Stian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bobby Fischer is arguably the greatest chess player in history. Most people with some knowledge of chess would surely rank Fischer among the three greatest players of all time. A very common question to today's elite players when they are interviewed is, "Fischer or Kasparov?" The two are generally recognised as the strongest players in chess history, and rightly so.

Bobby said of himself that he was just a genius who happened to play chess, and some adults in his early life also said that if he had put his mind into something else he would have become the greatest in that as well. He enjoyed baseball and, as Brady tells us in the book, was an avid swimmer. If chess had become only a peripheral interest of Bobby's, it's easy to imagine him getting caught up in baseball and eventually becoming a pro (not to mention that the memorisation of statistics would suit Bobby well!). Who knows, perhaps he could have become an olympic swimmer?

It is really no wonder that Bobby grew into the player he became. As Brady writes:

"Bobby read chess literature while he was eating and when he was in bed. He'd set up his board on a chair next to his bed, and the last thing he did before going to sleep and the first thing he did upon awakening was to look at positions or openings."

In fact, "So many peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, bowls of cereal, and plates of spaghetti were consumed while Bobby was replaying and analyzing games that the crumbs and leavings of his food became encrusted in the crenellated battlements of his rooks, the crosses of his kings, the crowns on his queens, and the creases in the miters of his bishops. And the residue of the food was never washed off. Years later, when a chess collector finally took possession of the littered set and cleaned it up, Bobby's reaction was typically indignant: 'You've ruined it!'"

And it didn't take long for him to blossom. At 13 he played what is usually referred to as "The Game Of The Century" against Donald Byrne. In this game Bobby played a series of supremely calculated tactical moves that stunned everyone, culminating in a queen sacrifice. Already at 13, Bobby had played one of the most beautiful games in the history of chess.

He then goes on to become the youngest Grandmaster as well as the youngest World Championship candidate at 15. Another one of his most memorable feats was his 11/11 score (11 wins, no draws, no losses!) in the 63-64 US Championship. No one has ever, before or since, managed to do anything like it.

Bobby continues further to totally dominate the chess world, crushing renowned players as if they were patzers. He becomes world champion in 1972, famously beating Boris Spassky in Reykjavík. He sits 52 months as the number #1 ranked player in the world and is universally hailed as history's best player.

But everything is not so perfect. Beyond the chess, Bobby is eccentric, insecure and begins developing persecution manias. His personality-changes were readily apparent already in the candidate tournament before the 1972 World Championship match, when he began accusing his Russian opponents of cheating, and demanding that some of them be thrown out. He hated journalists and behaved strangely towards them. He refused to sign autographs. His behaviour becomes steadily more erratic and eccentric. After his win against Spassky he was supposed to defend his title in 1975, but flat-out refused. He resigned his title and became a recluse, simply disappearing for many years.

He began delving into neo-nazi literature and conspiracy theories. He starts hating the jews, blaming them for everything. He feels the US has turned its back on him. He claims the holocaust never happened. One incident I found particularly disturbing was when he was staying with the Polgar family, who were Jewish, and Bobby simply denied the existence of Auschwitz, refusing to acknowledge that more than one million people had been murdered there. "Lazslo [the father of the Polgar sisters] told him about relatives who'd been exterminated in concentration camps. 'Bobby,' he said, frowning, 'do you really think my family disappeared by some magic trick?"

Fischer had become a US fugitive since he had refrained from paying taxes, and he had also infuriated the US by playing another game against Spassky in 1992 (he briefly came out of his reclusive state since he was offered an enormous amount of money to play this game) in Yugoslavia. At the time, Yugoslavia was under a US embargo.

He spends the next 12 years travelling, living with the few people willing to deal with him, and mainly living off of the fortune he made by the Spassky-encounter in 1992 (having the money in a Swiss bank account...). He eventually becomes accepted as an Icelandic citizen and lives there up until his death in 2008.

Brady's book is certainly a fascinating and well-researched documentary of Bobby's life. I have tried to give an idea of his personality and chess abilities above but I think it's best to read the book to really understand Bobby. Needless to say, I've left out a lot. Brady knew him since he was a child, but still manages to stay reasonably objective: we get both the good and the horrible Fischer. The more you read, though, the more horrible he gets. In the first few pages you quite like Bobby. He is a charming child in love with chess, who dreams of becoming world champion.

As the book progresses, however, and Bobby gets older, he changes and morphs into a monster. His anti-semitism is incredible. At some point he begins using the word 'jew' as a derogatory word for everyone, jew or not. After the 9/11-attacks, this is what Bobby had to say:

"Yes, well, this is all wonderful news. It's time for the fucking US to get their heads kicked in. It's time to finish the US once and for all. Sane people will take over the US. Sane people. Military people. Yes. They will imprison the Jews; they will execute several hundred thousand of them at least..."

Later he would also say that if you saw a jew on the street, you should attack him: kill him if you can. This was the extent of his hatred of Jews. Everything negative that happened to him was essentially a Jewish conspiracy.

Now, it is easy to fall in love with Bobby Fischer, the chess genius. It's equally easy, though, if not easier, to despise the despicable human being he eventually became.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like go, chess is a game I know how to play but not well. I own books and have half-heartedly studied the game off and on, but I will never be a great or even particularly good player. Still, the beauty and logic of the game attracts me, along with all its storied lore.

Most people know that Bobby Fischer was once the greatest American player in the world, possibly the greatest player in the world period. Certainly he was one of the best players ever. This biography tells his life story by a sympathetic but not uncritical friend of his.

But of course, less interesting than his life and early beginnings in chess is the raving crackpot he became later in life. The biography of a famous chess player is unlikely to be all that interesting in itself, and Bobby Fischer's childhood was a fairly unremarkable one, the child of an impoverished single mother in Brooklyn. His mother was somewhat flaky but obviously attentive, and the author, Frank Brady, repeatedly contradicts reports that Fischer and his mother were estranged when he was older. He did suffer a teenager's usual embarrassment when his mother was trying to be too active in his life, but according to Brady, they remained close even when they were living in separate countries and did not see each other face to face for years at a time.

Words to describe Bobby Fischer after reading this book: Temperamental. Prickly. Unforgiving. Control-freak. Self-sabotaging. The author veers away from calling him "crazy" or "deranged," even as he became more and more of a screaming bigot later in life.

It's almost painful to read how the man who once had the world at his feet and turned down a ticker-tape parade in New York City spent much of his later years in poverty, yet turned down opportunity after opportunity to make big bucks because there was always something just not quite right about the offer. He would not play chess matches unless he got everything he asked for, and whatever he was offered, he asked for more. He was abusive and ungrateful to everyone who ever helped him. And as he got older, he became increasingly anti-Semitic. He hated the Russians, believing they were cheaters who had all conspired against him during his matches against Soviet players. (Ironically, the Soviets were conspiring against him, as Russian grand-masters later admitted, and the Soviets had an entire "lab" devoted to studying Fischer for years, so great a threat was he to their national prestige.)

