‘I never seem to learn,” wrote Bobby Fischer. “That’s why I’m such a loser in the game of life.”

Embarrassing letters, in Fischer’s fourth-grade-like handwriting, sold for nearly $10,000 in Manhattan earlier this month in the latest indication of the auction value of Bobby memorabilia.

In one of the letters, dated 1994, Fischer wrote to a girlfriend, apologizing for never saying “the simple words ‘I love you’ ” even after he suspected she was pregnant.

In a separate lot at Philip Weiss Auctions, a chess set that Fischer and Boris Spassky used in the turning-point game of their 1972 world championship went for a hammer price of $67,500, well above the $30,000 to $50,000 estimate.

The set was apparently used only once, for the third match game, which was played in a players-only room in the Reykjavik, Iceland, match site. Fischer, down 0-2 in the match and never having beaten Spassky in 12 years of trying, won the game with the black pieces, and the match turned into a rout.

The set was paired with a board that wasn’t used in the match but was signed by both players, and was won by an anonymous bidder.