Fifty years ago this month, the attention of the world’s media was sharply focused on the city of Reykjavik. Prior to this, Europeans, geography scholars, and the children who had read The Arctic Patrol Mystery, (the 48th volume in the original Hardy Boys series), were probably the only people outside of that country aware of its existence as the capital of Iceland.
It was the height of the Cold War, and an event of major significance to the West–East détente was taking place on the island state situated in the North Atlantic Ocean. It was neither the exchange of captured spies, nor the signing of the complex Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT 1) agreements between the USA and the Soviet Union that had taken place in May, at a summit in Moscow. In the eyes of many observers, this was the most important occurrence since the end of the Second World War; at stake was the World Chess Championship.
Outside of the Soviet Union chess was almost non-existent and received very limited coverage. Now, here at last, a lone American was challenging the might of the Soviet Chess Establishment which had exerted an iron-clad grip on the World Chess title since 1944. The Soviets relished the challenge. The world had already been exposed to the brilliance of the other two proud disciplines of their system; touring ballet troupes and magical circuses. Now, it was going to witness their chess supremacy.
The unique and compelling battle (this was regarded as warfare in many quarters) quickly gathered momentum and the previously eschewed subject of chess leapfrogged to front page news in the Western media. This was a battle of ideologies, waged on a board of 64 squares. Which system would emerge triumphant? Socialism or capitalism? Victory for the Free World would dispose of the myth that the Soviet apparatchiks’ domination at chess was a result of their superior political system of governance. Discussions and debates on chess became the new pastime, as television networks scrambled to provide never before live coverage of the spectacle.
The combatants were Boris Spassky, 35, the reigning world champion, and Bobby Fischer, 29, a high school dropout, whose apparent only interest in life was playing chess. Apart from their gift for the game, the two men had little in common. Spassky, a product of the expansive Soviet chess structure, had taken the title off fellow Soviet Tigran Petrosian in 1969, having stumbled against him in the previous encounter in 1966. Spassky possessed, one commentator observed, “… an ability to play the most varied positions,” whilst Garry Kasparov (World Champion 1985 – 1993), noted “from childhood he clearly had a leaning toward sharp, attacking play, and possessed a splendid feel for the initiative.” In five previous matches with Fischer, Spassky held a clear advantage, with two wins and three draws.
Robert James “Bobby” Fischer, the challenger, was the source of all the excitement. American authors John Steinbeck or Ernest Hemingway would have been hard pressed to create a character like Bobby Fischer. Descriptions of Fischer ranged from volatile genius to enthralling, from shocking to appealing. He had been at the summit of international chess for over a decade, having become the youngest ever Grandmaster at the age of 15 years, six months and one day. Two months shy of his 15th birthday, Fischer had captured the first of his eight US Championships, a tournament he only played eight times. At 16, he published his first book, Bobby Fischer’s Games of Chess. In the qualifiers to challenge Spassky, Fischer had reeled off 19 consecutive wins against top grandmasters, an unprecedented feat, which still stands.
Fischer consumed the game of chess. He read every manual and every periodical he could lay his hands on, and even went as far as to learn several foreign languages on his own so he could read foreign chess journals. Blessed with a phenomenal memory, Fischer would surprise grandmasters by recalling games of speed chess they had played in years past. For this talent, Fischer was the enfant terrible of the chess world and drove tournament organisers crazy with his outrageous demands which ranged from appearance fees, to the lighting in the room, and to limits of the distance of the audience from the game table.
Fischer, true to form, made all manner of demands before arriving late in Reykjavik. Such was his drawing power that the prize pool was increased to US$250,000, 20 times the amount that was on offer at the 1969 World Championship. Spassky was made to wait while Fischer’s accommodations (or, in hindsight, psychological demands) were met, including the remaking of the board and the usage of a Staunton chess set from Jacques of London. The 24-match contest held in the concrete Laugardalshöll arena commenced on 11th July with Spassky taking the opening game after an uncharacteristic Fischer blunder. Spassky was quickly 2 – 0 ahead, as Fischer forfeited the second game after his demands that the television cameras be removed were not met.
Spassky then agreed to play the third game in a backroom without the cameras and no audience, a pivotal mistake considered the turning point in the contest, as Fischer won to get back into the match. Game four was conducted on the main stage as per Spassky’s request, but without the television cameras to appease Fischer, and was drawn. Fischer took the fifth to tie the match, and from thereon it was all Fischer. In the sixth game, he orchestrated a masterpiece, playing the Queen’s Gambit for the first time in his life in a serious game, which led to Spassky joining the audience in the applause afterwards.
Although Spassky eked out a win in the eleventh game, Fischer’s victories in games eight, ten, 13 and 21, along with the drawn games, were sufficient to give him the title by a score of 12½ – 8½ . Grandmasters Edmar Mendis and Svetozar Gligoric both attributed Fischer’s conquest to his variation in opening plays, opting to move away from his normal narrow repertoire, repeatedly switching openings, continually deviating from the variations he had previously played and almost never repeating the same line.
Spassky was famously quoted afterwards as saying, “When you play Bobby, it’s not a question of whether you win or lose, it’s a question of whether you survive.”
After the Cold War ended, investigative reporters were able to discover that the World Chess Championship had been conducted against a backdrop of dramatic and off-the-board battles in corridors, lobbies, and hotel suites, even reaching as far as Moscow and the White House. The contest catapulted chess from a niche activity conducted by small pockets of serious bespectacled nerds in quiet bleak rooms to one of lofty international standing where it remains today. Every World Chess Championship held since is always compared to the Fischer-Spassky duel, with perhaps only the 1978 Anatoly Karpov vs Viktor Korchnoi – a Soviet defector – contest approaching it for drama and excitement.
The Match of the Century has since been immortalised in film, on the stage and in song. This was more than a chess match. This was a clash of personalities, wills, genii and civilisations. It was a turning point in history.
