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50 years ago: Bobby Fischer is the 11th World Champion!
50 years ago: Bobby Fischer is the 11th World Champion! || After twenty games the score was 11½-8½ for Challenger Bobby Fischer, who needed 12½ to win the title. In game 21 he had the black pieces, gained a distinct advantage, but then allowed Boris Spassky to get a drawn position. However, when the still-reigning World Champion adjourned, he sealed a losing move. The next day, September 1st, 1972, resigned by…
The American Bobby Fischer became the World Chess Champion when he defeated the Soviet grandmaster and reigning World Champion Boris Spassky in Reykjavík in the summer of 1972.
On September 1, 1972 chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer wins the World Chess Championship upon defeating Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. Image: Bobby Fischer in Amsterdam in 1972 via Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Even in his prime there were concerns about Fischer's stability, during a lifetime of outbursts and provocations. Then there were the tales from his two decades away from the board, rumors that made their way around the chess world. That he was impoverished, that he had become a religious fanatic, that he was handing out anti-Semitic literature in the streets of Los Angeles. It all seemed too fantastic, too much in line with all the stories of chess driving people mad—or mad people playing…
After Boris Spassky came the most famous chess player ever: Bobby Fischer. Fischer was the world champion with the most limited and consistent opening repertoire. Indeed, Fischer had an attitude that there must be one correct way of playing in each position -- or perhaps more accurately, he felt that...
Though Mr. Evans was a grandmaster and a successful player, he was best known for his writing; he had a syndicated chess column for decades and wrote more than 20 books.