The 1972 Fischer-Spassky match is a comedy of Cold War politics and temperamental chess egos. Bobby Fischer complained about everything, forfeited several games by refusing to show up until his demands were met, and generally foreshadowed what a monumental pain in the ass he would become later in life. Of course, the Soviets responded with increasingly absurd accusations that Fischer was "chemically or electronically interfering" with Spassky, resulting in the ridiculous spectacle of security guards X-raying chairs and dismantling light fixtures. And yet, that 1972 match in Reykjavik, Iceland created a worldwide chess boom.

Then Fischer went into semi-retirement and near-poverty, living off of his mother's Social Security checks for decades, while turning down publication deals, big money tournaments, endorsements, because the money offered wasn't enough, or because someone else would profit off of it too and he didn't think anyone but Bobby Fischer should make money off of Bobby Fischer. Or because they were Jews.

In 1992, Fischer played a rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia. This finally made him enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life. It was also his fatal undoing, as Yugoslavia was under a UN embargo at the time because of the Bosnian war, and the U.S. State Department sent him a letter enjoining him against playing the match. Rather than appealing or just ignoring the letter, he literally spat on it, thus earning him the enmity of the U.S. government and sending him into political exile for the rest of his life.

But he was still pretty much ignored until the 9/11 attacks, when he released a series of vitriolic radio interviews from the Philippines, denouncing America, praising the attacks, and calling for a new Holocaust against the Jews. At this point, the U.S. government remembered he existed again, and went after him in earnest. Which led to his being arrested in Japan in 2006 on an expired passport and spending almost a year in a detention facility. Incredibly, Iceland, grateful for the attention he had brought to their country in 1972, went to heroic measures to offer him not just asylum but citizenship, and thus Fischer was deported to his new home in Iceland. Even more incredibly, he soon became disenchanted and began badmouthing his hosts, who had literally saved his life.

I knew before reading this book that Bobby Fischer was a great chess player and a crank. After reading it, I find him a much more interesting, and tragic, and despicable, figure. It's tempting to feel sorry for him, as he obviously spent many years lonely and bitter, but notwithstanding speculations about his mental health, he also brought all of that on himself. He was ungrateful, eventually turning on every one of his friends no matter how much they'd done for him. He was selfish and foolish — he could have easily spent his life wealthy and famous and in seclusion if he so desired, but he had to always have things his way and no one else could get their way. And worst of all, he was a hateful bigot, turning his rage against Jews and America for reasons that probably made sense only in his own head.

Fischer was a complicated, arrogant, brilliant person, but even with this fairly kind biography, he was not a very sympathetic one. Truly his life was a tragedy, a man who could have been great remembered mostly for turning into a bearded crank and spewer of nonsense.

[Arminius · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very entertaining book about what some have called the World’s greatest Chess player Bobby Fischer. He was raised, along with his sister, by a very well educated mother named Regina who continued to have bad luck. Regina was studying in a Soviet Union medical school when the Soviets were imposing Anti-Semitic pogroms. She chose, with Bobby and his sister, to immigrate to the United States. Bobby’s father, Gerhardt Fischer, choose to immigrate to France. After a short stay in Chicago Regina, absent Gerhardt who remained in France, moved her family to New York City.

Often searching for work and then attending Nursing school she had to, often, leave Bobby and his sister alone. Bobby, as a boy, had a penchant for playing board games like Parcheesi which quickly led him to the game of Chess. He became self absorbed in the many facets of the game. Since he was in New York his mother was able to enroll him in Chess clubs throughout the City.

His great ability to play chess was noticed by one of New York City’s best chess teachers Carmine Nigro. When Nigro saw Bobby, at age 12, playing at an outdoor chess tournament he immediately bonded with him. The Nigro family house became a second home to Bobby. There he could be play Chess as well as read books about Chess from Nigo’s immense library,

Bobby spent hours reading books about Chess. He was also a normal boy in that he loved Baseball and swimming. He also was an avid reader of other books besides Chess.

He eventually came under the tutelage of Chess Maser Jack Collins. Collins was not only a Chess Master but another owner of many books about Chess. Bobby spent many nights in Collins home playing, discussing and reading Chess books. Bobby memorized classic Chess games from the past and analyzed every move. He became an expert on Chess History as well.

Bobby at age 13 defeated American Chess Champion Donald Byrne in 1956 in what is known as “The Game of the Century.” This lead him in to an 11-0 American Chess Championship in 1963. It is the only perfect score in an American Chess Championship. After numerous Chess victories 15 year old Bobby was matched to play Soviet Grand Master and Chess genius David Bornstein. When all Bornstein could do was muster a draw against his 15 year old prodigy opponent it created a sensation in America and the Chess World. He competed in numerous Chess tournaments throughout the world defeating many of the Great Russian grand masters. This earned Bobby the rank of number one rated chess player in the world. So he was set to play World Chess Champion Boris Spassky in 1972 in Iceland in what became the most popular chess match the world has ever seen.

If you did not live in the years of the Cold War, you have missed something special. The two great Super Power countries competed against each other in every conceivable way besides an all out war. By continuing to produce world Chess Champions the Soviet Union would boast about their intellectual supremacy. So, when New Yorker Bobby Fischer beat Soviet Boris Spassky for the World Chess Championship he became an American Cold War hero.

However, his experience with the Soviet players in the Championships left him very distrustful of Soviet Players. He accused them of collusion and cleverly cheating in the championships. He was never happy with his treatment by them even though he was still a child when he played against them. He was the World Chess champion and America went wild because of him. Chess game sales soared and ticker-tape parades were arranged. However, Bobby was a recluse who refused to participate in any parades. He never defended his championship and ultimately had it stripped from him.

Then his celebrity led him into the World Wide Church of God ministry. When he was in New York he listened on the radio to the charismatic sermons of Herbert W. Armstrong the leader of the World Wide Church of God. Armstrong preached on the evils of medicine and said that all illness was caused by rotten food and lack of exercise. Bobby lived his entire life believing this. He moved to California and lived with other members of the church funneling his championship earnings to the church. He complained of lack of companionship. So the church would provide him with voluptuous women who were bound to celibacy. This frustrated him. Then Church leader Armstrong made a prediction that the world would end in 1972 and when it didn’t, Bobby quit the church in disappointment.

With all his championship earnings gone, he moved into a single room apartment in the outskirts of Los Angeles in a hermit-like existence apparently living off his mother’s social security checks. He virtually disappeared from the world of chess for 20 years when an unlikely letter made it to his mail box.

