James Martin

Prayers for Bobby James Martin

The Eleventh World Chess Champion, Robert James Fischer, of the United States, practically singlehandedly brought down the Entire Eastern Bloc, principally the former Soviet Union, in what was billed, then as now, as the Match of the Century, against the magnificent incumbent, the Tenth World Chess Champion, Boris Spassky, of Russia, in the equally magnificent Island Archipelago of Iceland, in its capital, Reykjavik, in 1972. Fischer, after a war of nerves designed to unsettle the very even Champion, secured the Title, on behalf of the Free World, in the 21st Game of the Match scheduled for 24. Then, not long after the usual ceremonial fanfare, and brief homecoming to unwanted, if merited, adulation in his place of birth, Bobby Fischer, as if by magic, Black, White, or Gray, vanished. And left a world in mourning. Here, in these pages, in 90 and then an additional 20 sonnets, is Jamie Fischer's heartfelt and truly personal response to his own champion's story...