Bobby Fischer has died

I'm surprised this isn't as newsworthy as I think it should be. I think he brought chess into homes and conversations that chess would never have gone without him. I think that's noteworthy.

What's your favorite chess software? We should play sometime on Yahoo.

 

As a 21+ year veteran of tournament chess (hence the name), I feel I owe a debt of gratitude to Bobby for inspiring my father's generation to play. This generation made chess more popular than it had ever been before in western culture and many of these players passed it on to their children. This is how it came to me, after my father was inspired by Fisher.

Though some of the imbalance he showed early in life became severe later in his life, he inspired a generation of intellectuals in both the realm of chess and cold war competition. And his games are still studied as some of the most instructive and exciting ever played.