Very few letters made it to Bobby’ mailbox because hardly anyone knew where he lived and most of what he received he threw out without reading. However, a letter from a 17 year old girl and upcoming chess player convinced him to reemerge. A rematch was set up between Bobby and Boris Spassky in 1992. Somehow, this girl and the millions of dollars he was promised was sufficient reason for Bobby to return. A Yugoslavian financier put up the prize money to have the match in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. The U.S. had a trade embargo placed on Serbia at the time and Bobby was warned by the U.S. treasury not to play or be subject to a violation Of Executive Order 12810. Bobby arrogantly and mistakenly ignored the U.S. order.

He did however easily defeat Boris Spassky in the rematch which took place in Sveti Stefan and Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Bobby collected his earnings but became a U.S. fugitive. This however did not hamper him as he traveled the world and lived in different places. He blamed the U.S. government for his fugitive status even though they never actively pursued after him. That changed after the brutal attacks of 911 which brought him back into the U.S. government’s auspices.

Bobby, while living in the Philippines, spurred anti-American vitriol on a small radio talk show. It would have gone unnoticed but his hostility to the U.S. made its way to the internet. It is reported to the U.S. government and the government decided to pursue him. He was caught in Japan and imprisoned for eight months. His very clever friends figured away to get him out. The plan they came up with was to have Bobby become a citizen of another country and then Japan would transfer him to that country. The only country they could find that would take him was Iceland. Iceland never forgot how the Fischer/ Bassky match put their country on the “so-called” map. He moved to Iceland and lived a mostly secluded life. He died there at the age of 64 in 2008.

[MacWithBooksonMountains Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an avid chess player myself, this was a must read. A biography of a complex human, admired and reviled, Endgame : The Remarkable Rise and Fall is as informative as it is an eye opener. It really made me understand more about the man Bobby Fisher. I liked the beginning of the book, which rather unexpectedly confronts the reader with the “downfall��� part of the book.
Then, the author takes us back in time to Bobby’s childhood, rise to world fame, and about halfway through the book, Fisher’s wilderness years, coming again full circle with at his downfall. 😕

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mikhail Moisevich Botvinnik, 51, the then World Chess Champion and three time winner played a game of Chess against Bobby Fischer in Varna Bulgaria. When the game adjourned for the day Bobby held a definitely superior position and after a quick review of the days moves went to bed early feeling comfortable. However, Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal, Boris Spassky, Paul Keres, Efim Geller, Semyon Furman and Yuri Averbach worked on the position until five-thirty the next morning. When play resumed Fischer was totally unaware that he was about to play against the analysis of the seven Soviet Chess Grandmasters and not solely against the skill of his one opponent. Bobby recognized a change in play as it unfolded before him and soon with fatalistic chagrin offered Botvinnik a draw. Botvinnik readily accepted. It was 1962 and Bobby Fischer was 19 years old!

Fischer was an adept player of Blitz Chess and Blindfold Chess. Blinfold Chess is played in the mind and not on a Chessboard where all positions, moves and pieces must be recorded and remembered in the head as play goes on and on and on and on.

Brady never says Fischer had an eidetic mind but he would study and analyze the play of Grand Masters hour after hour, day after day and year after year. To prepare for the 1972 World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland against Boris Spassky Fischer studied 355 games of Spassky from a "Games of The Champions" book. "Almost as a parlor trick, he (Bobby) would ask someone to pick a game at random from the book, tell him who played against Spassky and where the game was played, and he would then recite the game move by move. He had memorized more that 14,000 moves!"

This was an excellent book and filled with a lot of new information for me. I admired Fischer though he was a sad, selfish and tragic figure. I also came to have a much greater respect for Boris Spassky based on his relationship with and understanding of Fischer, and his seemingly lack of ideology.

[Ms.pegasus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Success in professional competition requires more than talent. To succeed a competitor needs a unique combination of inhuman stamina and obsessive desire – drives that enable him to revisit the unpleasant experience of every defeat in order to analyze and learn. Bobby Fischer had those qualities from the very beginning. At six, he taught himself to play chess. When his sister and mother tired of playing with him, he played against himself. At age 7 he was invited to join the Brooklyn Chess Club by its president, Carmine Nigro. He was soon playing competitive chess, supplementing his knowledge with advanced texts by Alexander Alekhine and Paul Morphy. At age 12 he finished 15th in the Washington Square tournament where he competed against over 60 other players. He found every loss and even every draw disappointing but instructive. His extraordinary memory allowed him to analyze and reanalyze those games for future access and exploitation.

Bobby did not come from a chess-playing family. The encounter with Carmine Nigro was fortuitous, but the Brooklyn Chess Club was only open twice a week. On Friday nights, his mother accompanied him there. On Saturdays, Nigro would usually drive Bobby to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. A chance walk from Central Park with Nigro led them to enter the Manhattan Chess Club, where Bobby's youth (he was only 12) and comprehensive grasp of strategy led to the offer of a free membership in the prestigious club. The venue allowed him to play daily. Money was scarce so Bobby spent hours at the library studying the available literature. Despite the tutelage of Nigro and later, of Jack Collins, it can be said that Fischer was self-motivated and self-made. He did not have a consistent mentor or coach. He did not have steady sponsors or a fundraising committee. It's easy to see how in his own mind he discounted the contributions of others toward his astonishing success.

Brady titles one of his chapters “Loneliness to Passion,” and elsewhere he states: “The game not only engaged Bobby's mind, it tempered his loneliness, and while playing, he felt more alive.” (p.41). Yet, the relationship between his loneliness and chess felt much more symbiotic. The reader senses that only by being alone could Bobby discover and nurture his unique gift. Being alone gave him the space to apply his analytic abilities and internalize the strategies he was learning from books. It was boredom rather than loneliness that was alleviated by chess.

Brady's book is easily accessible to the non-chess player. He does not provide chess analysis or diagrams. Instead, he chronicles the extraordinary life and achievement of Bobby Fischer, the dominant chess player of his time; the youthful, handsome and charming (at least in victory) figure who electrified the American public; the winner of the World Chess Championship in 1972 who garnered world-wide attention in Reyjkavik. At the same time, Brady struggles to reconcile this with the hostile, hurtful, egocentric recluse who spouted vitriolic anti-Semitic and anti-American rhetoric, and who spent much of his life incessantly carping about how the Russians cheated. The press captured only the surface of his odious behavior.

