World Chess Championship 1972 - Background

Background

The match was played during the Cold War, but during a period of increasing détente. The Soviet chess system had long held a monopoly on the game at the highest level. Spassky was the latest in an uninterrupted chain of Soviet World Chess Champions, stretching back to the 1948 championship.

Fischer, the eccentric 29-year-old American, was a vocal critic of the USSR's chess system. For instance, he believed that Soviet players gained an unfair advantage by agreeing to short draws among themselves in tournaments. whereas Fischer rarely agreed to early draws in unclear or equal positions.

The expectations on Spassky were enormous because for the Soviets, chess was part of the political system. While Fischer was often famously critical of his home country ("Americans want to plunk in front of a TV and don't want to open a book ..."), he too carried the burden of expectation because of the political significance of the match. No American had been world champion since the first champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, became a naturalized American citizen in 1888. The excitement surrounding the match was such 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 lost a world championship match against Tigran Petrosian in 1966. In 1968, he won matches against Efim Geller, Bent Larsen, and Viktor Korchnoi to again win the right to challenge Petrosian for the title. This time Spassky triumphed, winning 12½–10½. He is often said to have (had) a "universal style", "involving an ability to play the most varied types of positions". However, Garry Kasparov notes that "from childhood he clearly had a leaning toward sharp, attacking play, and possessed a splendid feel for the initiative". Before the match, Fischer had played five games against Spassky, with two draws and Spassky winning the other three.

However, in the Candidates matches en route to becoming the challenger, Fischer had demolished world-class grandmasters Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen, each by a perfect score of 6–0, something no one else has ever done in any Candidates match. After that, Fischer had split the first five games of his match against former world champion Tigran Petrosian, then closed out the match by winning the last four games. "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 20 consecutive games, nearly all of which were against top grandmasters.

Fischer also had a much higher Elo rating than Spassky, or indeed any player in history. On the July 1972 FIDE rating list, Fischer's 2785 was a record 125 points ahead of the number two player – Spassky, who had a 2660 rating. Fischer's recent results and record Elo rating made him the pre-match favorite. Other observers, however, noted that Fischer had never won a game from Spassky.

Spassky's seconds for the match were Efim Geller, Nikolai Krogius and Iivo Nei. Fischer's second was William Lombardy. His entourage also included lawyer Paul Marshall, who would play a significant role in the events surrounding the match, and USCF representative Fred Cramer. The match referee was Lothar Schmid.

For some time, it was doubtful that the match would be played at all. Shortly before the match, Fischer demanded that the players receive, in addition to the agreed-upon prize fund of $125,000 (5/8 to the winner, 3/8 to the loser) and 30% of the proceeds from television and film rights, 30% of the box-office receipts. He failed to arrive in Iceland for the opening ceremony on July 1. Fischer's behavior was full of contradictions, as it had been throughout his career. He finally flew to Iceland and agreed to play after a two-day postponement of the match by FIDE President Max Euwe, a surprise doubling of the prize fund by British investment banker Jim Slater, and much persuasion, including a phone call by Henry Kissinger to Fischer. Many commentators, particularly from the USSR, have suggested that all this (and his continuing demands and unreasonableness) was part of Fischer's plan to "psych out" Spassky. Fischer's supporters say that winning the World Championship was the mission of his life, that he simply wanted the setting to be perfect for it when he took the stage, and that his behavior was the same as it had always been.

World-class match play (i.e., a series of games between the same two opponents) often involves one or both players preparing one or two openings very deeply, and playing them repeatedly during the match. Preparation for such a match also involves analysis of those opening lines known to be played by the upcoming opponent. Fischer had been famous for his unusually narrow opening repertoire: for example, almost invariably playing 1.e4 as White, and almost always playing the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense as Black against 1.e4. He surprised Spassky by repeatedly switching openings, and by playing openings that he had never, or only rarely, played before (such as 1.c4 as White, and Alekhine's Defense, the Pirc Defense, and the Paulsen Sicilian as Black). 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 twice in the match.