Revisiting his “Match of the Century” with Bobby Fischer – Firstpost

Fifty years ago, the Cold War was transposed to a failure when Bobby Fischer of the United States faced the defending world champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, who died at the age of 88, in an exciting orient-west confrontation nicknamed the “century match”.

Some 50 million viewers listened to the two -month battle in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik, where the effects of terrible Fischer failures began to snatch the championship from the Soviet Union, which dominated the game for decades.

AFP reported the competition daily. This account is based on its reports.

Polar opposites

On the one hand of the table is Fischer, a former eccentric and fiercely competitive boy of 29, who held the blows among the great Americans at the age of 12 and has already won eight American chess championships.

Director in the suburbs of New York in Brooklyn, Fischer became the youngest master of chess in the world at the age of 15 and abandoned the school to focus on the game.

The AFP correspondent in Reykjavik says: “He has few friends and does not care to do it” and that his motto is: “It is not enough to defeat an opponent, you must crush them.”

He entered the competition after winning 101 of his 120 previous games.

In the other seat, Boris Spassky, 35, is a journalist by training and father of two married children who has been world champion for three years.

Born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1937, he was sent to an orphanage in Siberia during the Nazi German siege in the city during the Second World War.

A pure product of the Soviet chess machine, he started playing at five years and became world champion at 19.

A sympathetic and modest character, he is the antithesis of the Fischer Acant.

Destroy anger attacks

Fischer is the first player born in the United States to have a stab on the title (since 1946, the two finalists have always been Soviets).

Iceland, as a neutral country, hosts the match.

Fischer makes a series of requests before agreeing to participate. The place, a gym, must be excited, equipped with a new carpet and the ambient temperature maintained at 22.5 degrees Celsius.

But on the eve of the competition, he still did not show up. Henry Kissinger, American national security advisor at the time under President Richard Nixon, called Fischer and convinced him to participate.

AFP reports that the American champion “seems tired” when he landed in Reykjavik on July 4. He leaves the opening ceremony. An indignant episor requires apologies.

The competition finally begins on July 11, nine days late.
“Scandal of the century”

Spassky arrives 20 minutes earlier in the opening match for the “vigorous applause” of the 2,500 spectators in the filled room. Fischer rushes at the last minute, “pushes the photographers, rushes towards Spassky, shakes his hand” and sits down. The game is finally on.

At the 28th blow, the game seems to be heading for a draw. But Fischer then made two bad movements and resigned on the 56th movement.

Pique by his loss, he demands that all the cameras be removed from the room. When the request is refused, he refuses to present himself to the second match, reporting it.

“Spectators are disappointed and exasperated,” reports AFP.

While the third game is looming, Fischer is not found. Kissinger picks up the phone again. “Please continue the game,” quotes it later Fischer.

The room is excited when the competition resumes on July 16, but the scene is empty. Spassky accepted Fischer’s request to play in a small back room (with a camera broadcasting events in the main hall outside).

Some commentators see the Spassky dealership as a bad omen for the Russian, which continues to lose the match.

The fourth is a draw and Spassky resigns the fifth.

Both are now shoulder to shoulder.

History books games

The 6th match is one of the most difficult in the competition. Spassky throws in the towel in the 41st movement.

“I am proud of this game, it was one of my best,” Fischer told AFP, adding: “When Spassky joined the crowd to applaud my victory, I thought” What a Gentleman “.”

Spassky also resigns the 13th match, a masterclass of chess, according to the AFP correspondent, who reported that after congratulating his opponent, Spassky “sits in contemplation for six minutes, his lost gaze in the champion”.

The Russian asks that the 14th match be postponed and that the next seven are all zero matches.

Match 21, which goes to Fischer, turns out to be the last. The next day, Spassky resigned the game, making Fischer, which is still asleep, the 11th world chess champion, with a final score of 12.5-8.5.