The the Tortured Genius of Bobby Fischer

Reykjavik, 1 September 1972: a 29-year-old high school dropout armed with little more than a pocket chess set and a book of his opponent's most important games beats the Russian Boris Spassky to be crowned champion of the world.

Fourteen years after becoming the youngest ever international grand master, Bobby Fischer has at last achieved his rightful title: he is now the greatest chess player in history.

He will never compete in an official tournament again.

In 1956, the thirteen-year-old Fischer had become a chess god overnight, beating a top-ranked adult player in a game so remarkable that it was immediately dubbed 'the Game of the Century'.

With his handmade suits and movie-star looks, he popularised chess to an extent never seen before or since.

Indeed, the 1972 world championship became such an emblem of Cold War rivalry that when Fischer seemed about to withdraw Henry Kissinger intervened personally to persuade him to take part.

Fischer's behaviour was always erratic. He was as renowned for his paranoid tantrums as he was for his unrivalled dedication to the game.

After 1972 he refused to play tournament chess, perhaps for fear that competition would destroy his myth. Since then he has come out of retirement only once, to play Spassky again in 1992.

In contravention of US sanctions the match was staged in Yugoslavia, and a Federal warrant was issued for his arrest.

Bobby Fischer, for thirty years the king over the water, now lives in true exile in Japan.

Bobby Fischer is an enigma: the anti-Communist super-patriot is now an enemy of the State; the Brooklyn kid with the Jewish mother now broadcasts vile anti-Semitic rants; the finest exponent of the world's most rational game has become ever more irrational.

Through unprecedented access to those who knew Fischer best, Rene Chun charts the extraordinary rise and fall of a genius touched by madness.