Someone asked me long ago if Bobby Fisher was schizophrenic. If he was, it was a rare case of “elderly schizophrenia” or whatever you call it. (late onset?). When I was a kid in the seventies, Bobby Fisher was the World Chess Champion. His most famous matches were withe Russian Boris Spatsky. And these guys made front page news regularly because back then people all over the world cared who was Champion. But chess went the way of boxing and now nobody cares who’s Heavyweight champ or the World Champion chess player anymore.
But in my humble opinion, there is no way that Bobby Fisher could have been schizophrenic in his playing days. When those guys played they were under incredible pressure. It took incredible concentration for two chess masters to play each other. And to have people watching and knowing that the world was thinking of you and you were world famous. From playing chess yourself you know how complicated and how much concentration it takes. Multiply that by a thousand and you have an idea of what those guys were facing.
I just think that it would be impossible for anyone who is schizophrenic to be able to handle that stress. It seems almost impossible that anyone with schizophrenic could mentally handle playing at that level or handle the scrutiny, the press conferences, the traveling, the interviews, the financial aspect etc. So I don’t think he was schizophrenic during his playing days. I don’t even think he was prodomal.
But in his later years after Bobby Fisher retired he certainly appeared at the very least to be eccentric. He certainly seemed paranoid and had some weird ideas and became strange. He might have become schizophrenic after he retired. I don’t really even know if he’s still alive.
2 Likes
@77nick77
My opinion is that a person with schizophrenia can indeed endure the rigors of being World chess champion as well as a person without schizophrenia.
I believe Bobby Fischer (1943-2008) did have paranoid schizophrenia, and his symptoms actually began about the age of 5. Fischer was aloof, secluded, and consumed with chess. He was a child prodigy, but he was also bizarre. At the age of 14, Fischer took a bite out of GM Ron Gross’s arm during a road trip. Fischer later said that Gross was “sending him the wrong brainwaves.” Fischer’s mentors asked him to see a psychiatrist, but Fischer responded that only when a psychiatrist defeats him at chess would he give a psychiatrist the privilege of examining his brain.
The main reason that the 1972 World Chess Championship was much watched was due to it taking place at the height of the Cold War, with an American playing a Russian. Fischer, a huge underdog, dispatched of Spassky easily. Metaphorically, the USA defeated the USSR.
As an aside, John Nash wrote Nash Equilibrium, a ground-breaking economic theory, in 1950. Nash was in the throes of schizophrenia when it was written. Nash, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and mathematician, also solved a mathematical equation that went unsolved for over 300 years in the throes of schizophrenia.
The saying that there’s a fine line between madness and genius may well be true.
1 Like
Well, I have to disagree. And we are both just giving our opinions. And that’s all they are. Just yours and mine opinions.
If Bobby Fisher was a paranoid schizophrenic during his playing days, how on earth did he hide it because I don’t believe anybody called him schizophrenic during his tenure as champ. Schizophrenia is not easily hidden as a lot of us on SZ.com know. And to be a schizophrenic who is hiding his illness from the world PLUS doing the rigors of attaining the world title seems downright impossible. I never heard the word schizophrenic in the newspapers back then about him. I mean maybe it’s not impossible that he was schizophrenic. But then again maybe it is. Just our opinions.
I’m not sure if Nash was openly schizophrenic when he wrote those things. If he was open about his mental illness than that is a burden lifted off of his shoulders that Fisher (if he was schizophrenic) still had to carry. You could also argue that Fisher did his job in front of many people on the world stage.He was famous and that is a burden among itself. But fame is stressful and especially so if someone is schizophrenic.
You could argue the Nash had the luxury of doing his work in private or at least sometimes in private or in the world of Universities, libraries, and study halls. A lot different than playing World Class Chess and being scrutinized. I kind of doubt that a schizophrenic can handle fame as well as a “normal” person. Maybe I’m wrong but I thought beating Spasky was not “easy”. My impression was that it was hard fought battle.
1 Like
@77nick77
I think this is noteworthy: The consensus of psychiatrists and psychologists who have done extensive research on Fischer is that he had autism (probably a savant).
1 Like
Well, that came out of left field, lol. If you say it, I will believe it. As you know there are different degrees of autism.
1 Like