This blog has a small, unfortunate reputation for giving anti-semitic nutbags an easy ride, so I should mention the death of Bobby Fischer, who was the subject of the first ever Filler by Proxy way back when I was desperately scratching around for subject matter.
There are plenty of detailed obituaries to choose from. Andy McSmith in The Independent manages a concise survey of his madness and his brilliance:
It looked like a petulant blunder by the challenger, who had become more fussy and prone to complain about the conditions under which he was forced to play chess which each passing year. He had repeatedly accused the Russians of cheating, and lying. Now he had thrown a match.In retrospect, it looks much more like a clever ploy in a psychological war against Spassky and the Soviet apparatus. From then on, Spassky never knew what Fischer would do next, but he hung on gamely as the American repeatedly beat him.
