Bobby Fischer - the brilliant but troubled US chess king, dies aged 64

Fischer became a Cold War hero in America for defeating Russia's Boris Spassky in 1972, but went on to hate his country - renouncing his citizenship and praising the 9/11 attacks.

He fell foul of the U.S. authorities by playing a rematch against his old foe in civil-war-torn Yugoslavia in 1992, under threat of a ten-year jail term if he ever returned home.

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He spent ten months in jail in Japan after his U.S. passport was revoked, before making a badtempered move to Iceland in 2005. He died there of kidney failure.

Robert James Fischer was born in Chicago on March 9, 1943.

He started playing chess at six, became the youngest- ever U.S. junior champion at 13 and U.S. adult champion at 14.

He went on to win the title eight times.

But in chess circles he was earning a reputation for being difficult.

Revealing that he liked to watch his opponents squirm, he later said: "Chess is war on a board.

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"The object is to crush the other man's mind."

At the height of the Cold War Russian grand masters ruled the world of chess, led by their suave champion Spassky. Fischer, 29, arrived at the 1972 World Championship in Rejkavik and stormed through the field to the final.

It was the chess match of the century, a series of grudge games during which Fischer became thoroughly disliked, complaining about the site, the prize money and the organisers.

After his victory he disappeared and his behaviour became increasingly strange.

Three years later, the World Chess Federation stripped him of his title for failing to defend it against another Russian, Anatoly Karpov.

He reappeared in 1992 for a rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia. The country was then subject to U.S.-led sanctions and Fischer received a letter from the U.S. Justice Department telling him not to play.

He spat on the letter and later beat Spassky for a £2million prize.

He despised America as much as he did Russia. After the 9/11 attacks, he said in a radio interview: "**** the U.S.. I wanna see the U.S. wiped out.

"I'm hoping sane people will take over the U.S., military people. They will imprison the Jews, they will execute several hundred thousand of them at least."

Although his mother, and possibly his father, were Jewish, anti-Semitic diatribes became a fixture in his interviews.

But fans called him the Mozart of Chess. Former champion Garry Kasparov said: "We have lost a great warrior, we have lost a great mind."