Word: fischer
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...average lonely heart, Bobby Fischer?erstwhile chess champion, virulent anti-Semite, and fugitive from the U.S. justice system?might not sound like Mr. Right. But to hear Miyoko Watai tell it, he's a dreamboat. Speaking at a press conference in Tokyo last week, Watai gushed: "I think of Bobby as a king and I would like to become queen." The 59-year-old acting head of the Japan Chess Association said turbulent circumstances had forced her to reveal what she had previously preferred to keep private?that she and Fischer have been living together in Tokyo for the past...
...That will take some doing. Watai's surprise announcement last week is just the latest odd turn in the bizarre diplomatic and legal drama swirling around Fischer. After 12 years on the run from charges that he broke U.S. trade regulations, the 61-year-old chess genius is fighting attempts to deport him back to the U.S. after Japanese immigration authorities apprehended him on July 13 for traveling on an allegedly invalid passport. That collaring brought to a close one of the most famous (if not particularly intense) manhunts in recent American history...
...prodigy from New York who managed, improbably, to make chess cool, Fischer rocketed to stardom for his aggressive play and flamboyance. In 1972, at the age of 29, he defeated Russian Boris Spassky for the world title in a cold war showdown that made him an American hero. Soon after, however, Fischer's life degenerated from triumph to farce. He joined the fringe Worldwide Church of God, then abruptly left it. He grew increasingly vocal about his anti-Semitic views, despite the fact that his own mother was Jewish. He quit playing competitive chess, and was stripped of his title...
...Then, in 1992, Fischer resurfaced to play a rematch with Spassky in Yugoslavia, where Americans were forbidden from doing business because of its government's support of Serbian aggression in Bosnia...
...press conference before the match, Fischer spat on a letter from the U.S. Treasury Department telling him not to play. He beat Spassky and pocketed a $3.35 million prize, and a U.S. federal warrant was issued for his arrest. Faced with a possible penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for violating America's economic sanctions, he has never returned to the States...