Hartford Courant Hartford, Connecticut Thursday, August 20, 1981 - Page 2
Paper in Iceland Reports Fischer Planning Comeback
A paper in Iceland reports that former world chess champion Bobby Fischer, who hasn't been seen in public for years, is planning a comeback. Johann Thorir, editor of the Icelandic chess magazine Chess, told the newspaper that he was contacted to organize a match between Fischer and an Icelandic chess player. Thorir said that Fischer was asked if he wanted to play Viktor Korchnoi, the Soviet grandmaster living in exile in Switzerland, but Fischer rejected the idea. Fischer became world champion in Iceland in 1972 when he defeated Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. Fischer refused to defend the title because of a disagreement over the rules of the International Chess Federation, and Soviet grandmaster Anatoly Karpov became world champion without playing him.