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70 free Bobby Fischer trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Bobby Fischer beat the Soviet chess machine alone, then spent the rest of his life at war with almost everyone. This quiz follows the whole arc. It opens with the Brooklyn boy who learned from a candy-store set, the seven-year-old holding out for fifteen minutes in a simultaneous display, the queen sacrifice against Donald Byrne that became the Game of the Century, and the 14-year-old US champion who quit school two years later because you don't learn anything there. The middle section is the road to Reykjavík: the collusion accusation at Curaçao that changed how the world championship is decided, the 11-0 US Championship, the 6-0 sweeps of Taimanov and Larsen, the twenty-game winning streak, the forfeit in game two, the back-room game three and the Cold War headlines. Then the long strange aftermath: the three demands FIDE would not meet, the title handed to Karpov, the years of silence, the 1992 rematch in embargoed Yugoslavia, the arrest at Narita, the Icelandic passport and the churchyard at Laugardælir. Easy questions suit anyone who has seen Pawn Sacrifice; the expert tier reaches Sveti Stefan, the 1956 rating list and the Pepsi-Cola match. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Fischer, the 1972 and 1992 matches and his inventions, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. Our chess and World Chess Championship pages sit alongside this one.
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Q 01Whom did Bobby Fischer beat in 1972 to become World Chess Champion?
Boris Spassky
He had never beaten the Soviet champion before the match, with three losses and two draws between them.
Q 02In which city was the 1972 world title match, dubbed the Match of the Century, played?
Reykjavík
Fischer had wanted Belgrade and only turned up after a London financier doubled the prize fund and Henry Kissinger phoned him.
Q 03Fischer was the how-many-th World Chess Champion?
Eleventh
He held the title for three years without playing a single competitive game, then forfeited it.
Q 04Which country granted Fischer citizenship in 2005 by a special act of its parliament, letting him live there until his death?
Iceland
The Althing voted unanimously, partly in gratitude for the 1972 match that had "put the country on the map".
Q 05In which US city was Fischer born in 1943?
Chicago
His mother was homeless at the time; the family settled in Brooklyn when he was seven.
Q 06How old was Fischer when he won the first of his record eight US Championships?
14
He was still two months shy of his 15th birthday, and the win qualified him for the Interzonal and earned him the International Master title.
Q 07Which variant, randomising the starting position of the back-rank pieces, was Fischer's invention?
Chess960
He introduced it in 1996 to kill off memorised opening preparation; unlike older shuffle chess, it keeps opposite-coloured bishops and the right to castle.
Q 08Who was named World Champion by default in 1975 when Fischer refused to defend his title?
Anatoly Karpov
FIDE accepted Fischer's demand for a first-to-ten-wins match but rejected his 9-9 clause by 35 votes to 32.
Q 09What was Fischer's score in the 1963/64 US Championship, the only perfect result in the tournament's history?
11-0
Hans Kmoch congratulated runner-up Larry Evans on "winning" the tournament and Fischer on "winning the exhibition".
Q 10Which 1969 Fischer book is regarded as essential reading in chess literature?
My 60 Memorable Games
He wrote it with Larry Evans and, unusually, included some of his own draws and losses among the annotated games.
Q 11Which actor played Fischer in the 2014 film "Pawn Sacrifice"?
Tobey Maguire
Liev Schreiber played Spassky and Peter Sarsgaard played Fischer's second, a Catholic priest.
Q 12The 1993 film "Searching for Bobby Fischer" is actually about which young chess prodigy?
Joshua Waitzkin
His father Fred wrote the book; the film was retitled Innocent Moves in Britain and earned an Oscar nomination for cinematography.
Q 13Where was Fischer arrested in July 2004 for travelling on a revoked US passport?
Narita Airport, Japan
He spent about eight months in Japanese detention and married Miyoko Watai, president of the Japanese Chess Association, while inside.
Q 21On the July 1972 rating list Fischer's Elo of 2785 was how far above the world number two?
125 points
Spassky was second on 2660; no player had ever been rated so high before.
Q 22Fischer's 1972 win started a boom in American chess. What happened to US Chess Federation membership that year?
It doubled
Membership peaked in 1974; the period is still called the "Fischer Boom".
Q 23Fischer refused to play the 1975 title defence unless the match ran until one player won how many games, draws not counting?
Ten
He also wanted the champion to keep the title at 9-9, a clause many considered unfair to the challenger.
Q 14Fischer's 1992 rematch with Spassky, which led to a US arrest warrant, was played in which sanctioned country?
Yugoslavia
He spat on the Treasury Department's warning letter at the opening press conference; the $5 million purse remains the largest for any chess match.
Q 15How old was Fischer when he died in January 2008?
64
There are 64 squares on a chessboard; the cause was kidney failure after he refused surgery for a urinary blockage.
Q 16Which brilliant queen sacrifice game did the 13-year-old Fischer win against Donald Byrne in 1956, later dubbed "The Game of the Century"?
A Grünfeld at the Rosenwald tournament
Byrne took the queen on move 17 and got a rook, two bishops and a pawn thrown back at him before being mated.
Q 17What was Fischer's score in his 1971 Candidates matches against both Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen?
6-0 each
Kasparov later wrote that no player had ever shown a superiority over his rivals comparable to that 12-0 sweep.
Q 18Losing to Fischer 6-0 cost Mark Taimanov his stipend, his travel rights and his place on the Soviet team. What was his other profession?
Concert pianist
After the final game he told Fischer, "Well, I still have my music." The authorities then banned him from the concert stage too.
Q 19How did Fischer lose the second game of the 1972 world championship match?
By forfeit over the cameras
Spassky, not wanting to win by default, agreed to move game three to a back room away from the cameras, and Fischer took over from there.
Q 20Which British financier put up an extra $125,000 to lure Fischer to the 1972 match?
Jim Slater
Fischer had refused to fly out until the money was raised; the fund was unprecedented for chess.
Q 24Fischer accused the Soviets of collusion after which 1962 Candidates tournament, prompting FIDE to switch to knockout matches?
Curaçao
He said Petrosian, Keres and Geller had agreed short draws with each other to save energy for playing him, and most historians think he was right.
Q 25Which game show got Fischer to Moscow in 1958, when its producers arranged plane tickets for him and his sister?
I've Got a Secret
In Moscow he demanded a game with world champion Botvinnik, was refused, and beat almost everyone at blitz instead.
Q 26At what age did Fischer become the youngest grandmaster in history up to that point, after the 1958 Portorož Interzonal?
15
He had told a journalist he could draw with the grandmasters and beat the half-dozen patzers, and that is roughly what happened.
Q 27Fischer dropped out of which Brooklyn high school at 16, a school also attended by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond?
Erasmus Hall
Its student council had given him a gold medal for chess the same year; he said, "You don't learn anything in school."
Q 28Which former Scottish champion did the seven-year-old Fischer play in a simultaneous exhibition in January 1951, holding on for 15 minutes?
Max Pavey
His mother had tried to place a newspaper ad seeking chess-playing children; the paper could not classify it and forwarded it to the "Dean of American Chess" instead.
Q 29Which religious group, with its Saturday Sabbath, did Fischer associate with in the 1960s and 70s before denouncing its founder as a false prophet?
The Worldwide Church of God
Its Sabbath rules caused the scheduling row that led him to quit the 1967 Sousse Interzonal while leading it.
Q 30Fischer played the 1965 Capablanca Memorial in Havana without leaving New York. How?
Teleprinter relay from the Marshall Chess Club
The State Department refused to validate his passport for Cuba; sessions lasted up to twelve hours and he still tied for second.