Former chess champ Bobby Fischer dead at 64
When play got under way, days late, Fischer lost the first game with an elementary blunder after discovering that television cameras he had reluctantly accepted were not unseen and unheard, but right behind the players’ chairs.
He boycotted the second game and the referee awarded the point to Spassky, putting the Russian ahead 2-0.
But then Spassky agreed to Fischer’s demand that the games be played in a back room away from cameras. Fischer went on to beat Spassky, 12.5 points to 8.5 points in 21 games.
A Cold War victory
Millions of Americans, gripped by the contest, rejoiced in the victory over their Cold War adversary.
In the recent book “White King and Red Queen,” the British author Daniel Johnson said the match was “an abstract antagonism on an abstract battleground using abstract weapons ... yet their struggle embraced all human life.”
“In Spassky’s submission to his fate and Fischer’s fierce exultant triumph, the Cold War’s denouement was already foreshadowed.”
The victory made Fischer the first U.S.-born world champion. Paul Morphy, an American, was regarded as the world’s best player from 1858 to 1862, and William Steinetz, an Austrian immigrant to the United States, was an official champion from 1886 to 1894.
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