Over time Fischer left an ugly trail of shattered friendships. In 1974, Jack Collins, who had treated the youthful Bobby almost like family, asked Fischer to write a brief introduction to his forthcoming book, MY SEVEN CHESS PRODIGIES. Fischer didn't even bother to reply, thereby significantly diminishing Collins' advance from his publisher. As an overnight guest at the home of Walter Browne, an Australian-American grandmaster, he asked to use the phone and proceeded to make a long-distance call. After four hours, and with no apparent end in sight, Browne hinted: “You know, Bobby, you'll really have to get off the phone. I can't afford this.” (p.225). Bobby abruptly left. He never spoke to Browne again. His paranoia extended not only to the Russians (he believed they were plotting to kill him) but to both friends and associates, whom he accused of trying to exploit him for profit. His behavior toward the Icelanders who rescued him from Japanese imprisonment, was appalling. His petty grudges against people who had helped extract him from Japan spread to generalizations about the entire country. “By the fall of 2007, Bobby's disillusionment with Iceland was fixed. He called it a 'God-forsaken country' and referred to Icelanders as 'special but only in the negative sense.'” (p.313)

Fischer was an autodidact. He never finished high school, but in his adult years, particularly after Reyjkavik, he read extensively. Yet, he tarnished even this pursuit, clinging doggedly to confirming biases and ignoring any contradictory information. Brady eschews the oversimplification of trying to cast Fischer as a tragic figure. Yet, to describe his life as a fall from meteoric success would also be wrong. His tantrums at Reyjkavik almost made one wish Spassky would win. Like the pieces on his chessboard, Fischer could only see in black and white. When Fischer died in 2008 his achievements in chess had already attained the status of mythology – paid for by a sacrifice of self-awareness that left him with the emotional maturity of a five-year-old for the entirety of his life.

NOTES:
This review in the GUARDIAN is outstanding
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2011...
A documentary for HBO was made with the title: BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD. The book dispels many rumors the movie perpetuates
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1777551/

[CRO · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/4 Stars

I don't play chess; I don't even know how. Before reading this book, I knew even less about Bobby Fischer - except that he was some sort of chess phenom that then became a Garbo-esque recluse. And this little bit I only knew because of that movie from the 90's Searching for Bobby Fischer - which isn't even really about him but about another young chess phenom trying to find balance between the obsessive game of chess and having a normal kid's life. But I knew enough about Fischer to be intrigued by this biography - sitting right their in the director's choice display of my public library - Bobby Fischer with his creepy, hypnotizing eyes (the old man crazy eyes version is on the back of the book) - help me, help me - I've been hypnotized. I was sucked in, I'd figure I'd bite - so I checked out the book.

Here's is what I learned about Bobby Fischer: Bobby Fischer was a dick. He was an amazing chess player with devastating genius, but he had the social skills and graciousness of rotting, maggoty meat. There was some sort of mental illness/ schizophrenia/ developmental autism spectrum disorder/ personality disorder whatever going on with this man. The biographer, Frank Brady, described it as some sort of tourettes that would come over Fischer and cause him to just puke out all of these selfish recriminations and rants against the Jews, the Russians/ Soviets, the United States etc. Not that all of his paranoid delusions were completely unfounded - at least with regard to the Russians. It was later found out that the Russian players, during at least one world championship, were in collusion with each other to try and bring Fischer down. Even taking into account the intense competition and pressure and press scrutiny that Fischer was under, it can not be denied that Fischer took no responsibility for himself of for his own actions. The only relationship with others that he seemed to be able to tolerate was one where he was the king and his friends were his royal subjects. But his genius and his mad, mad chess skills dazzled people so he was never at a loss for financial backers, sponsors, or acolytes. Even with all of his religious questing, things like humility and graciousness still alluded Fischer. Thank god Fischer always had his mother, backers and tournament winnings to support him because I can not imagine him ever having to have an everyday, ordinary job - like at McDonald's or something:

Fischer: what do you want?
customer: Can I please have...
Fischer: No - how dare you - I need a million dollars up front.

And while empirically and emphatically, Bobby Fischer was a dick, there was still a part of me that couldn't help feeling sorry for him. His relentless and myriad religious quests, his search for a wife/ female companion, his cranky inability to get out of his own way with regards to financial negotiations - even to the detriment of his own well being - this was a man who was unable to do anything other than offend and demean - despite his best intentions.

But the real question is - did Fischer's genius at chess help or hinder him? Did his obsessive pursuit of chess give him something to funnel his craziness into - meaning without his chess would he have become a crazy, homeless guy talking to himself on the street? Or did his genius and success in the world of chess allow his psychological symptoms to be tolerated and coddled to the detriment of proper treatment? Or are genius and craziness so intertwined that you can't possibly have this kind of greatness and success without riding the crazy train?

As Fischer's biographer, Brady does a fairly decent job of, objectively, laying out the events of Fischer's life. I liked that he presented just the facts without too much personal insinuation or hypothesizing, but I would have liked a little more illumination of what exactly their (his and Fischer's) relationship was. And a little more explanation of Brady's cry fest at the restaurant in the "presence of Fischer's genius" would have been nice. Was Brady crying out of love, or jealousy, or awe, or what? That was a point in the narrative that I actually would have appreciated a little more insinuation from the author.

In the first couple of chapters, before Brady dives into Fischer's chess career, the exploration of Fischer's early years and upbringing is a little flat and listless. I think Brady completely underestimates the intelligence of his readers in this chapter with over-explanation of things like "blitzkrieg" and "blitz" - I don't speak German and I'm not a genius chess player or anything, but even I know that "blitz" means lightning. Brady, I got it - lightning fast play - stop explaining. Where Brady really excelled as an author were in the chapters about Fischer's famous chess matches and standoffs. Like I said, I don't really know anything about chess, but Brady was able to explain the game in an interesting enough way that I was thoroughly engaged and could understand what was going on.

Competent and sometimes engaging writing about a fascinating if not very likable man. Wouldn't it be nice if genius could always be cloaked in humility and graciousness? Just really not the case with Bobby Fischer.

[Jackson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Endgame is a disappointing read. For a subject as interesting and enigmatic as Bobby Fischer, Brady's portrait is surprisingly pedestrian. While he does a good job of narrating Fischer's life and bringing forward aspects of his so-called "wilderness years" that have never been known (the reason I gave two stars), the book features none of the psychological analysis or interpretation that good biographies of genius/insane characters possess (see my reviews on Einstein and John Nash's respective biographies). Brady does little more than narrate the facts. But what makes a biography great is for the biographer to offer some reasons as to why a person like Fischer would give up everything to live in solitude.

Moreover, this book says very little about the chess games themselves. Fischer won this match, so it goes, but where is the detail of how his strategy caught his opponents unawares? I understand that Brady is trying to reach a wider audience who may not be interested in chess, but again, a good biographer can relate this kind of insider jargon in a manner that is interesting and able to be grasped by the amateur reader. Brady's allocation of space is way off as well. He gives only one chapter to Fischer's incredible run for the championship in 1972, but three whole chapters to his later years which are, surprisingly uninteresting.

The weakness of this work might be summed up in the epilogue. I see an epilogue as the biographer's final chance to take stock of the life of his or her subject as a whole. What did the subject contribute? How do we understand his faults? Such an assessment was desperately needed in Fischer's case because in his later years he becomes such an unsympathetic figure. Brady offers nothing of this in his epilogue. Instead he narrates the rather boring saga of the fight between several people to be Fischer's rightful heir to his 2 million dollar estate. And then when you reach the end, you realize that the fight has yet to be decided. Incredibly unsatisfying.

