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Bobby Fischer
In a game not short on spectacular prodigies, Bobby Fischer remains the gold standard against which all early chess genius is measured. At the age of 14, he was the youngest U.S. champion in history, and a year later he was a full-blown Grandmaster. In 1972, he won the World Chess Championship from Russian Boris Spassky in arguably the most important chess match in history. This highly-publicized Match of the Century was cloaked in Cold War symbolism, a fact that Fischer himself disdained, but his victory was nevertheless a resounding victory for chess in the States. He became the only American World Champion in history, and simultaneously the game’s first American superstar. Unfortunately, few people ever have been less suited for celebrity than Fischer, a fragile personality at best, and at worst a borderline madman. His legendary stubbornness and paranoia led him to abdicate his world title in 1975 rather than defend it against Anatoly Karpov.

In 1992, he resurfaced in Yugoslavia where, despite a U.N. embargo, he defeated Spassky again in an uninspired rematch. He hasn’t played competitive chess since, and after being arrested in Japan in 2004 (for violating the U.N. embargo), he was granted asylum by Iceland, where he lives today. Profoundly anti-Semitic, violently anti-American, and generally thought to be completely insane, Fischer’s legacy as a visionary assassin on the chess board still hovers over the American game as if 1972 was yesterday. His name is always mentioned in any serious conversation about the greatest chess player of all time.

The Ecstasy of Defeat Collection
The Ecstasy of defeat is a collaboration between No Mas and Mickey Duzyj, who also did the amazing Tyson artwork for our Fall Classic gallery show. Each shirt in the four part series is limited to 250 pieces and comes with a special hangtag signed and numbered by the artist.