ABobby Fischer confirms they never gave him his IQ score. So where does everyone get that he had an 180 IQ (Old Fable), 123 IQ (Pittsburgh Press)? 130 or 140, (“...Although he has a high IQ of 130 or 140…” -Arthur Feuerstein)… Bobby says, they tested him, but (14:02 / 21:10) never gave him the score: https://youtu.be/zIE3CFNpZ5Y?t=841
(Then makes it clear (15:14 / 21:10) he doesn't like discussing these kind of things, i.e., “intellectual gifts”. https://youtu.be/zIE3CFNpZ5Y?t=914)
The Pittsburgh Press Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Sunday, June 18, 1972 - Page 208
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★
The King And His 64 Squares
“Bobby, the perpetual Boy Wonder, the prodigy whose IQ tested only 123 at Erasmus High School in Brooklyn, has decided he's going to sock it to the Red Chinese, too.
“I'll play all the best Chinese players at one time,” he hoots. “I'll beat them blind. It was China's idea that we send over our ping-pong team. We wanted to show them that we are good guys, and we got slaughtered. But I'll show them.” Bobby's bravura, both comic and endearing, emerges as he sweeps an imagined opponent's king off the board with boyish glee. Then, he proceeds to set up the pieces for another game of solitaire chess. Somberly, giving Spassky the white pieces, he moves P-Q4 for him. Then he sets his jaw and glares maliciously at the board.
“Said to be of generally superior intelligence by school authorities, Bobby is no better than an average student. His wakeful moments are for chess.”
Boy Chess Champ From Brooklyn 22 Jan 1958, Wed St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri) Newspapers.com
Is 123 IQ a Good Score?
“Yes, 123 is a good IQ score. In fact, 123 IQ means that you have superior intelligence. A 123 is not on top of the IQ scale, but it is higher than normal.”
The “Nice Round 180 Guesstimate” was repeated the many years, a myth, as Yasser Seirawan said:
“…Tons of garbage was spewed and constantly recycled. Fiction became fact, repeated by one writing after another.”
“…He is also very bright, with an IQ of 123, which places him in the 95th percentile. […]
However, because their IQ is so high, they generally don't qualify for most disability funding arrangements, which would cover an integration aide or other services.
‘We have blind schools, deaf schools and schools for kids with intellectual disabilities … but very few schools for kids with high IQ and a few other behavioural issues. We need something like this in the government system.’
Their high IQ also means they can't enroll in specialist schools, which are mostly designed for students with an intellectual disability.”
Star-Gazette Elmira, New York Sunday, January 30, 1972 - Page 77
GSA vs. Erasmus Hall High School
… The keyword in Lee's happiness at GSA is “caring.”
“In New York, teaching is just a job, nobody cares about how you're doing or whether you even come to class,” he said. “It's different up here. The teachers are real friendly and we know we can go to them with our problems.
“It's much easier to study, too, and I guess it's paid off. In New York I had a D average but here I get B's in my courses.”
Lee's ambition is to continue his education in college and then return as a teach or coach at GSA.
“I like to work with kids,” he said, “and I'd like to help GSA because they helped me.”
Brad American, a GSA senior, attended Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School, at one time one of the top academic schools in the city and the alma mater of such personalities as Barbara Streisand, and chess champion Bobby Fischer, great Columbia and Chicago Bear quarterback Sid Luckman and Philadelphia '76er basketball star Billy Cunningham. Today its just another of the overcrowded and troubled schools common to New York.
“The biggest difference here is that someone yells at me once in a while. Like to get me up in the morning. But I like it here. It's nice, I get good marks, learn and meet people. And most important, I'm doing better.”
One of American's teachers said that the GSA student recently handed in a lengthy report. “He said it was the first he had ever done,” the teacher stated.
“At Erasmus, if you didn't get what the teacher said the first time, you didn't get it at all and most of the time I didn't get it too often,” American chuckled.
“But here the classes are smaller and I catch on to what's happening.”
GSA vs. Erasmus Hall High School Sun, Jan 30, 1972 – 77 · Star-Gazette (Elmira, New York) · Newspapers.com
[Sounds like the kind of academic environment conducive to young, future chess champions, on the Autism Spectrum… dropping out.]
“The boy's intelligence quotient has never been made public, but school authorities indicate that it is high in the upper percentile.”
This was written by Harold C. Schonberg in an article entitled “Fourteen-year-old ‘Mozart of Chess’” in the New York Times, 23 February 1958. See page 51 of The Joys of Chess by Fred Reinfeld (New York, 1961), which reproduced the article.”