[Fred Forbes · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a cold night in Wisconsin in 1970 when my friend, a relief pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers suggested we play some chess. I knew the moves and that was about it. He cleaned my clock, time and again. I began to read chess books, got an occasional draw. Joined the local club and began to play in tournaments, got more draws, but never beat him. Still, a life-long love of the game began. I still have a first edition of Fisher's "My 60 Memorable Games" that my father gave to me and I can still remember the excitement of the world championship versus Spassky which I followed closely.

Over the years I wondered about Fischer's fate, much of his woe being self inflicted. Did he really lose all his winnings after the second match with Spassky when the banking system of the sponsoring country collapsed? What happened in terms of attempts at setting up matches. Did he really want them based on "Fisher Random", a version of chess he came up with to prevent the use of memorized lines? Was he really abused while under arrest in Japan? What really killed him in Iceland at a relatively young age? Was the battle over his estate by a claimed daughter won by her? What events led to his despicable comments regarding 9/11. Was there really a station that would broadcast such nonsense?

Some of the early spin on this book was that no games were shown and no analysis presented to be sure it would be of interest to casual readers who had no deep interest in chess. I was not sure that would make much of a difference since anyone interested can surely find the games of Bobby Fischer elsewhere but I felt that surely something would be lacking if wonders like the "Game of the Century" were not included.

Well, it made no difference in one's understanding of Bobby Fischer - if that warped sense of entitlement and reality can truly be understood. The book flows well, held my interest and filled in the answers to the questions above. A most interesting read and a job well done. Chess players and non will find this a rewarding endeavor.

[Miebara Jato · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well-written book about the brilliant, inherently ungrateful, and paranoid conspiracy theorist, Chess grandmaster Bobby Fisher.

[Steven jb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the better biographies that I have read. In the first half of the book, I felt that the author had created the aura of the developing Bobby Fischer. I would like to have seen more about some of the years in Fischer's life prior to his attaining the championship, and the events involving the championship and post championship. Perhaps my wanting more reflects the excellence of this biography. The second half of the book did an above average job of illustrating the life of the post champion Fischer, although I did not feel his aura the same way I had in the first half of the book.

Although unnecessary, I would have liked to see several Fischer's annotated games, including his game of the century, in an appendix. Not including some of Fischer's games is like a biography of Van Gogh that does not include some of his painting; while the book still would stand, the inclusion of some of the artist's work for those who can appreciate the work, contributes to the illustration of the story of the artist's life. BTW it's not that I don't have Fischer's games or can't access them, but rather that I thought putting some of his beautiful work in an appendix would add to the biography.

I was a young boy when my father told me of the genius chess player from Brooklyn, Bobby Fischer, who was a little older than me. I remember playing in a tournament at the Henry Hudson hotel in Manhattan when the older boy who accompanied me to the tournament told me about the young chess player, Fischer, who defeated older players. I think I have a memory of seeing him at the board going over games with other players, but I'm not sure--wish I could remember. I followed Fischer's world championship games with Shelby Lyman on TV. And then he won. Astounding. I remember seeing Fischer after he won the championship on the Dick Cavett show. Fischer was charming, very smart, and likeable. When Fischer began to rant hatred, it really broke my heart, and when he passed away, I had conflicting emotions about him.

The Frank Brady biography was excellent, and I highly recommend it.

[Romain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ce livre est fascinant car Bobby Fischer est fascinant et ce livre est sa biographie. Il raconte par le menu la vie du génie des échecs. Pourquoi est-il aussi fascinant ? Certainement car, comme les pièces du jeu d’échecs, il a un côté clair et un côté sombre. Un véritable génie dans le monde du jeu qui montre un profond déséquilibre dans le monde réel. C’est bien le genre de dualité dont tous les auteurs de fiction se nourrissent lorsqu’ils souhaitent créer un personnage de légende.

Toute son histoire est là, sous nos yeux, consignée dans les moindre détails par son biographe, Frank Brady. La construction est classique, sans artifice – sauf un seul au début. Le récit n’en avait a priori pas besoin tant il exerce un magnétisme puissant sur le lecteur. Cette biographie est aussi l’occasion de revisiter l’histoire récente des États-Unis sous un angle différent avec, en point d’orgue, la guerre froide dont une bataille se joua sur l’échiquier. Henry Kissinger aurait appelé Fischer en commençant la conversation ainsi, brillant.

Le plus mauvais joueur d’échecs au monde parle au meilleur.

Difficile de poser le livre et, même si l’histoire de Fischer est connue, je ne veux pas en dévoiler des éléments ici pour laisser au lecteur le plaisir de les découvrir en tournant les pages.

Également publié sur mon blog.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Endgame's front cover jacket states "Endgame" is acclaimed biographer Frank Brady's decades-in-the-making tracing of the meteoric ascent-and confounding descent-of enigmatic genius Bobby Fischer Yet, 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 rant drove away friends and angered the U.S. government. Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of Fischer, apart from his brilliance, is his ego--an ego that seemed to know no bounds. He was remarkably self-assured and utterly convinced that he was the most brilliant chess player in history. All honor, all adoration, all acclaim belonged to him alone. He would demand recognition and demand honor. When he felt he had been slighted in any way he would respond with fury and outrage. He would turn down tens of millions of dollars if accepting the money would in any way prove a blow to his pride.

The overall writing quality in "Endgame" is somewhat dry and prosy for my taste, but it was clear and precise. The author does a great job conveying the single-minded focus and sheer talent that emerged from a boy living a less than privileged childhood. Also inspiring for me was the lengths his mother went to support, help, and defend him in the early years. In his later years, Fischer was one of the most self-destructing figures in American history due to his mental collapse and inability to treat others in anything but a subservient way. His remarks later in life are either sad, pathetic, and inexcusable. Brady tries to make excuses, but Fischer certainly was his own worst enemy. One thing that is hard to argue, he was one of the best chess players ever to live. His games prove that.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, it may just be my perverse interest in random celebrities but I liked this book. Bobby Fischer is fascinating -- vile, admittedly, but fascinating all the same. And Frank Brady's biography managed to be both informative and interesting, doing justice to Fischer's story and multifaceted personality.

Many goodreads reviewers complained that Brady, as a longtime friend of Fischer's, was less than objective and not the best person to write Fischer's biography. While I think it's true that Brady's bias manifests at times, I also think that with a character as enigmatic and inaccessible as Fischer his biography could only be written by a close friend.

What was Fischer's diagnosis, I kept wondering. Did he have Asperger's? OCD? Paranoia? Some kind of delusional disorder? Does being a genius have to mean being emotionally impaired in some way? And how was it that he managed to make and maintain loyal friendships while being such a jerk? Were these people so fascinated by his genius that they were willing to overlook Fischer's awful personality traits, or did he have some kind of personal charm in spite of everything?

While Brady doesn't, and probably can't, answer these questions, he gives you a peek into Fischer's life which offers you something to chew on. And I also thought it was interesting to contemplate Fischer's generating an unprecedented interest in chess in America. I don't know if everyone would enjoy this book as much as I did, but for me it was a solid four-star experience.

