Thirteen O’clock

In 1988 11th World Chess Champion Robert James “Bobby” Fischer filed for U.S. Patent 4,884,255 (awarded in 1989) for a new type of digital chess clock. The new clock gave each player a fixed period of time at the start of the game and then added a small amount after each move. It was an instant worldwide hit, but, as Icelandic Grandmaster Helgi Ólafsson writes in his book “Bobby Fischer Comes Home: The Final Years in Iceland, a Saga of Friendship and Lost Illusions”, New In Chess, Alkmaar, 2012, p. 81, “Given the universal appeal of his clock it was tragic that Bobby never profited from his invention financially. I asked him once if it had earned him any money and he said in a matter-of-fact way: ‘No’”. But the chess family was not yet satisfied. Even his greatest invention, Fischerandom chess, immediately attracted their attention in the most unconstructive sense. They appropriated of it, changed its name into “chess960” (that’s a pretty name, indeed!), and segregated it into the field of etherodox amenities. “They believe my image is so bad that they had given it another name”, Fischer sadly said to Ólafsson (op. cit., p. 82). Because despite everything, gens una sunt.

Artwork © poliip