Prayers for Bobby

At the Press Conference subsequent to his dismantling of the great Boris Spassky of Russia, in Iceland, in 1972, Robert James Fischer proclaimed his intention to, on the one hand, date some girls, and, on the other, to play more games of chess than any of the champions before him had ever done.

He was asked, on a talk show, how he felt waking up the next day, having single-handedly taken down the so-called Iron Curtain - the hegemony that was the Soviet Union and the Communist Eastern Bloc. He volunteered that it felt like something had been taken out of him... His raison d'être.

I knew Bobby Fischer, between 2007 and 2016, until his passing, in reclusion, at the age of 74. He was never crazy, never Antisemitic, never vengeful, never immodest.

He was the Father I never had - and I love him.