[Gil Rosenberg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Frank Brady's poorly written Fraud -hardcover edition
Endgame's front cover jacket states "Endgame is acclaimed biographer Frank Brady's decades-in-the-making tracing of the meteoric ascent-and confounding descent-of enigmatic genius Bobby Fischer. Only Brady who met Fischer when the prodigy was ten years old and shared with him some of his most dramatic triumphs, could have written this book, which has much to say about the nature of American celebrity and the distorting effects of fame." The back jacket states that "Frank Brady is internationally recognized as the person most knowledgeable about the life and career of Bobby Fischer".

Page ix Authors note states "As someone who knew Bobby Fischer from the time he was quite young, I've been asked hundreds of times,what is Bobby Fischer really like? "I ask forgiveness for my occasional speculations in this book, but Fischer's motivations beg to be understood; and when conjecture is used, I inform the reader of my doing so."I have been following Bobby Fischer's life story from the first time we met..." " Over the years we played hundreds of games together,dined in Greenwich village restaurants, traveled to tournaments, attended dinner parties and walked the streets of Manhattan for hours on end. He was light-years ahead of me in chess ability, but despite the yawning gap we found ways to bond. In the acknowledgements Brady states that "the problem has been to sort through a labyrinth of fables to select what is true and what is not, what is exaggerated and what is journalistically accurate, what is biased-pro or con-and what is credible."

Frank Brady lived in NYC at the time Bobby Fischer did and was part of the small chess world in NYC, but he never met Fischer at all. In Brady's first book written in late 1964, he is barely able to fill up 90 pages of Fischer's life and has just a few rare made up instances in his 1965 book of contact with Fischer. On page 25 of his 1965 book he claims to first meet Fischer at some unspecified date in 1959 (at age 16), yet in the 2011 Endgame book he claims he first meets Fischer at age 10. Fischer would not have played chess with Brady since Brady admits that Bobby was "light years" ahead of Brady as far a Chess abilities. The 1965 book entitled "Profile of a Prodigy:The Life and Games of Bobby Fischer", has two sections: one a 98 page section on Fischer's life and 148 pages dedicated to Fischer's games.The 1965 book starts out by pointing out how Fischer's who's who in America profile lacks any mention of his father and ends with psychoanalysis of chess and the lack of Fischer's father in his life. In fact Brady portrays Fischer in his 1965 book as a recluse. After failed jobs at pornography magazines and at chess magazines as well as a bankruptcy, Brady hatched a plan to make money by penning his 1964 book. From 1965 until 1970 Brady went to Chicago to work for a short lived magazine by Playboy named VIP. Brady was a close friend and worked for Ralph Ginzburg who wrote the hatchet piece in 1961 on Fischer. Brady would write a unauthorized book on Hefner in 1973 that became famous for claiming that Hefner enjoyed having his playmates mounted by his dogs- one of many of Brady's made up stories on Hefner. Brady got his MFA from Colombia University in 1976 a MA from NYU in 1980 and his BS in 1984.

Besides not being an acclaimed biographer Frank Brady is also not an internationally recognized author. Frank R. Brady relies on misinformation, hearsay, conjecture, speculation, fantasy, unreliable sources and made up sources to create a fraud of a biography. FACT: Since the end of 1972 until 1992 no one really knew where Bobby Fischer lived or what he did for nearly twenty years. William Nack's famous Sports illustrated 7/29/1985 Bobby Fischer article details the wild goose chase he is led on as all kinds of nutty people claim to know Fischer or represent Fischer for a $. So how does Brady manage to write a biography on Bobby Fischer if there are no sources? Brady makes things up from thin air. On the front jacket the book claims to "Limns Fischer's entire life". This is false since after the Spassky Fischer match in 1972 Fischer joined a religious group called the Worldwide Church Of God and did not have contact with the public. No one really know what Fischer was doing during those "Wilderness years". Brady uses a website called The Armstrong report to put words in Bobby Fischer's mouth about his attitudes toward the Church. The Armstrong report is a website made up of disaffected members who are strongly against the Church. So Brady uses made up quotes that someone put up on the Armstrong report claiming that they are Fischer's own words.

The fraud starts on page one of the first chapter of Endgame Frank Brady quotes Fischer saying as he is being arrested in Japan in 2004 "I can't breath, I can't breath'. His source is a website called orwelltoday.com an anti-semitic, conspiracy laden website. Now go to page 334 of the source notes and Brady writes that it is a 'Legal Statement of facts written by Fischer 6 pages July 2004'. So Frank Brady PhD. finds a made up quote from some bogus website and misrepresents the quote as "legal statements" of Fischer. Brady has Fischer handing out pro Aryan flyers in a parking lot and has no sources. Brady repeated the story that Bobby was arrested in Pasadena and wrote an 800 word essay about the arrest. But Fischer never was arrested nor did he pen the essay. Brady's source for the arrest and the essay is a website written by a convicted felon. Brady was the publisher and editor of Chessworld magazine and editor at Chesslife at the time he claims to have known Fischer. How is it that Brady does not have even one photo of him and Bobby, not one piece of correspondence with Fischer, not even one interview with Fischer? If Brady was best buddies with Fischer why did Fischer give Ralph Ginzburg an interview in 1961? Clearly Brady's 1965 book proves that he did not know Fischer or his mother. Brady claims to have interviewed Paul Marshall Fischer's lawyer in the 70's, yet I called Marshall in Florida and he said that Brady never interviewed him for Endgame. On Page 205 Frank Brady has a quote from Booby saying "Vivacious girls with big breasts", and sources it to New York magazine Feb. 20 1975 yet the quote is from a People magazine March 11, 1974 article by Brad Darrach and Fischer never said those words.

On page 123 Brady makes up a scene where he pleads with Fischer on the phone to play a Five-Minute chess, or go to a movie. Brady describes himself as "a young chess master, a few years Bobby's senior." Brady was not a chess master and was no where on the same level with Fischer at that time. Page 127 to 129 of Endgame Brady describes how in March 1960 he and Bobby spent the evening in the famous Cedar Tavern in Greenwich village. "That night we were there Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline were having a conversation at the bar and Andy Warhol and John Cage dined at a nearby table-not that Bobby noticed it". Yet Jackson Pollock died in 1956! Actually the original Cedar Street Tavern located at 24 University place was just a run down blue collar bar and did not serve food at all. It closed in 1963 and the entire block was raised. In 1964 it reopened as a bar and restaurant three blocks up at 84 University place. In 1960 it was a run down bar in a high crime area of NYC. Brady claims that it is Fischer's favorite place to eat. Brady orders Lowenbrau and Heineken yet these are premium beers that were sold exclusively in high end restaurants and hotels and cost an extra 20 cents! Warhol was a commercial artist at that time and not famous yet and he would not have gone to a macho bar like Cedar in March of 1960. In fact the crowd of artists that met there in the late 40's and 50's were quite anti-gay. Brady is about a decade off in placing these artist at the Cedar Tavern in 1960. John Cage could not have been there because in 1960 he was a teaching Fellow on the faculty of the Center for Advanced Studies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and in March of 1960 lived in Stony point NY. Kline had a major art showing up town at the Janis gallery during March 1960. The entire scene is a poorly constructed fraud by Brady and the softcover book removed the Jackson mention as well as the foreign beers.

