Recently I went down the Bobby Fischer rabbit hole and wanted to share some insight I found with fellow stackers. Bobby died in January 2008 before Satoshi had even released the whitepaper. But from what I've gleaned about Bobby, I feel that although he probably wouldn't have been a bitcoiner, there is a lot in common he had with many bitcoiners, and many of us can learn from Bobby and how he lived his life.

What initially interested me in Bobby was that I have spent the last couple of years being a bit obsessed with chess, and Bobby comes up a lot in people's lists of chess greats. When I looked into him, I found that he had some run ins with the US government, and that he was outspoken on several political matters which had gotten him "cancelled", or at least a version of that before the days of social media, and I thought maybe Bobby was saying something that was worth looking in to.

My conclusion, however, is that Bobby's life was sad and tragic, that he was overly mistrustful, and that he suffered greatly from paranoia and a victim complex. That's not some profound insight--rather it is the normie/mainstream take on Bobby. I started out expecting to side with Bobby or to at least sympathize with his views. As a Bitcoiner, I'm used to the mainstream narrative being bogus on closer inspection. When someone is branded a "conspiracy theorist" or an "antisemite" or some "ist" it's usually a sign these days that they may have something interesting to say which the regime (the "Cathedral" to quote Yarvin) would like to silence, but in Bobby's case it seems that he really was beyond the pale.

Not that there wasn't nuance there. Bobby was an intelligent, interesting, and at times charismatic and charming man, and he had many friends and admirers, even in his later, sadder years. But he also had a self destructive streak which drove people away and caused a self imposed isolation. It was almost a frustrating experience to read, page after page, how Bobby was given chance after chance--at friendship, love, business--and each time he managed to find a way to screw things up. Either through paranoia, or mistrust, or hubris, or else some strange fear of success. For example, negotiations for multi million dollar playing opportunities would collapse or almost collapse on Bobby's unwillingness to compromise on seemingly minor points such as the size of the chess pieces to be used or the venue's lighting. He'd turn down hundreds of thousands of dollars due to a principled aversion to commercial endorsements and yet sell an interview to a journalist for a couple hundred when he was short of cash. He'd lose friendships over minor disagreements, perceived invasions of privacy, or by an almost touretts-like inability to withhold rants about "the Jews" despite the fact that Bobby himself was (at least partly) ethnically Jewish, and the family hosting him for dinner on that particular occasion was also Jewish.

Bobby was an extreme example. He had an IQ of 180 and was widely recognized at being one of the greatest to ever play the game of chess, even prior to his becoming world champion in 1972. (His famous "Game of the Century" took place in 1956, when Bobby was only 13 years old). He was a misfit who did not get on well at school. He had no father growing up and his relationship with his mother was complex, as she was often absent working, studying or else involved in protests and other activist endeavors. And yet, extreme as Bobby may have been, I suspect there is a bit of Bobby in many bitcoiners. I know there is in me.

When you grow up excelling at a certain thing, especially if that thing is in someway intellectual, it is common I think to become very arrogant and dismissive of "normies" (or "weakies" as Bobby referred to non/ poor chess players as) who can't do what you do, and yet, who often appear to somehow "unfairly" be getting on in life better than you are. I suspect there was more than a little of that in Bobby, and I suspect there is at least a little of that in many bitcoiners. Because, to understand Bitcoin is to understand something that 99% of the population does not understand, nor will ever understand, even though they may even buy and hold the asset. Bobby found comfort in spending time with other chess grandmasters, like bitcoiners find comfort with other bitcoiners. But Bobby was dismissive and contemptuous of the "normie" world to a fault, and much to his own detriment. I think there's a lesson in there which is perhaps related to the "stay humble" part of Odell's famous catchphrase.

