Boris Spassky, chess grandmaster who took on Bobby Fischer in the greatest match of the 20th century

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28-02-2025

Boris Spassky, who has died aged 88 was among the finest chess players of the 20th century, but found his reign at the summit of the game ended by the outstanding American Bobby Fischer, with whom he had an epic encounter for the world championship in the summer of 1972.
When the two met in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, to decide who was the world's best player, it was more than a duel between two eccentric men over a chessboard. This was the period of the Cold War; the Soviet Union was considered the dominant power in the game, and the intrusion of Fischer into what the Soviets considered their exclusive preserve gave the event a new and exquisite piquancy.
As a result, for the first time in the history of chess, the world championship became a global media event, the public coming to relish the antics and the personalities of the competitors.
Of the two men, Fischer was the more flamboyant, Spassky the more dignified and reserved. The American was quick to give his public what it wanted. 'It is really the free world against the lying, cheating, hypocritical Russians,' he remarked. 'This little thing between Spassky and me, it's a microcosm of the whole world political situation.'
Fischer had wanted to play the match in Yugoslavia; Spassky, the defending world champion, insisted on Iceland. Reykjavik was duly selected as the venue, and the American threatened to withdraw altogether, claiming that the prize money ($125,000) was 'an insult'. The purse was doubled, and even the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger intervened, telephoning Fischer to say: 'America wants you to go over there and beat the Russians.'
Even after he had finally agreed to play, Fischer kept up the psychological pressure on his opponent with a series of complaints and demands: he criticised the chairs in which the players had to sit, raged that the light was too bright – even fretted that the noses on the knights were too long. 'Chess,' Fischer once observed, 'is war on a board. The object is to crush the other man's mind.'
Despite these diversions, Spassky won the first game, which was the cue for another litany of complaints by Fischer, who claimed he was being put off by the spectators and television cameras; he refused to contest the second game, and Spassky won by a forfeit.
Although he would have been perfectly entitled to stand his ground, Spassky then agreed to play the third encounter in a side room, away from the media and the spectators. Fischer won, the match returned to the public arena, and the American began to take control of the contest, Spassky in the fifth game making what aficionados described as 'one of the worst blunders of his career'.
After Fischer crushed him in the sixth game, the Russian's resistance was effectively ended; in the eighth, Spassky made another serious error, eliciting the observation from the Argentine grandmaster Miguel Najdorf that he was 'playing like a child'.
Spassky's failure to impose himself on the challenger as the match progressed was the signal for the Soviets to find their own grounds for outrage: they claimed that Fischer was being aided by experts communicating with him via a minute radio transmitter; they also sent a sample of Spassky's preferred orange juice to Moscow to be tested for poisonous substances.
In the end Spassky was no match for his opponent, the American winning by 12½-8½; Fischer had secured seven victories to Spassky's three, with 11 games drawn. While the Americans crowed, there were dark mutterings in Moscow: 'If I had my way,' said one Soviet politician, 'everyone who was with Spassky would have been arrested.' The former champion was in disgrace and was soon allowed to emigrate from the Soviet Union.
For his part, Spassky was magnanimous in defeat, telling reporters: 'Fischer is a man of art, a rare human being in the everyday life of this century.' The new world champion, now that hostilities were ended, sent his vanquished rival a friendly letter and the gift of a camera.
Boris Vasilyevich Spassky was born on January 30 1937 in Leningrad, the son of an engineer and a schoolmistress. His parents separated when he was a small child, and during the siege of Leningrad in 1941 he was evacuated to Moscow before being placed for several years in an orphanage in the Kirov region. It was there, at the age of five, that he learnt to play chess.
After returning to Leningrad in 1946, Boris pursued his interest in the game. Aged 10 he beat the reigning world champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, in an exhibition game, and by the age of 15 he was considered the country's most promising player. In 1953 he became the youngest Soviet to earn the rank of international master, and the next year he tied for third place in the Soviet championship tournament behind Botvinnik and Tigran Petrosian.
