PREFACEThis is the first volume in a two-part work on the legendary accomplishments of Robert James (Bobby) Fischer, marking the 50th anniversary since the American grandmaster won the right to challenge for the World Championship crown. The second volume will focus on the match itself, and will similarly be published on or close to the 50th anniversary of the event itself. Bobby Fischer attracted more media attention than any other chess player. His 1972 World Championship final match against Boris Spassky became a page in the book of the Cold War and he affected chess more powerfully than anyone else, virtually on his own changing the game once and forever: he stopped the 24-year domination of the Soviets; he attracted the biggest ever prizemoney in the history of chess, and his records can be endlessly enumerated. The first Soviet champions played for little money, while all champions after Fischer became millionaires. He achieved the strongest domination of any player by winning twenty games in a row against worldclass opposition, a record which most probably will never be matched. It was not only his amazing results that had such an effect; his personality also contributed a lot. Fischer brought a new level to the board; he was more versatile than the World Champions before him.

Let me tell two small stories, both of which happened decades after he conquered the chess throne, and which describe how well-known he had become outside of the world of chess. In the late nineties Hungarian IM Janos Rigo drove Fischer to Germany via Austria and at the border control the official asked for their passports. Rigo asked the controller whether he knew who was in the back seat of the car, and after a quick glance the man replied: "The world chess champion." In 2016 or 2017 I heard two Hungarians (non-chess-players) talking, one of whom told a joke which went something like this: Two prisoners walking in a Soviet labour camp in Siberia in 1972. One says to the other, with news arriving here so slowly, "I would like to know so much how the Spassky - Fischer match ended." The other replied, "I blundered a piece in the last game." No other chess champion has ever received such recognition outside of our world, and no one is likely to get it in the future. Tibor Karolyi Budapest 2021.