Bobby Fischer: The champion America summoned, and Iceland sheltered

The Laugardælir Church near Selfoss is so easy to miss that I had to find it using Google Maps. A small white timber building and a scatter of headstones in the southern Icelandic quiet, an hour or so from Reykjavík, ringed by nothing but farmland. This is the final resting spot of Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest chess players ever.I went to visit his grave in the summer of 2024—an International Master chasing the rating that would make me a Grandmaster, half hoping the ground might lend me some of what its occupant had. The headstone had a simple cross, his name (Robert James Fischer) and his date of birth and date of death. No epithets, no words. Occasional visitors had left candles and chess pieces at the grave. As I stood in the bone-chilling Icelandic wind, I was moved.