Fischer hoped for one last chess tournament

Reclusive Cold War icon proposed match in India before he died

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Bobby Fischer’s life
U.S.-born chess master, Cold War icon and anti-American recluse dies in Iceland at 64.

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updated 5:09 p.m. ET Jan. 19, 2008

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Bobby Fischer had hoped to play current world chess champion Viswanathan Anand or former great Garry Kasparov in a tournament before his death, an Icelandic newspaper reported Saturday.

The daily Morgunbladid quoted a friend of Fischer, who died on Thursday at the age of 64, as saying he had expressed interest in holding a chess contest in India.

Helgi Olafsson, an Icelandic chess grand master, was quoted by the newspaper as saying Fischer had told him he wanted to take part in one last tournament.

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Fischer, a teenage grandmaster and — before the age of 30 — a world champion who triumphed in a Cold War showdown with Soviet champion Boris Spassky, died of kidney failure in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The Chicago-born, Brooklyn, N.Y.-raised Fischer last played publicly in 1992 in Yugoslavia, in defiance of international sanctions. He moved to Iceland in 2005 in a bid to avoid extradition to the U.S., where he was wanted over contravening the sanctions.

Proposed contest in India
Morgunbladid reported that Anand and Olafsson had exchanged e-mails about the proposed match and that Fischer had firm ideas on the arrangements.

The ex-champion wanted to play the contest using the Fischerrandom or Chess 960 method, in which the game begins with pieces arranged randomly on the board to make the match more difficult.

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Former chess champ Bobby Fischer dead at 64

Fischer proposed the match would take place in India and be broadcast live via the Internet, the newspaper reported.

Morgunbladid said Anand was eager to play Fischer, but had not been able to schedule it. Kasparov had not been able to play Fischer due to political commitments in Russia, it said.