Prodigy.

Bobby Fischer was thirteen in 1956 when he became the youngest national junior chess champion in history, fourteen when he won the U.S. Open Chess tournament and the right to challenge Arthur B. Bisguier for the U.S. Championship, fifteen when he became the youngest International Grandmaster in the history of chess and won the U.S. Championship, and sixteen when he ended his formal education: "The stuff they teach in school, I can't use," he explained. Erasmus Hall High School, his alma mater, presented him with a gold medal for his accomplishments in chess the year he quit school.

Charges against FIDE.

Before he was twenty Fischer was the most outspoken critic of the world chess establishment. He boycotted the U. S. Championships in 1961 because he said the prize money of one thousand dollars to the winner was insulting. Three months...