Black and white

Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) is considered a legend in the chess world, and a symbol of the Cold War era outside chess circles. Fischer, a chess prodigy, became the youngest American grandmaster of all time at the age of fifteen. In 1972 he played for the title of World Champion with Russian Grandmaster Boris Spassky – and their duel at the height of the US-USSR rivalry became legendary.

Never before has chess received such attention – and Bobby Fischer had reached the top at the age of twenty-nine. But then followed an unstoppable fall: he became severely paranoid and completely indulged in various fantastic conspiracy and anti-Semitic theories, which was all the more bizarre because he was himself of Jewish descent. His disputes with the US authorities even reached the point of publicly endorsing the attacks on New York on 11 September 2001. He was threatened with arrest in the US and spent the rest of his life as a refugee in various countries around the world.

He died in seclusion in Iceland. Bobby Fischer, chess player extraordinaire, went from being the first global chess celebrity and American cultural icon to an outlaw and oddball. The comic treatment of his life therefore transcends the world of chess and becomes a testimony to the turbulent period of the Cold War.