Bobby Fischer

By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN The New York Times

The life of Bobby Fischer was one strange odyssey, in which he went from chess prodigy -- at 14, the youngest U.S. champion ever -- to the vanquisher of the famed Boris Spassky in 1972 in a match followed around the world, to a fugitive from the United States on charges of violating a trade embargo against Yugoslavia, to an increasingly odd recluse, one who denounced Jews and praised the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. Read more