On September 1, 1972, America’s Bobby Fischer stepped into immortality as he dethroned Russia’s Boris Spassky to become the world chess champion, concluding a politically charged and globally watched 21-game duel that transformed the 64 squares into a Cold War battleground.
HT chronicled the “Match of the Century” – played in Reykjavik, Iceland – which became as much a clash of cultures as of personalities: the outspoken and eccentric Fischer versus the measured and grounded Spassky. The Soviet chess machine was at the height of its dominance, having held the world title for 24 years. It fell to 29-year-old Fischer, a chess prodigy-turned-phenom, to snap that monopoly.
“I am tired of being the unofficial champion,” HT quoted him as saying months before the match. “It is nice to be modest, but it would be stupid if I did not tell the truth. I should have been world champion 10 years ago.”
But the 24-game match didn’t begin on a promising note for the challenger. He lost the first game, complaining that the cameras were too close and distracting. He then forfeited the second game in protest. As HT reported, these decisions were typical of Fischer’s volatile behaviour.
“Between the boy and the man have been a series of spectacular victories and equally spectacular losses – usually when Fischer stalked off, complaining about the rules or the judges or the playing conditions. That was what he did in Iceland, forfeiting the second game by refusing to show up in an argument over playing conditions,” HT said a report in the September 2 edition of the newspaper.
A raft of legends now orbit the face-off.
According to one of them, Fischer decided to walk out after the second game and booked a return flight. But he reportedly received a phone call from Henry Kissinger, then US president Richard Nixon’s closest foreign policy adviser, urging him to continue playing. Fischer complied.
Behind the shenanigans was a generational talent, who proved his prowess in Game 3, which was played in a small room backstage, out of spectators’ sights. Playing with Black, Fischer outplayed the 35-year-old Spassky, leading to the defending champion resigning.
“Spassky and his team buried themselves in study that evening while Fischer went bowling,” HT said in another report.
Game 3 was a turning point in the match. Fischer built up momentum, eventually taking a lead by Game 6 and never losing it. By the time Game 21 approached, the challenger was ahead 11.5-8.5, within touching distance of the 12.5 score needed to win the scheduled match.
The 21st game of the championship began on August 31, with Spassky, who was playing with White, desperately looking to stay in the match. However, the Russian’s play faltered in the endgame, giving his American opponent an advantage when the game was paused for the day.
The contest was scheduled to resume the next day, but the chief arbiter announced that Spassky had phoned in to resign, handing Fischer the win and the world title, according to HT’s report.
“Fischer did not even know that he was world champion. And the crowds were still buying tickets outside the playing hall and fighting for seats in the cafeteria when the telephone call came. Fred Cramer [Fischer’s manager] and Fischer’s second, William Lombardy, broke the news to the new champion shortly after he awoke, ready to resume the 21st game,” it added.
The final score was 12.5-8.5 in favour of Fischer, making him the eleventh world champion. He won seven games to Spassky’s 3. There were 11 draws.
Through the course of the tournament, Spassky was under pressure from Soviet authorities to file a protest and quit the match, rather than give in to Fischer’s tantrums. But he chose to play on. “The match was much bigger than my individual interests,” HT quoted him as saying in a 2016 interview with Sport-Express, “I pitied him. I saw that the guy was going insane! I rather liked Bobby,” he once said, according to another HT report. Spassky died this March, aged 88.
Fischer received a hero’s welcome on his return to the US, hailed as a symbol of American triumph over the communist USSR. But he never defended his crown, eventually becoming a pariah, both for his country and the chess world, with his increasingly controversial statements. He died in 2008 at age 64 in Reykjavik, the same city where he conquered the chess world.