{"id":9311,"date":"2025-02-28T01:04:33","date_gmt":"2025-02-28T01:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/boris-spassky-chess-champion-who-lost-match-of-the-century-dies-at-88\/"},"modified":"2025-02-28T01:04:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-28T01:04:33","slug":"boris-spassky-chess-champion-who-lost-match-of-the-century-dies-at-88","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/boris-spassky-chess-champion-who-lost-match-of-the-century-dies-at-88\/","title":{"rendered":"Boris Spassky, Chess Champion Who Lost \u2018Match of the Century,\u2019 Dies at 88"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Boris Spassky, the world chess champion whose career was overshadowed by his loss to <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/01\/18\/obituaries\/18cnd-fischer.html\" title=\"\">Bobby Fischer<\/a> in the \u201cMatch of the Century\u201d in 1972, died on Thursday in Moscow. He was 88.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">His death was announced by the International Chess Federation, the game\u2019s governing body, which did not cite a cause. Mr. Spassky had suffered a major stroke in 2010 that left him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Arkady Dvorkovich, the president of the federation, said in a statement: \u201cHe was not only one of the greatest players of the Soviet era and the world, but also a true gentleman. His contributions to chess will never be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Spassky had noteworthy accomplishments as a player, but the politics of the match with <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/01\/18\/obituaries\/18cnd-fischer.html\" title=\"\">Mr. Fischer<\/a>, at the height of the Cold War, and the media attention focused on it, turned both of them into pawns in a wider drama.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Spassky was not happy about all the attention. In <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=U5LkzrfquVY\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a 2023 interview<\/a> for an exhibition at the World Chess Hall of Fame in St. Louis, his son, Boris Jr., said: \u201cThe role that he played in the 1972 match, he always thought of it as a chess player, because all the fuss around it, political, geostrategic, he never mentioned it. I am pretty certain that he felt the pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It was a measure of the match\u2019s resonance that 20 years later, when the two men staged a rematch, it drew worldwide interest, even though both players were well past their prime.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When they played the first match, in Reykjavik, Iceland, Mr. Fischer, with his brash personality, was something of a folk hero in the West. He was widely portrayed as a lone gunslinger boldly taking on the might of the Soviet chess machine, with Mr. Spassky representing the repressive Soviet empire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The reality could not have been further from the truth. Mr. Fischer was a spoiled 29-year-old man-child, often irascible and difficult. Mr. Spassky, at 35, was urbane, laid back and good-natured, acceding to Mr. Fischer\u2019s many demands leading up to and during the match.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The match almost did not happen. It was supposed to start on July 2, but Mr. Fischer was still in New York, demanding more money for both players. A British promoter, James Slater, added $125,000 to the prize fund, which doubled it to $250,000 (about $1.9 million today), and Mr. Fischer arrived on July 4.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The match was a best-of-24 series, with each win counting as one point, each draw as a half point and each loss as zero. The first player to 12.5 points would be the winner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Game 1, on July 11, Mr. Fischer blundered and lost. Afterward, he refused to play Game 2 unless the television cameras recording the match were turned off. When they were not, Mr. Fischer forfeited the game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The match seemed in doubt, and at the height of the crisis, Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger made a personal appeal to Mr. Fischer to play. A compromise was worked out, and the match was moved to a tiny, closed playing area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Fischer won Game 3, his first victory ever against Mr. Spassky, and proceeded to steamroll him, winning the match 12.5 to 8.5.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Spassky\u2019s sportsmanship was on full display in Game 6 of the match, which by then had been moved back into the main hall. When Mr. Fischer won the game, taking the lead for the first time in the match, Mr. Spassky joined with the spectators in standing and applauding his victory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After losing the match, Mr. Spassky received a chilly reception on his return to the Soviet Union. He bounced back to win the Soviet Championship in 1973 and reached the semifinals of the qualifying matches for the world championship in 1974, losing to Anatoly Karpov, the future world champion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, things were not the same. For two years, he was banned from traveling abroad, the life blood of a professional chess player in the Soviet Union, and his financial support and perks were cut. He found a way out, however.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 1975, he met Marina Stcherbatcheff, a secretary working at the French Embassy in Moscow, who became his third wife. They moved to France, and he became a French citizen in 1978.