Spassky's progress in these years appeared unstoppable. He won the junior world championship in Antwerp in 1955, in the same year becoming the youngest ever international grandmaster. In 1956 he was one of eight players who competed for the right to challenge Botvinnik for the world title.
He achieved all this while successfully completing his education, going from his secondary school to Leningrad University to study mathematics and journalism. As a student he also excelled at football, athletics and volleyball.
If he had a flaw as a chess player during this period, it was perhaps overconfidence. Facing Mikhail Tal in a tournament in Latvia in 1958, Spassky was so sure of victory that when Tal offered him a draw he declined. Tal went on to win the game, and the young pretender later recalled: 'I went out on the street and cried like a child.' In 1960 – after the Soviets' students' world championship team had been beaten by the Americans, Spassky losing his game in only 29 moves – he was banned from competing abroad for two years.
He soon recovered his form and his self-discipline, winning the Soviet championship in 1961, and finishing second in 1963 and 1964. Then, in 1965, he defeated players of the calibre of Tal, Paul Keres and Efim Geller to earn the right to challenge the reigning world champion, Petrosian.
By now Spassky was considered particularly strong in his ability to switch quickly from defence to counter-attack. The Yugoslav grandmaster Svetozar Gligorić once observed: 'The secret strength of Spassky lay in his colossal skill in adapting himself to the different styles of his opponents and thus countering them most efficiently.'
He met Petrosian – famous for the complexity of his defensive play – in Moscow, the 24-game match being held between April and June 1966. It ended in a narrow win for the world champion, by 12½-11½. Later in the year, however, Spassky was placed first in the Piatigorsky Cup International at Santa Monica, ahead of both Petrosian and Fischer.
In April 1969 Spassky took his second tilt at the world title. Once again he met Petrosian in Moscow, and this time the challenger started as favourite. He justified the optimism by winning the match 12½-10½ when Petrosian agreed to a draw in the 23rd game.
Spassky had so far met Fischer on five occasions, beating him three times and drawing their other two encounters; but it was already clear that the American would be the principal threat to the new world champion. To prepare for the defence of his title, Spassky embarked on a rigorous eight-month training programme with a team that included a psychologist.
After losing his title to Fischer, Spassky continued to play at the top level; he won the Soviet championship in 1973 as well as many international tournaments. In 1976 he and his third wife settled in France and two years later he became a French citizen. In August 2012 he returned to Russia.
Spassky himself was not above what some would describe as gamesmanship. In the middle of a famous match against Viktor Korchnoi in 1978 he adopted a silver sun visor, of the kind sported by poker players in a casino. At intervals he would wander up and down the stage, brandishing the visor in his hand. The silver sparkled in the light, the audience laughed and applauded, and Korchnoi was so upset that he asked that the auditorium be cleared of spectators. The request was refused and Korchnoi lost the game, although he went on to win the match.
In 1992, Fischer – after 20 years away from the chess board – re-emerged to arrange what he called the 'Revenge Match of the 20th Century' against Spassky, in Montenegro and Belgrade, for a purse of $5 million. At the time Spassky was rated 106th in the Fide rankings, and Fischer, owing to his long absence, was not ranked at all. Once again Fischer emerged victorious. Despite the antics of 1972, the two men maintained a good relationship until Fischer's death in 2008.
Spassky's last outing was against Viktor Korchnoi in a veterans' match in Russia in 2009, in which he showed many flashes of his former genius; the match ended 3-3.
Spassky once claimed that he lacked faith in his own abilities, adding: 'During a game I seem rather unruffled, but it is like a clown's face put on for the occasion. When I appear particularly calm, I am really feeling especially nervous.'
Among his interests were jazz, fishing, bridge and fast cars. He never joined the Communist Party, and was a critic of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
He was appointed to the USSR Order of Merit in 1968.
In 1959 Boris Spassky married Nadezda Konstantinovna Latyntceva; they had a daughter but divorced in 1961. He married, secondly, Larisa Zakharovna Solovyova; they had a son. In 1975 he married Marina Yurievna Shcherbachova, a secretary at the French embassy in Moscow; they also had a son.
Boris Spassky, born January 30 1937, died February 27 2025
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