If a person studies a game of chess and is struck by an unimaginable beauty, elegant efficiency, amazing subtleties of strategic positionings, and breathtaking tactical combinations, the sense of some spiritual presence is felt, not unlike hearing Handel's Messiah, or the Mozart Requiem, or reading a passage of great literature. Diving in deeper, examining at the master level (maybe by reading a master's analysis of the game, or work of art, or scientific theory), only deepens appreciation. This was the presence of genius. the study may go on for centuries, and someday, milennia, still uncovering depths of genius that only the prime player/creator/author/artist knew, or somehow, even without knowing, created, or implemented, or acted on, or whatever he or she did. it was genius. that is the experience of playing through and studying a BF game.
Bobby Fischer's life was tragic. If we apply social values and diplomacy and rational behavior standards to his life. We find tragedy and a waste of genius. This is true, however, if we apply those same principles to many other geniuses. Richard Wagner comes to mind instantly. An endless list could be made.
I suggest that we honor the games and the mind that made the moves and that we let the human that he was rest in peace.
With all due respect to the late Mr.Fischer's obvious chess skills, and at the risk of alienating some of my many RHP buddies who have the dubious fortune of being American by birth (...but not always Amerikan by nature), I object to the heroic intent of some of this knee-jerk adulation... 😕
😉 I suspect that Mr.Fischer was was as arrogant and eccentrically self-centered as often reported in the press.
🙄 I'm sure I'd like him as much, as a person, as I would other similarly high-scoring players at RHP.
.... if, that is, I had the bad luck to run into any or all of them in person. 😞 But I digress....