World Chess Championship 1972
Fischer defeated Spassky to become the first US-born world champion.
The World Chess Championship 1972 was a match between challenger Bobby Fischer of the United States and defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, held in the Laugardalshöll in Reykjavík, Iceland. Often called the Match of the Century, it made Fischer the first US-born player to win the world title and briefly ended 24 years of Soviet domination of the championship. Fischer won 12½–8½, becoming the eleventh undisputed world champion.
Quick Facts
- Champion
- Boris Spassky (Soviet Union)
- Challenger
- Bobby Fischer (United States)
- Location
- Laugardalshöll, Reykjavík, Iceland
- Dates
- July 11 to September 1, 1972
- Result
- Fischer won 12½–8½
- Number of games
- 21
Facts from the source article.
Qualification cycle
The Interzonal tournament was held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, in November and December 1970, with the top six players qualifying for the Candidates matches. Fischer had not qualified, having skipped the 1969 US Championship, but Pal Benko and reserve William Lombardy gave up their spots, and FIDE President Max Euwe controversially allowed Fischer to participate. In early 1971, Portisch and Smyslov played a six-game playoff in Portorož, Yugoslavia, for the reserve position, which Portisch won on tie-break after a 3–3 draw. Petrosian, as the previous championship match loser, and Korchnoi, as the prior Candidates final runner-up, were seeded directly into the Candidates match stage, joining the top six from the Interzonal. In the Petrosian–Hübner quarterfinal in Seville, Hübner withdrew after a loss in the seventh game following disputes with organizers. Fischer dominated the 1971 Candidates matches, defeating Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen with unprecedented margins, and his loss in game two of the final against Tigran Petrosian ended a 20-game winning streak. The final began on September 30, 1971; Fischer arrived with Larry Evans and Ed Edmondson, while Petrosian came with Alexei Suetin and Yuri Averbakh. Fischer's victory earned him the right to challenge Spassky.
1972 World Championship match
The match took place during the Cold War, in a period of increasing détente, and the Soviet Chess School had held the world championship title for 24 years, with Spassky the latest in an uninterrupted chain of Soviet champions since 1948. The American versus Russian narrative within the Cold War context generated worldwide excitement and unprecedented media coverage. Fischer, a 29-year-old American, had previously claimed that Soviet players gained an unfair advantage by agreeing to short draws among themselves, an argument he published in Sports Illustrated and Der Spiegel in 1962; he himself rarely agreed to early draws. Spassky faced enormous political pressure in the Soviet Union to win. No American had achieved the world championship since Wilhelm Steinitz became a naturalized American citizen in 1888. The public interest was so great that the match was called the Match of the Century, though the same term had been used for the USSR vs. Rest of the World match two years earlier. Spassky had qualified for world championship matches in 1966 and 1969, losing to Petrosian in 1966, then defeating Petrosian 12½–10½ in 1969 to win the title. He is often described as having a universal style, with Garry Kasparov noting a leaning toward sharp, attacking play and a feel for the initiative.
Aftermath
Fischer's victory made him an instant celebrity. Upon returning to New York, a Bobby Fischer Day was held, and he received numerous product endorsement offers worth millions of dollars, all of which he declined. He appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz and made television appearances on a Bob Hope special and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The games in this match proved to be his last public competitive games for two decades. Fischer had felt before the match that the first-to-12½-points format was unfair, as it encouraged a leading player to draw; he himself adopted that strategy after taking a comfortable lead, drawing games 14 through 20. He demanded the format be changed to the first player to score 10 wins, with draws not counting, and a 9–9 score meaning the champion retained the title and the prize fund split equally. A FIDE Congress in 1974 voted for the 10-win proposal but rejected the 9–9 clause and the possibility of an unlimited match. Fischer refused to defend his title, and Anatoly Karpov, who won the 1975 candidates tournament, was declared World Champion by forfeit. Seventeen years later, Fischer negotiated a match with a sponsor, Yugoslav millionaire Jezdimir Vasiljević, insisting he was still the true world champion as he had not been defeated in a match, and claiming that all FIDE-sanctioned championship matches had prearranged outcomes. He challenged Spassky, then tied for 96th–102nd on the FIDE rating list, to a rematch, leading to the 1992 Fischer–Spassky match.
In popular culture
The musical Chess, with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, tells the story of two chess champions referred to as The American and The Russian, loosely based on the 1972 match. During the match, Soviet bard Vladimir Vysotsky wrote an ironic two-song cycle Honor of the Chess Crown, whose expressions became catchphrases in Russian culture. The 2011 documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World features extensive archival footage. The 2014 film Pawn Sacrifice, directed by Edward Zwick and starring Tobey Maguire as Fischer and Liev Schreiber as Spassky, tells the story of Fischer's attempts to defeat Spassky. The sixth episode of season 3 of Drunk History includes Rich Fulcher recounting the match.
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