Bobby Fischer: Bobby Fischer, the first US-born chess player to become world champion, has died in Iceland aged 64 of an unspecified illness.
Fischer had lived in secrecy and obscurity for decades. He was born in Chicago and raised in New York and became the youngest US national champion by age 14 and a grandmaster a year later.
In 1972, he defeated Russian champion Boris Spassky in a world championship match in Iceland at the height of the Cold War. The game became known as the "match of the century" and his win was a monumental event in an era during which Soviet players dominated the game.
He was regarded as the greatest US chess player. "The gap between Mr Fischer and his contemporaries was the largest ever," fellow grandmaster Garry Kasparov wrote in 2004.
Fischer was known for unpredictable tactics at the board, keeping opponents guessing by rarely repeating opening strategies during matches and displaying a genius for attack. He often unnerved opponents with what some of them considered psychological warfare. For example, he didn't show up for the second game of the 1972 Spassky match, voluntarily conceding a point.
Chess writers have speculated on how much such a move affected Spassky. He also had a reputation for eccentricity and petulance that matched his talents and constantly demanded changes to tournament conditions and provisions for the players.
Fischer's victory was followed by two decades of withdrawal from competitive play and he lived as a recluse.
The first challenger to his title was Russian Anatoly Karpov in 1975. Fischer eventually boycotted the match and he lost his title without making a single move. It was his last competitive game for almost 20 years.
In 1992, Fischer emerged for a rematch with Spassky in Yugoslavia. He won the match, taking some $3.5 million in prize money. The US government issued a warrant for his arrest for taking part in the competition, claiming he violated United Nations sanctions against the country.
By then, a split in chess authorities meant Kasparov was widely recognised as world champion, although Fischer objected.
In contrast to pictures of the young champion in suits, in later life Fischer often sported a long, unkempt beard and baseball cap. In 1981, he was arrested after being mistaken for a bank robber in California. He later said police treated him brutally.
Fischer moved to Iceland in 2005 after publicly criticising his home country on several occasions and eventually renouncing US citizenship.
Though his mother was Jewish, he frequently made anti-Semitic remarks in media interviews.
Bobby Fischer: born March 9th, 1943, died January 18th, 2008