REYKJAVIK - Bobby Fischer, America's first and only world chess champion who was once dubbed the "Mozart of Chess", has died in Iceland at the age of 64.
A spokesman for Fischer, who could have faced prison in America for violating sanctions against former Yugoslavia by playing a chess match there, confirmed that he had died. The cause of death was not immediately made public.
Fischer, a former child prodigy who once said he liked to watch his opponents squirm and who had become an Icelandic citizen, became world champion by beating the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky under the glare of Cold War publicity in Reykjavik in 1972.
The brilliant but eccentric American abandoned his title without moving a pawn by failing to meet a deadline to defend his crown in Manila in 1975. World chess authorities reluctantly awarded it to challenger Anatoly Karpov of the Soviet Union, who was to hold it for the next decade.
Fischer withdrew into himself, not playing in public and living on little more than the magic of his name, although millions of enthusiasts regarded him as the king of chess.
He made headlines and fell foul of U.S. authorities when he came out of seclusion to play his old rival Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992, at a time when the country was the target of sanctions during Belgrade's war with breakaway republics.
He vanished after the match, for which he won $3 million (1.5 million pounds), and resurfaced only after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. In an interview with a Philippine radio station, Fischer praised the strikes and said he wanted to see America "wiped out".
Fischer, who also stirred controversy with anti-Semitic remarks, was granted Icelandic citizenship in March 2005 after eight months in detention in Japan fighting a U.S. deportation order.
"THE MOZART OF CHESS"
Fischer always had a high opinion of himself. Asked who was the greatest player in the world, he once replied:
"It's nice to be modest, but it would be stupid if I did not tell the truth. It is Fischer."
It was not an idle claim. Arguably the greatest natural chess genius the world has seen, he was called "the Mozart of chess" when he began winning at the age of six.
