Goodbye to the Leader of the Piece Movement

Chess master Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest chess players the world has ever seen, died today at the age of 64. At this point, no cause of death has been disclosed.

I will never forget those days in 1972, when Fischer faced off against Russian chess master Boris Spassky in Iceland and became America's first world chess champion.

Not long after Fischer's triumph, he published a book about playing chess. Titled "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess," the book sought to teach chess players how to play like Fischer.

Of course, that was impossible. You were no more going to become the next Bobby Fischer by reading that book than you were going to learn to hit like Stan Musial from reading a book by the St. Louis Cardinals great.

But every boy in my seventh grade class in 1973 (and even a few of the girls) had a dog-eared paperback copy of that book that he carried with him -- and I was no exception to the rule. Everyone was playing chess, and everyone wanted to be Bobby Fischer.

There's no doubt that chess became popular after Fischer won the world championship. Everywhere you looked in the early 1970s, you saw people, young and old, male and female, black and white, carrying miniature chess sets with them, always ready to play a game.

And Fischer was the leader of what I now like to call "the piece movement."

Fischer was a controversial individual, though. He was reclusive and mysterious, moving to Iceland, the scene of his triumph over Spassky, in 2005.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Fischer allegedly told a Philippines radio station that reports of a plane hitting the Pentagon were "wonderful news." He also was quoted as saying the attacks had been provoked by American foreign policy.

And, despite having a mother who was Jewish, Fischer was known to be anti-Semitic.

Even the cause of his death is shrouded in mystery today.

But this afternoon, I'm not thinking about his political and social views. Or his self-imposed exile to Iceland.

Today, I remember the Bobby Fischer who was responsible for inspiring my friends and me to learn the game of chess and develop our strategic skills.

For that, I will always be grateful.