REYKJAVIK (Iceland), Jan 18: Chess legend Bobby Fischer, whose tortured genius earned him both worldwide acclaim and disdain, has died at the age of 64 at his home in Iceland.

Einar Einarsson, the chairman of a Fischer support group in Iceland, said the cause of death was kidney failure.

US-born Fischer, who made world headlines by defeating Soviet world champion Boris Spassky in a celebrated Cold War chess showdown in Reykjavik in 1972, took Icelandic citizenship in 2005 to avoid being deported to the United States.

He was wanted for breaking international sanctions by playing a chess match in Yugoslavia in 1992.

Considered by some as the greatest chess player of all time, Fischer’s particular genius was a troubled one that saw his life run steadily downhill since his moment of glory at age 29.

He was said to have an IQ higher than Albert Einstein’s and once thought his gift would win him undying fortune. He would make extravagant demands over matches in a way more commonly seen in boxing.

But while the theatrics made him a celebrity -- and are credited with helping him unnerve his opponents -- he also succeeded in alienating himself from all but a small band of friends and chess enthusiasts.

In the 1972 “match of the century” in Iceland, Fischer, throwing regular tantrums over the position of cameras and the audience, relied on his own wit to end 24 years of Soviet chess supremacy by dethroning Spassky, who had by his side an army of Russian master strategists.

Fischer, whose chess education had consisted of locking himself in a room for days on end facing off against himself, refused to play again after his triumph and was stripped of his title in 1975.

He returned to chess in 1992 with a rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia, then in the throes of the Balkan wars.—AFP