Bobby Fischer is dead

The great American (now Icelandic) chess champion has died at the age of 64.

Like many poker players out there, the first game I ever learned how to play, even before checkers, was chess. My brother Darren sat with me when I was about 5 or 6 and taught me all of the basic moves. A few years later, I got a copy of Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess which is still the greatest interactive chess book for beginners ever written. It was the game of chess which started me on the path to my love of gaming in all of it's forms. I have misspent countless hours of my life in pursuit of these mercurial pleasures and I have hardly regretted a minute of them.

In later years, as Bobby descended into a state of batshit crazy rivalling The Joker from the Batman comics, I understood the madness inherent in genius. Luckily, I'm not that smart. But some of us are going to end up in Arkham Asylum, I promise you that.