Robert James Fischer (March 9, 1943 – January 17, 2008) was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, at age 13 he won a game which was dubbed "The Game of the Century". At age 14 he became the youngest ever U.S. Chess Champion, and at 15 he became both the youngest grandmaster (GM) up to that time and the youngest candidate for the World Championship. At age 20, Fischer won the 1963/64 US Championship with 11 wins in 11 games, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. He won the 1970 Interzonal Tournament by a record 3½-point margin and won 20 consecutive games in the last seven rounds of the Interzonal and in the Candidates Matches, the latter including two unprecedented 6–0 sweeps. When the first official FIDE rating list was pu