Rare Bobby Fischer images!
Recently, photo images have surfaced of Bobby Fischer during a trip to the Philippines. These pictures show an apparently contented Fischer reveling with good friends and enjoying the scenery. Of course, Fischer would frequent the Philippines as well as Japan as a refuge from what he regarded was an increasingly untenable relationship with his home country.
The source of these pictures are unclear, but earlier this year Rex Sinquefield, the founder of the beautiful Chess Club of St. Louis, purchased possessions of Fischer from his storage locker in Pasadena. It was thought that these items were sold when the locker bill was not paid, but apparently there were additional items left.
The pictures featured were taken in 1973 and 1974 in the Philippines, Japan and Hong Kong. The photos include Fischer on a boat with the young Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos. Another familiar face is the legendary chess patriarch Florencio Campomanes.
These were much happier times for Fischer and preceded what would become a self-imposed 20-year exile. He then played the infamous match with Boris Spassky in 1992. This match apparently violated U.S. sanctions and Fischer would never touch U.S. soil again. He died in January of last year in Iceland and is buried there.