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2012, in a bizarre episode, Mr. Spassky was whisked out of France, turning up about a month later in Russia, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/en.chessbase.com\/post\/boris-spaky-fearing-death-flees-to-ruia\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">where he claimed<\/a> that he had been kept against his will in a hospital in France and had been able to leave only with help from friends. He lived in Moscow for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The pressure that Mr. Spassky felt to defend the Soviet hegemony over chess was immense. Years later, he was reported to have said of the 1972 match: \u201cI was happy to lose the championship. My years as champion were the worst years of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Boris Vasiliyevich Spassky was born in Leningrad (later St. Petersburg) on Jan. 30, 1937. He was the second child of Russian parents; his parents later divorced, and his father left the family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He grew up extremely poor, and when he was 5, during the siege of Leningrad, he was temporarily placed in an orphanage to escape the war. It was there, according to his son, that he learned to play chess.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He began studying chess in earnest in 1947 when he joined the Palace of Pioneers, a state-sponsored club that developed the talents of promising children, and his talent was immediately noticed and nurtured. By the time he was 11, he was receiving a stipend for chess, which became the family\u2019s primary source of income.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 1955, he won the World Junior Championship and placed third in the Soviet Championship, becoming a grandmaster at 18, the youngest in history. That record was eclipsed three years later when Mr. Fischer became a grandmaster at 15.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">From 1951 to 1961, Mr. Spassky trained with Alexander Kazimirovich Tolush, a well-known master of the attack, and he had a number of successes. But he grew disenchanted with his results and switched to Igor Zakharovich Bondarevsky, who had a more strategic approach. Mr. Spassky\u2019s play began to improve, and he began his ascent to the world title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At his height as a player, from the early 1960s to the early \u201970s, Mr. Spassky won by playing in whatever manner the position demanded. When opportunities presented themselves, he could attack viciously, as in his brilliant performance against David Bronstein in 1960, a game used as the basis for the chess scene in the 1963 James Bond movie \u201cFrom Russia With Love.\u201d He could also, with great patience, deftly outmaneuver his opponents, as he did in his Game 21 victory in the world championship match against Tigran Petrosian in 1966.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Spassky lost the match against Mr. Petrosian, but he qualified to play for the world title again in 1969, and this time he beat him. After his loss to Mr. Karpov in 1974, Mr. Spassky qualified for three more world championship cycles but was knocked out each time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He remained a Top 10 player into the mid-1980s, but his results began to slip and he played without his former \u00e9lan, often settling for quick draws. Many observers said that he had become lazy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By 1992, Mr. Spassky was living on the margins of the chess world. Then the owner of a bank in Belgrade, where Mr. Fischer was living, offered $5 million for a return match with Mr. Fischer. The condition was that the match would be played in Serbia and Montenegro, the former Yugoslavia, which were under United Nations sanctions for waging a brutal war against Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The match violated the sanctions, but Mr. Spassky enthusiastically agreed to play. \u201cHe pulls me out of oblivion,\u201d he said of Mr. Fischer. \u201cHe makes me fight. It\u2019s a miracle and I am grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The match received worldwide attention and lasted 30 games, but the result was no different from the one 20 years earlier: Mr. Fischer won, 10 games to 5, with draws not counting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The matches differed, however, in two respects: The quality of play had suffered a sharp decline, and the tension between the two players was gone. Mr. Spassky and Mr. Fischer, bound together by being at the center of so much scrutiny for so long, were old friends, laughing and talking before and after the games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In addition to his son, Mr. Spassky\u2019s survivors include three grandsons. All three of his marriages ended in divorce.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Spassky\u2019s warm feelings for Mr. Fischer were genuine, as he showed in 2004, when Mr. Fischer was arrested in Japan for not having a valid passport and was threatened with deportation to the United States to face charges for violating the sanctions against Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Before Mr. Fischer was ultimately released and sent to Iceland, Mr. Spassky sent a letter to President George W. Bush, asking for clemency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cBobby and myself committed the same crime,\u201d he wrote. \u201cPut sanctions against me also. Arrest me. And put me in the same cell with Bobby Fischer. And give us a chess set.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/27\/world\/europe\/boris-spassky-dead.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Boris Spassky, the world chess champion whose career was overshadowed by his loss to Bobby Fischer in the \u201cMatch of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9312,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[3292,3288,3285,3286,3289,441,3287,3291,3290,3284],"class_list":["post-9311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-belgrade-serbia","tag-bobby","tag-boris","tag-chess","tag-cold-war-era","tag-deaths-obituaries","tag-fischer","tag-international-chess-federation","tag-reykjavik-iceland","tag-spassky"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Boris Spassky, Chess Champion Who Lost \u2018Match of the Century,\u2019 Dies at 88 - World News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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