The U.S. chess Grandmaster Bobby Fisher died at age 64 of an unknown illness, the national radio station in Iceland reported on Friday. Fisher moved to Iceland in 2005 and later obtained his citizenship, after the U.S. authorities pursued in arresting him mainly for violating President George H. W. Bush’s executive order in 1992 of not engaging in economic activities with Yugoslavia (Fisher chose to play against Spassky, despite the order).

The former world chess champion was pronounced dead on Thursday, at a Reykjavik hospital, but no further details have been released to the press. Fisher was the first and only U.S.-born champion, in a sport where the Soviets always had the lead.  “It’s really the free world against the lying, cheating, hypocritical Russians,” he used to say.

He managed to hold the 20 consecutive tournament victories record up to this date, and won a memorable victory against Spassy in 1972. He won the U.S Champion title at only 14, and at 15 he became a Grandmaster. His career went into a cone of shadow a few years after the great match against Spassy, and came back into the spotlight when he chose to do a rematch against Spassy despite the U.S. sanctions.

The United States authorities got a hold of Fisher in 2004, when he was detained Narita International Airport in Narita, Japan for using a revoked U.S. passport while on his way to Manila, Philippines. Fisher claimed he had no idea the passport lost its validity, as he had never been notified of such thing. However, U.S. passports can be revoked without preliminary notifications.

Fisher chose to live his last years in Iceland, giving up the U.S. citizenship and permanently establishing in Iceland, in order to avoid deportation back to the United States. The American government also issued a tax evasion charges against him, but the run was finally over for the Grandmaster champion, as he found his rest in a new land.