Chess Master Bobby Fischer: Exhumation Required for Paternity Testing

Paternity tests are not just for the living, but also for the dead. Case in point? Bobby Fischer, the now deceased American chess prodigy, who became the world’s greatest chess master, was recently exhumed in order that DNA testing could be performed to determine whether a certain young Filipino girl, Jinky Young, was his biological child.

Mr. Fischer lived an extraordinary life which plummeted regularly between intense highs and demoralizing lows. The zenith of his chess life was in 1972 when he won the world championship match in Iceland against Boris Spassky of Russia. The event made headlines around the world with journalists referring to it as “The Cold War Match”.

Fischer played many more matches but eventually became more famous for his eccentricities and his anti-Semitism than his chess prowess.

He launched a comeback in 1992 and played a match in Yugoslavia at a time when the United States had issued sanctions against the country. He won the game and millions of dollars but from that point on, he was persona non grata in his home country and to avoid prosecution in America, lived in various parts of the world, including Japan and the Philipines.

It was in the Philipines that he allegedlly fathered now nine-year old, Jinky Young, having had an affair with her mother. Later when he lived in Japan he allegedly married a woman, but his time in Japan did not end pleasantly, as he was arrested for travelling on an expired US passport and jailed.

The country of his greatest success, Iceland, came to his rescue and granted him honorary citizenship. It is there that he died at the age of 64 in 2008 and it was the Iceland Court that ordered DNA testing to determine the rightful heirs to his estate. Having left no will, the candidates for an inheritance are his alleged Japanese wife, his alleged Filipino daughter, Jinky, and two nephews.

However, the results of the DNA testing were released today and Jinky has been eliminated as a blood relative.

The battle continues between the remaining contenders to see who will benefit from his $2 million estate.

Lawdiva aka Georgialee Lang