And Brady has this occur some time in March 1960 on a freezing cold night in NYC? March 1960 in NYC was the second coldest in a century since March 1916 in NYC with night time lows of -8 degrees F. On March 5th of 1960 a Northeaster storm blanketed NYC with 15 inches of snow. First of all cab drivers avoided high crime areas like Bed-Sty and Greenwich village (right near Washington Square) in those days- especially at night. According to Brady this dinner took place one week before Fischer left to Argentina to play at the Mar del Plata which he played Wexler on March 29th, and Fischer left a week prior to March 29th. So Brady claims that he had this dinner in mid March which would mean that he is having beers with Fischer who just turned 17 on March 9, 1960? A teenage Bobby Fischer who has a taste for imported German beers? On page 129 Brady writes " I began to weep quietly, aware that in that time-suspended moment I was in the presence of genius". So suddenly in March of 1960 Brady discovers that Fischer is a genius? On page 350 Brady sources the pleading phone call to "circa 1959 to 1960". His Cedar Tavern dinner with Fischer could not have happened because it is a made up scene by the author to create the illusion that he is a close buddy of Fischer. Fast foward from 1964 to 2011 and suddenly Brady recasts himself as Fischer's best buddy for decades. Brady was nearly ten years older than Fischer so does he really expect people to believe that he was paling around with a young teenage Fischer in the late 1950's in NYC? Interestingly Fischer and Brady both share a birthday in early March (one on the 9th and one on the 15th) yet Brady cannot give an actual date for the meeting in March of 1960. Actually according to the scene Brady places the dinner in close proximity to his own birthday which is March 15. Fischer was a loner and had little to do with people including Brady.

Endgame is not a decades in the making book because Brady was not following Fischer and interviewing people who knew Fischer from 1973 until 2008. Nearly all his interviews begin after Fischer's death in 2008 and he calls people about their experiences with Fischer decades ago. On page 261 Brady interviews the Polgars and Susan Polgar calls Fischer schizophrenic. Yet Susan Polgar is under Federal investigation for putting thousands of phony and obscene emails on the internet. She was kicked off the US Chess Federation after lawsuits. Why didn't Brady interview Bobby's wife Miyoko Watabi and have a real interview? Because she actually knew Fischer and that would mean that Brady would have to deal with facts not fiction.

Brady also claims "I came across an autobiographical essay-never published-that Bobby wrote when he was in his teens, rough-hewn for sure..." Yet is the new found letter another made up Brady con? We will never know since it is kept at the Marshall Chess Foundation Archive and the one in charge is- you guessed it Brady. No there is no reproduction of the letter in Endgame.

[Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up because it looked fascinating and had a lot of praise. I was a few years too late for his peak, but everyone knew Bobby Fischer as the greatest chess champion- who in the Cold War beat Boris Spassky.

No one would have guessed his life’s path. He became a JD Salinger style hermit before emerging once again to play Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992. This match violated US Sanctions and led to Fischer not only becoming an emigre but appearing in the news periodically to badmouth his homeland. The end of his life being punctuated by a 2004 arrest in Japan and an exile in Iceland.

It’s probably human to want to try and explain this unusual life. I tend to think of Fischer in terms of Britney Spears and other childhood stars who reached a depth of fame before the age he could handle it

I can’t think of too many intellectual celebrities in recent years (which sounds like a problem) but I think of Ken Jennings who has not been without controversy but seemingly has been old and mature enough to deal with his fame.

There are a great deal of family problems and one wonders about mental health (bipolar? Paranoia?) and perhaps even those genius / insanity cliches. If nothing else, those issues of youth only compounded when he became an adult and removed himself from society.

The book does a great job of telling the story. The chess games are described in a way that is fascinating but not overdone with detail. Fischer rises through the ranks and the Cold War animosity is real.

The road culminates with Fischer famously winning the 1972 World Championship and becoming a celebrity but in the following years, never able to agree to terms to defend the title- the beginning of the unusual fall for a chess legend.

Fischer fascinates and Brady writes about him compellingly. The publishing promo states Brady whose paths crossed with Fischer at various times in his life was probably the only person who could do this story justice. Of note, there is at least one review of this book that takes offense to Brady’s claims of knowing the main subject.

I don’t know but Brady tells a compelling story and in the epilogue seems to detail how he got so much description into a book of such a reclusive subject.

It’s hard not to pity Fischer. Then there’s always the fact the Enfant Terrible might have been right in his thinking. To mishandle a cliche, just because he was paranoid, doesn’t mean FIDE wasn’t working against his best interest. Tragic hero is also cliche but he is at one hand - the man who made chess popular in the US. We also might see part of us in him and we can perhaps argue he wasn’t compensated fairly.

I dont intend to make excuses for his later life but we may recognize some people we know in him. I also can’t help but think he would be home in modern day Twitter.

A story that one can’t turn their eyes off of, written in a way that isn’t trivial nor laborious- that is as compelling as its subject was.

(In a weird coincidence, I have actually read both of Brady’s major books. His Orson Wells bio is a sprawling mess but the Fischer bio is definitely worth its plaudits)

[Sabin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The long road to the deep dark recesses of a twisted mind.

Brady does a good job separating fact from fiction in this biography, he even does a bit of work putting forward some likely hypotheses for some of Fischer's more disturbing behaviour. In the end, though, Fischer is just one more great achiever who said and did terrible things to those around him and to himself. An IQ over 180 is great for pattern recognition and chess, but little else.

A few moments in the book were very well plotted out, like the description of his game of the century, and Ray Porter did well with portraying different voices, not overdoing it on the Russian or Hungarian accents, and accurately conveying Fischer's loud and authoritative voice.

Honestly, I had hoped that the story would be more interesting, but, alas, it was not to be.

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the strangest and saddest stories of our time

I’m a pretty good chess player having achieved a USCF expert’s rating in my twenties and even in my sixties gaining a draw with International Master John Donaldson at the US Open in Los Angeles in 2003. (He offered a draw in a losing position. Since I had little time left on my clock I accepted.)

I should also say that I am a personal friend of Larry Remlinger whom I have known since childhood. He played against Fischer in at least one US Junior Championship in the 1950s. He recalled that after the games one day he and Fischer played blitz chess well into the night. Larry told me that Fischer (a year and half younger than Larry) was winning at first but as the night wore on Larry pulled ahead. Larry despised Bobby Fischer as well he might since even then Fischer was a narcissistic spoiled brat of a human being. And of course he only got worse as the paranoia and schizophrenia kicked in.

