Bobby Fischer, America's first and only world chess champion, who beat the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky in a blaze of Cold War publicity in Reykjavik in 1972, has died in Iceland at the age of 64.
A spokesman for Fischer, who was feted as a national hero for
beating Spassky but fell foul of US authorities in his later years, confirmed that the eccentric chess genius had died but offered no further details.
Rumours that Fischer, once dubbed the "Mozart of Chess", had been ill had circulated in recent weeks on chess-related websites.
Iceland national radio reported he had died after a serious, but unspecified, illness.
- Reuters
