A Pleasant Memory of Bobby Fischer

I have been critical of the very distasteful rantings of the late Bobby Fischer and have declined to write about him for the most part, although his games remain a remarkable piece of chess beauty.

Hans Ree takes us back to a more pleasant time, in his current Dutch Treat column at ChessCafe. The year is 1968 and the story Hans writes about takes place in, of all places, Netanya, Israel. Fischer is playing in a tournament there, but Ree says that "For him, Netanya was a chess vacation." There was concern that Fischer might cause trouble with his antics, but Ree claims that "In Netanya, Bobby was kindness itself."

It's a light piece but it's nice to bring back some fleeting memories of a more pleasant Bobby Fischer, the Bobby Fischer we wanted to believe in.