Watched a pretty good biographical movie tonight: “Pawn Sacrifice”, staring Tobey Maguire as a young Bobby Fischer (chess champion in the ’60s and ’70s). Tobey does a great job at portraying Mr. Fischer.
The movie starts with us seeing him as a 6 yr old chess prodigy, thru his teenage and young adult years, and finishes with the infamous 1972 Fischer/Boris Spassky championship match in Iceland, becoming the world chess champion at age twenty-nine.
Along the way, we also see Mr. Fischer begin to develop psychological issues with paranoia, etc., with the film noting at the end, how he eventually was just overcome by these issues. He later ended up in relative obscurity, having sought asylum in a host of different counties (due to his having played in a match in 1992 in Yugoslavia when the U.S. had made it “illegal to engage in economic activities” within that country).
The movie is worth a look, if you’re into Chess or just like to know more about Bobby Fischer.