Frank Brady did not interview Larry Remlinger and Larry did not contact Brady. Too bad.

Nonetheless this is an outstanding biography, painstakingly researched and documented, beautifully edited and written in the kind of prose that tells the story without flourishes or pretension, the kind of “invisible” prose that George Orwell admired and practiced. And it is a “fair and balanced” account, celebrating the genius of Fischer’s mastery of chess while not shying away from reporting his great failings as a human being. Moreover it is a great human tragic tale, the sort of story that would engage the mind of Sophocles or Shakespeare, and may someday find its great author to dramatize the sadness.

Yes, sadness, profound and maddening sadness. Note well that there is no review of this outstanding biography written by a master chess player among the (135 and counting) Amazon reviews. There are many reasons for this but the most important one is that the story is just too painful to relive, especially if you love chess and have spent some serious time playing the game. What the rise of Robert James Fischer promised for chess—excitement, prestige, publicity, and especially the infusion of more money into the game so that a working professional might make a living playing chess—was in some measure delivered when he stepped off that stage in Reykjavik in 1972 as the World Champion. However almost immediately Fischer withdrew his magical presence from the game. This effectively trashed the hopes and dreams of chess players everywhere, but especially in the United States. Those who knew Fischer well realized that he was mentally ill (almost surely a narcissistic paranoid schizophrenic) and really was not able to behave in a socially acceptable manner. So it was hard to blame Fischer, the “good” Fischer, the genius Fischer, the Fischer who worked harder than anyone else, the Fischer who loved the game more than anyone else, the obsessive Fischer who could at his best be charming.

Ah, charming. The one real failing in Brady’s book is his inability to show us that charming Fischer. He relates how so very many people put up with Fischer’s hateful remarks, his virulent anti-Semitism, his egomaniacal self-centeredness, and his just plain antisocial behavior. What did they get in return for their fawning obsequiousness and especially for allowing him extended stays in their homes even while he was insulting them? The prestige and thrill of being in the presence of a genius does not explain it completely. What Fischer apparently was able to do on occasion was to charm. For some reason Brady was not able to produce the kind of reminiscences that would make this charm come to life.

What Brady does reveal here that was not entirely clear in previous works about Fischer is a clear expression of Fischer’s sexual preferences (young, pretty, blond, female and plays chess). Also any doubt about Fischer’s sex life or lack of is dispelled. Well, almost. It is clear that Fischer had liaisons. However what it was like to be in bed with Bobby is unrevealed, and perhaps that is just as well. Someday maybe a woman may come forward and tell us. (And we might believe her.) But for most readers that understandably would be Too Much Information. My guess is that Brady knows more than he was willing to tell us...

Also not revealed is who Fischer’s biological father was. Brady makes it clear that it is not clear whether a Hungarian Jewish physicist named Paul Nemenyi (the primary suspect) actually was his father or not. Almost certainly Hans-Gerhardt Fischer who is listed as Bobby’s father on his birth certificate is not his biological father.

And with this we can add what is probably the saddest irony of Bobby Fischer’s life, not only was this hateful anti-Semite Jewish on his mother’s side, the high probability is that he was Jewish on his father’s side as well. One can guess that fear and subliminal self-hatred was the primary guiding force in Fischer’s life. Indeed, as Brady and many others have observed, the bad things that happened to Fischer and the good things that never happened were almost always Fischer’s fault.

—Dennis Littrell, chess player and author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

[John Devlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Endgame is a book about Bobby Fischer the man and as a man he was a horrible mess.

Did his singular focus make him a chess genius but also lead to his failure as a person?

It’s a chicken and egg argument.

What’s clear is that Fischer’s fame, a result of his brilliance and an odd confluence of Cold War politics, caused his eccentric personality to become untethered.

Like a Micheal Jackson, a Howard Hughes, or even Sheldon from Big Bang, the dangers of early success loom large.

Fame means no one’s ever kept around for you to say sorry to.

What’s all consuming is a solipsism that is deep and unending. A creature that must be fed. Fischer alienated everyone who was ever kind to him, actively estranged himself from humankind, engaging in a paranoid blame game that new no limits…and then there was the rabid anti-semitism.

[Bookmarks Magazine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chess has given the world many interesting words. One of the best is “zugzwang,” which is the state in which any move will disadvantage a player. Brady may have been in zugzwang when he chose to write this book. On the one hand, his friendship with and access to the famously secretive and difficult Bobby Fischer was the only thing that made the writing of a biography possible. On the other hand, several critics felt that Brady is too sympathetic to Fischer and that he tries to rationalize or explain away actions they felt were clearly the signs of severe mental illness. But to appreciate the zugzwang dilemma at all, one has to be a pretty good chess player, and in the end, most critics felt Brady is playing an excellent game. It’s simply an unbeatable one, with a subject as inscrutable as Fischer. This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Adrian]

Tells the full story of amazing rise and sad fall. US champion at age 14 in 1956 he set the chess world on its ear and then took chess to the wider world with his victory over Boris Spassky in 1972. From there of course the story descends into what can only be described as a kind of madness. The paranoia, rage against the US government, hateful anti-semitism, picking fights with friends only trying to help him and enormous sense of superiority over all other mortals- yet it's still impossible to hate him. His end in Iceland is sad and instructive. It does no good to live up to an ideal of bizarre integrity if it leaves you sad and alone. Very evenhanded look at BFs life.

[david · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intelligence is not always pretty, at least that is what I am told.

[Da1tonthegreat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer was born a Jew, though he was never circumcised. This set him somewhat apart from his community right off the bat, which would be a recurring theme throughout his life. Fischer's astonishingly high IQ isolated him from his peers, and as a chess prodigy his youth distinguished him from his competitors. He was associated with the Worldwide Church of God but, characteristically, never formally joined.

After discovering the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a used bookstore, and for the rest of his life, he openly professed extreme right, anti-Semitic ideologies that got him largely blacklisted from liberal society. Fischer rebelled against the organized chess establishment and was an outspoken dissident against the governments of both the Soviet Union and the United States, ultimately renouncing his American citizenship. At various points, he spent years of his life living as a bearded hermit, a prototypical passport bro, a prison inmate, and a political refugee. Endgame is an excellent, well-balanced biography, written by a friend of Bobby Fischer aiming to set the record straight.

[AdiTurbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe a perfect biography. The author did such a good job balancing between his obviously immense knowledge of chess and acquaintanceship with Bobby Fischer and what's really important to the reader's understanding and for fleshing out Fischer's life and character. He never imposes on the reader with his own interpretations of the facts, but provides them straight for the reader to reach their own conclusions. There's never a detail out of place, redundant or repetitive. The writing is airtight and well-paced, keeping the reader riveted and eager to dive further and further into the enigma that is Bobby Fischer. Highly recommended read!