Ayn Rand on Bobby Fischer

It is hard to believe that Bobby Fischer has been dead for over three years now.  The king of the 64 squares died at age 64 on 17 January 2008.  Fischer's sad story well illustrates the perils of monomania. Ayn Rand did not realize how right she was in her 1974 "An Open Letter to Boris Spassky" (Philosophy: Who Needs It, p. 56):

     Bobby Fischer's behavior . . . is a clear example of the clash
     between a chess expert's mind, and reality. The confident,
     disciplined, obviously brilliant player falls to pieces when he has
     to deal with the real world. He throws tantrums like a child,
     breaks agreements, makes arbitrary demands, and indulges in the
     kind of whim worship one touch of which in the playing of chess
     would disqualify him from a high school tournament. Thus he brings
     to the real world the very evil that made him escape it:
     irrationality.