World Chess Championship 1972


The World Chess Championship 1972 was a match for the World Chess Championship between challenger Bobby Fischer of the United States and defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. The match took place in the Laugardalshöll in Reykjavík, Iceland, and has been dubbed the Match of the Century. Fischer became the first US-born player to win the world title. Fischer's win also ended, for a short time, 24 years of Soviet domination of the World Championship.
Fischer won the right to challenge for the World Championship after dominant performances during the qualification cycle, in which he defeated some of the world's leading players by unprecedented margins. The first game was played on July11, 1972. The 21st and last game, begun on August31, was after 40 moves, with Spassky resigning the next day without resuming play. Fischer won the match 12½–8½, becoming the eleventh undisputed world champion. The match was covered in the United States on ABC's Wide World of Sports and by Shelby Lyman on WNET.

Qualification cycle

1970 Interzonal tournament

The [|Interzonal] tournament was held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, in November and December 1970. The top six players of the interzonal qualified for the Candidates matches. Fischer had not qualified to play in this event, as he had not participated in the 1969 US Championship. Pal Benko gave up their spot, however, and FIDE President Max Euwe controversially allowed Fischer to participate instead.

1971 Candidates matches

Petrosian, as the loser of the last championship match, and Korchnoi, as runner-up of the previous Candidates final, were seeded directly into the Candidates match stage, and were joined by the top six from the Interzonal. In the Petrosian–Hübner quarterfinal in Seville, Hübner withdrew from the match after a loss in the 7th game after several disputes with the organizers. The quarterfinals and semifinals matches were played as the best of 10 games. The final match was the best of 12 games.
Fischer dominated the 1971 Candidates matches; his victories over both Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen were unparalleled at the Candidates level. His loss in game 2 of the Candidates Final versus Tigran Petrosian ended a 20-game winning streak.
The first game of the finals started on September 30th, 1971. Fischer came with Larry Evans and Ed Edmondson as his, while Petrosian arrived with Alexei Suetin and Yuri Averbakh.
Fischer's victory earned him the right to challenge reigning champion Spassky for the title.

1972 World Championship match

Background

The match was played during the Cold War, albeit during a period of increasing détente. The Soviet Chess School had a 24-year monopoly on the world championship title, with Spassky the latest in an uninterrupted chain of Soviet world chess champions stretching back to the 1948 championship. The surrounding "American versus Russian" narrative within the Cold War context sparked much excitement throughout the world and an unprecedented increase in media coverage for any chess match.
Fischer, an eccentric 29-year-old American, claimed that Soviet players gained an unfair advantage by agreeing to short draws among themselves in tournaments. In 1962, the American magazine Sports Illustrated and the German magazine Der Spiegel published Fischer's article "The Russians Have Fixed World Chess", in which he expounded this view. Fischer himself rarely agreed to early draws.
Spassky faced enormous political pressure in the Soviet Union to win the match. While Fischer was often famously critical of his home country, he too carried a burden of expectation because of the match's political significance. No American had achieved the world championship since the first champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, became a naturalized American citizen in 1888. The unusually high public interest and excitement surrounding the match was so great that it was called the "Match of the Century", even though the same term had been applied to the USSR vs. Rest of the World match just two years before.
Spassky, the champion, had qualified for world championship matches in 1966 and 1969. He lost the world championship match to Tigran Petrosian in 1966. In the 1969 cycle, he won matches against Efim Geller, Bent Larsen, and Viktor Korchnoi to win the right to challenge a second time, then defeated Petrosian 12½–10½ to win the world title. He is often said to have had a "universal style involving an ability to play the most varied types of positions", but Garry Kasparov notes that "from childhood he clearly had a leaning toward sharp, attacking play, and possessed a splendid feel for the initiative."
Fischer, the challenger, was in dominant form. In the Candidates matches en route to becoming the challenger in 1972, he had beaten two grandmasters, Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen, by perfect scores of 6–0, a feat not previously achieved in a Candidates match. In the Candidates final against Petrosian, Fischer won the first game, lost the second, drew the next three, then finished with four consecutive wins to win the match 6½–2½. "No bare statement conveys the magnitude and impact of these results.... Fischer sowed devastation." From the last seven rounds of the Interzonal until the first game against Petrosian, Fischer won 19 games without losing once, almost all against top grandmasters.
Fischer also had a much higher Elo rating than Spassky. On the July 1972 FIDE rating list, Fischer's 2785 was a record 125 points ahead of Spassky, the number two player whose rating was 2660. Fischer's recent results made him the pre-match favorite. Other observers, however, noted that Fischer had never won a game against Spassky. Before the match, Fischer had played five games against Spassky, drawing two and losing three.
Spassky's for the match were Efim Geller, Nikolai Krogius and Iivo Nei. Fischer's was William Lombardy. His entourage also included lawyer Paul Marshall, who played a significant role in the events surrounding the match, and USCF representative Fred Cramer. The match's arbiter was Lothar Schmid.
World-class match play often involves one or both players preparing one or two openings deeply, and playing them repeatedly throughout the match. Preparation for such a match also involves analyses of lines known to be played by the opponent. Fischer had been famous for his unusually narrow opening repertoire: for example, almost invariably playing 1.e4 as White, and as Black against 1.e4, almost always playing the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense. He surprised Spassky by repeatedly switching openings, and by playing openings that he had never, or only rarely, played before. Even in openings that Fischer had played before in the match, he continually deviated from the variations he had previously played, almost never repeating the same line.

