Fischer's first yeard death anniversary

GM Wesley So drew his game against Oleg Romanishin in round 2. The PGN and replays of the games of the round are not available at the moment but in the meantime, I hardly notice that yesterday was the first year death anniversary of the late great Bobby Fischer. You can read the interview on Susan Polgar regarding his friendship with one of the greatest geniuses in the history of the game.

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Sunday, January 18, 2009
Story last updated at 1/18/2009 - 1:50 am

One year ago on Jan. 17, Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest chess players in history, passed away at the age of 64 in Reykjavik, Iceland, just as the number of squares on a chess board.

I received many questions about Bobby. Here are some selected ones.

Question: How did you meet Bobby Fischer?

Answer: In 1992, Bobby played his second match against Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia and was unable to return to the U.S. because of his defiance of economic sanctions. The organizer Janos Kubat arranged for my family to visit Bobby at a hotel in Yugoslavia, near the border of Hungary, in order to convince him to go to Hungary rather than being in a cramped hotel room in a small Yugoslavian village.

Bobby expressed his wish to meet me, but unfortunately I was in Peru at that time. I accompanied my family on the following visit and eventually the idea of moving to Hungary became more attractive to Bobby.

Just to be sure everything was OK, we asked the border guards if Fischer could enter Hungary and they had no objection. With that assurance, Bobby moved to Hungary. At one point, he stayed in our summer home, which is about one hour from Budapest. He was accompanied by GM Eugenio Torre from the Philippines and his bodyguard. Read full article HERE