RIP Bobby Fischer

I never met Fischer but someone I once worked with used to drive up to where Fischer was living to play ping pong with him. He described Fischer as being eccentric (and my colleague, who camped out in his work office to avoid paying rent for an apartment, was an expert on eccentric :-)

Like most people I enjoy chess, but I am not very good a it: the one time that I played at the US Chess Open in 1978 I only scored 4.5 out of 12 points: a poor showing right after perfect scores in two local tournaments. I have worked with two people with international master ratings, and once sat with grandmaster Anatoly Lein while he went over a game in great detail that he had played the night before - people who are very good at chess perceive the game differently than the rest of us!

I don't play much chess or Go anymore, but I do like to play over "famous games". My favorites are ancient Go games played in Shoguns' palaces in medieval Japan - cool stuff indeed.

Comments

  1. Andreas Andreou7:46 PM

    What was Fischer's age at the time your coworker played ping ping with him?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mark Watson, author and consultant10:10 PM

    Hello Andy,

    I think that was roughly in 1980, give or take a year. So Fisher would have been in his late 30s at the time when my co-worker talked about hanging out with him.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Andreas Andreou9:19 AM

    Indeed... (as a chess player myself) i was just wondering at what age this eccentricity became apparent...

    ReplyDelete

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