One thing that surprised me to learn was Bobby's connection to Japan, the country in which I live. Bobby was actually married to a Japanese woman, who would go on to inherit his estate following his death in Iceland. Bobby also lived in Japan for a time. This was partly due to his playing a $5 million dollar prize pot chess game vs Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992, in violation of US sanctions, rendering Bobby a fugitive of international law, and meaning that he never returned to the US following that match. It's interesting to read how Bobby was able to do that, actually. As I write this now, in the year of Our Lord 2024, it is unimaginable to think that a US citizen could avoid the long arm of the US DOJ by simply avoiding entering the US. (Not that Bobby didn't suffer due to this--he missed the funerals of both his mother and sister due to his legal situation). Bobby was not only able to avoid the DOJ, he was able to keep his wealth intact in a Swiss bank account, and even managed to have his passport renewed in the US embassy in Switzerland even while being a "fugitive" with a warrant out for his arrest. This would continue until 2004, when presumably due to the extra powers the US government had given themselves post 9/11, Bobby was arrested in Narita Airport Japan, for the crime of travelling on an "invalidated passport". (The US had revoked his passport, without telling Bobby). Bobby faced extradition to the US, until Iceland (the country which had hosted Bobby's original world championship match in 1972) stepped in to offer him citizenship and refuge to live on that small island, an offer which Bobby gratefully availed himself of until his death in 2008, at 64 years old. Reading all this, it was hard not to be a little sympathetic towards Bobby's plight, and his treatment by both the US and the Japanese authorities. (Bobby claimed to have been roughed up by the Japanese immigration officers). It was also sad to think of the innocence we lost following the collapse of the twin towers, as the US made a point to punish a man who's only crime was to push around wooden pieces on a board in defiance of their wish to prevent him doing that. With that said, and in true Bobby style, he had not helped his own cause, in the aftermath of 9/11, by appearing on a Filipino radio station and expressing delight that the US had been attacked in such a way.

In the beginning of this write up I mentioned that I didn't think Bobby would have been a Bitcoiner. While I do think many Bitcoiners share Bobby's mistrust (especially of government) and paranoia, to a degree, I think Bobby had such a case of "autism" as we'd term it in our vernacular (although I have no idea of any formal medical diagnosis Bobby may or may not have had) that he was way beyond trusting his wealth to a software protocol. I'm pretty sure Bobby would have denounced Bitcoin as being a creation of the CIA and "the Jews" and he would not have had anything to do with it. With that said, Bobby did have misgivings about the financial system, the banks, and the debt situation of governments, and I am sure he would have agreed with bitcoiners that the current financial system is far from ideal, although Bobby would probably phrase it a little differently, to say the least.

To wrap this up, I must apologize for the "click bait" title. I was going to call it "Searching for Bobby Fischer" and put it in the "chess" territory, but I see that territory has been archived now. With that said, I personally have greatly benefited from learning about Bobby, and I feel some other Bitcoiners may too. He's sort of a reduction ad absurdum of what can happen to a man when he's beset by paranoia. Maybe many of us sometimes feel on the edge of that precipice. We find the world a frustrating place, and people to be frustrating, but the answer cannot be to push everything and everyone away like Bobby did. And I do believe that trapped inside Bobby was a beautiful soul. One of the final things he said before he died is reported to be "Nothing is as healing as the human touch". May you rest in peace Bobby Fischer.

"Bobby Fischer Against the World" documentary https://youtu.be/pavYCzvg2fM

"Bobby Fischer game of the century" a breakdown of Bobby's famous 1956 game by chess YouTuber Gothamchess. https://youtu.be/MRoTJntvv_8

"Bobby Fischer Comes Home" by Helgi Olafsson, about Bobby's final years in Iceland https://www.amazon.com/Bobby-Fischer-Comes-Home-Friendship/dp/9056913816

"End Game" by Frank Brady, which covers the entire arc of Bobby's life, from childhood to chess prodigy, to world chess champion, the wilderness years, to his "comeback" vs Spassky in the 90s, and finally to his time in Asia, arrest in Japan, and his sad and lonely end in Iceland. https://www.amazon.com/Endgame-Fischers-Remarkable-Americas-Brightest/dp/0307463915

"My 60 Memorable Games", by Bobby himself. An commentary on the more interesting chess games he'd played prior to the book being written. https://www.amazon.com/My-Memorable-Games-Bobby-Fischer/dp/190638830X/