Prize negotiations and opening ceremony controversy

For some time, it seemed as though the match might not be played at all. Shortly before the match, Fischer demanded that he and Spassky receive 30% of the box-office receipts, in addition to the agreed-upon prize fund of $125,000 and 30% of the proceeds from television and film rights. Fischer agreed to play after British investment banker Jim Slater doubled the prize fund, and after much persuasion, including a phone call from Henry Kissinger.
Fischer did not arrive in Iceland in time for the opening ceremony on July 1 required to determine the playing colors, however, and FIDE President Max Euwe postponed the match by two days. Spassky, who appeared at the opening ceremony, refused to draw the colors by himself and asked FIDE to subject Fischer to a penalty, Fischer's of the first game, and the Russian delegation insisted on an apology from both Fischer and the FIDE President. The FIDE President signed a document condemning the action of the Championship Challenger and admitting that the postponement "violated the FIDE rules" for "special reason". Fischer, on his part, wrote a letter of apology with his lawyer Paul Marshall. According to Marshall, in the first draft Fischer renounced his share of the prize money, but the draft wasn't publicly available, since it contained "things damaging to Bobby". In the letter, Fischer explained that his absence was caused by being "carried away by his petty dispute over money with Icelandic chess organizers", and asked for a favor to withdraw the forfeit penalty, saying it would put him at "tremendous handicap" and he "didn't believe that the world's champion desired such an advantage".
After Spassky received the letter of apology on July 6, the Russian head of the State Sports Committee, Sergei Pavlov, told Spassky that he had every right to refuse to play the match and insisted he should return to Moscow. Spassky "politely and diplomatically" declined to follow the recommendation and said he would see the match through "despite Fischer's outrageous" conduct. The match was again postponed until July 11, now initiated by Spassky as a "face-saving measure" to convince Pavlov that the honor of the Soviet Union had been preserved. Fischer agreed, cementing his condition to drop Spassky's demand for a forfeit. Some commentators contended that Fischer was "playing a game of psychological warfare with Spassky, and his demands, his protest, his disappearance—all were calculated to unnerve the supposedly unflappable Russian."

Regulations and results

The match was played as the best of 24 games, with wins counting 1 point and draws counting ½ point, and would end when one of the players scored 12½ points. If the match ended in a 12–12 tie, the defending champion would retain the title. The first time control was 40 moves in 2½ hours. Three games per week were scheduled. Each player was entitled to three postponements for medical reasons during the match. Games were scheduled to start on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. If a game was adjourned, it was to be continued the next day. Saturday was a rest day. Over the course of the match, the contestants moved their pieces nearly two thousand times.
Fischer insisted that a Staunton design chess set from Jaques of London be used. The chessboard had to be modified at Fischer's request. The match was covered throughout the world. Fischer became a worldwide celebrity, described as the Einstein of chess. His hotel received dozens of calls each day from women attracted to him, and Fischer enjoyed reading the numerous letters and telegrams that arrived, whether with compliments or criticisms. The day of the first game, Fischer arrived shortly after five o'clock, the scheduled starting time, due to heavy traffic.
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Boris Spassky|USSR