THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Bobby Fischer –  the rebel, the enfant terrible, the uncompromising savage of the chess board — had captured the imagination of the world. Because of him, for the first time in the United States, the game, with all its arcana and intimations of nerdiness, was cool. And when the championship match was over, he walked away with a winner’s purse of $250,000.

Weber/NYT

Fischer’s life testifies to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s proposition that “there are no second acts in American lives.”  Achieving his only goal destroyed his raison d’être.  Without that goal, he seemed to lose his already weak hold on reality.  With nothing more to prove, fear of defeat prevailed over his desire to play.  Fischer turned Reykjavik into a battle ground, and the match was the last real chess war he would ever wage. 

Edmonds/Fischer