Former world chess champion, America's Bobby Fischer was pictured in this Aug. 10, 1971, photo at an unknown location in the US.

REYKJAVIK — Bobby Fischer, the reclusive chess genius who became a Cold War hero by dethroning the Soviet world champion in 1972 and later renounced his American citizenship, has died. He was 64.

Fischer died Thursday in a Reykjavik hospital, his spokesman, Gardar Sverrisson, said. There was no immediate word on the cause of death. Born in Chicago and raised in Brooklyn, Robert James ...

BLOCK: Soon after that match, Bobby Fischer became a recluse and didn't play competitive chess for nearly 20 years. Then, in 1992, he challenged Boris Spassky again in a match in Yugoslavia ...

Boris Spassky, a Soviet-era world chess champion who lost his title to American Bobby Fischer in a legendary 1972 match that became a proxy for Cold War rivalries, has died in Moscow.

Reigning chess world champion Boris Spassky, left, of Russia, and international grandmaster Bobby Fischer of the United States, are seen during a game at the XIX World Chess Olympiad in Siegen ...

Boris Spassky, a Soviet-era world chess champion who lost his title to American Bobby Fischer in a legendary 1972 match that became a proxy for Cold War rivalries, died Thursday in Moscow. He was 88.

In 1970 Mr. Benko qualified for the world chess championship cycle but, past his peak as a competitive player, ceded his place to the much younger Mr. Fischer. By Dylan Loeb McClain ...

Bobby Fischer, the chess genius who careened during his life from Cold War hero to eccentric international exile, died yesterday in Iceland, where he had lived since 2005. He was 64.

MOSCOW — Boris Spassky, a Soviet-era world chess champion who lost his title to American Bobby Fischer in a legendary 1972 match that became a proxy for Cold War rivalries, died Thursday in Moscow.