‘’Bobby Fischer Against the World’’

The document is a painting entitled “Bobby Fischer against the World”. It was draw by an Austrian illustrator named Oliver Schopf born in Kitzbuehel, Austria, in 1960.

Bobby Fischer was an American chess prodigy, grandmaster, and the eleventh World Chess Champion. He is considered by many to be the greatest chess player who ever lived. He was born in the 9^th of March 1943 and died in the 17^th January 2008.

 It shows two different periods of Bobby’s life : the first part deals with the climax of his life, from the point of view of the world, when he won The chess match of the century, in 1972, against Boris Spassky, a Soviet chess grandmaster.

Then the second part shows how he ended up, more precisely when Bobby Fischer returns to Iceland, where he had celebrated his greatest victory, as a new citizen of Iceland.

It was painted before 2008, before Bobby’s death, and after the chess match that is painted here so after 1972 and logically after he became a Citizen of Iceland on March the 22^nd of 2005. So it was painted between 2005 and 2008.

It’s taken from Oliver Schopf’s official website, which is for sure trustworthy:

http://www.oliverschopf.com/  . We can find on this website the work done by this artist and some information about his life.

We have chosen this document because it shows the choice that Bobby has made and in our opinion, this is the most interesting and important thing about his life : he decided to go to Iceland to be alone and stopped playing the chess tournaments.

It’s a little “bad” because he was a very good chess player, that’s why Oliver Schopf represented him when he was “old”, to show how he has broken such a wonderful destinity he could have if he had continued to play.

Bobby has made a “hole” in his life as shown in the painting : he completely changed, if he was still alive he probably wouldn’t go back to his old life to complete it and die as a hero, he just ended up looking like a homeless bum.

To finish, Oliver Schopf has chosen the title “Bobby Fischer Against the World” to show Bobby’s special personality. Indeed Bobby was a little strange because he liked to be alone and “against the world”. He was paranoiac because  for example ,he changed  different things ( lights ..) during the Chess Match against Boris .