50th anniversary of the Match of the Century. Would such a thing be possible today?

This year marks the 50th anniversary of two "matches of the century". Although I was only nine years old in 1972, I remember them both very well, because they were indeed events that will be etched in my memory for the rest of my life.

I am talking, of course, about the chess match between the legendary US super-talent Bobby Fischer and USSR Grandmaster Boris Spassky for the world title, which started on July 11, 1972. The other, no less memorable event (in fact, with even greater resonance, at least here) was the first eight-game Super Series between USSR hockey players and Canadian NHL professionals, which started the day after the 21-game chess super match in Reykjavik ended, on September 2.

Both events completely changed that sport's place in the world. This is particularly true of the Fischer-Spassky match. As the winner of the previous match, which took place in 1969 between the then world champion Tigran Petrosian and the challenger Boris Spassky, Spassky received a cash prize of 3,000 USSR rubles, while in the 1972 match the prize fund was already 250,000 US dollars, a sum totally unimaginable for chess in those days (1.75 million dollars in today's money after inflation). It was Fischer who turned chess into a sport/entertainment industry that allowed the best professionals to earn relatively well. However, with the computer age, the once perhaps exaggerated interest in chess gradually disappeared and the huge prize money moved to other, more popular sports.

But the breakthrough in chess funding was not the only change Fischer introduced. With his eccentric behavior, Fischer transformed chess from an ordinary, albeit highly complex game, into a show of unprecedented proportions, where what happened around the match became not less, but often even more, interesting than what happened on the chessboard.

Although Fischer was described by Soviet chess commentators as a typical egocentric American, interested only in money and prepared to go to the most outrageous lengths for it, it is clear from today's perspective that Fischer had, to put it delicately, quite serious mental peculiarities. All his eccentric whims were presented by the Soviet press not as quirks of character, but as - well, that's what Americans, who at that time 99% of the population of the USSR had never met in real life, are all like.

The situation in the chess world until the 1970s was such that since 1947 only Soviet chess champions - Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky - became world chess champions. Fischer's dazzling appearance on the chess scene made the Soviet chess functionaries worried.

In the contenders' match, Fischer defeated Soviet Grandmaster Mark Taimanov by an unprecedented 6-0 in the battle for the right to meet the reigning World Champion Spassky. Six wins in six games. Danish Grandmaster Bent Larsen was beaten by the same score. Such "dry" results had never been seen before or since in the contenders' matches, and did not recur in later years.

The press maintained the impression of Fischer's supernatural abilities. Larsen himself, the epitome of typical Scandinavian courtesy and stamina, later recalled that he had played the entire match with Fischer as if in a fog. These remarks by Larsen gave rise to the later extremely popular theories about the influence of hypnosis on the results of chess games.

The Fischer-Spassky match started on July 11 in Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland. Before that, a venue was sought for a long time that would satisfy both sides and it was not clear until the last moment whether the match would take place at all. Here it is appropriate to point out how this match of the century was portrayed by the Soviet press. I do not have the newspapers of the time at hand, but as I recall, the emphasis was on Fischer seemingly constantly looking for excuses not to hold the match. I suppose that the USSR chess officials would have been only too happy if Fischer had abandoned the match, because on the eve of the match Fischer's ELO reached 2785 rating points, which was quite fantastic for those days. Spassky was then rated 2660, and the chess players after him 2640 and below.

Unlike the later Karpov-Korchnoi and Karpov-Kasparov matches, the Soviet press did not whip up particular political passions, as it was highly likely that Spassky would lose. That is why the advantages of the socialist system for the development of sport were not emphasized in advance. On the contrary, Fischer's extraordinary qualities as a chess player were emphasized. There was an attempt to separate his chess genius from the predatory capitalist nature of the American.

In the first game, Fischer played carelessly in a theoretically similar but difficult endgame (Fischer had two pawns over a rook), made a mistake in a fairly simple situation and lost. After this painful loss, Fischer demanded that the television cameras be removed from the hall for the next games and that the stage itself be blocked with a glass screen. The match organizers refused to bow to Fischer's whim and the challenger did not turn up for the second game. He was awarded a technical forfeit. The match score became 2:0 in favor of Spassky.

The fate of the match hung in the balance. Fischer was told in no uncertain terms that Spassky would be declared the winner of the match if he did not return to the table. The then FIDE President, former World Champion Max Euwe, was about to announce that Spassky had retained his title when Spassky himself agreed to Fischer's demands and the match could go ahead. Most chess commentators consider this concession by Spassky to be a mistake which caused a psychological fracture in the match.

Although Spassky himself has always been evasive about this episode, it is doubtful whether this concession was coordinated with the political leadership of USSR chess, which would have been interested in ending the match quickly on any pretext. It should be noted that Spassky was never perceived as a typical Soviet chess player. He was already at that time considered to be a somewhat non-Soviet type of guy with his stylish checked jacket. Even in his later years he lived more abroad, married a French citizen and acquired French citizenship (while retaining his USSR citizenship, unlike Viktor Korchnoi who broke all ties with the USSR in 1974). However, Spassky, now 85 years old, lives in Moscow again.

Spassky lost the third game, playing with white pieces. Fischer continued his whims. He demanded a special chair for himself, which he had specially ordered to be flown in from New York; then he demanded that the marble chessboard on which he played the first games be replaced by a wooden one. After a few games, back to marble. It should be noted that Spassky's seconds, led by KGB Lieutenant-General Filipp Bobkov, also tried to keep up and demanded to check the rooms adjacent to the playing hall - whether there were any "transmitters" hidden there; whether there was any chemical spraying that could affect Spassky's psyche. It all sounds a bit schizophrenic, but the atmosphere of the match was raised to a special parapsychological level. This unconcealed mystical aspect smothered not only the sporting but also the political dimension of the match, which gradually moved further and further into the background as the match progressed.

Spassky also lost the fifth and sixth games, and Fischer won the sixth in extremely effective style, sacrificing quality (rook against knight). After giving up, Spassky applauded his opponent together with the spectators. Spassky finally won only the 11th game after losing the 10th game. Despite this victory, the overall course of the match was clearly moving towards Fischer being the next champion. This sentiment could be accurately gauged from the descriptions of the match in the press.

At the beginning of the match, each game was among the main headlines of the sports news, but later on the fourth (back) page of "Soviet Youth", at the very bottom, near the small weather section, there was a short, dry report on the outcome of the current game. At best, with a dispassionate protocol of moves without comment.

As the game drew to a close, interest in it on our side waned considerably and the media switched entirely to the preparations for the USSR-Canada hockey super series, where on September 2 in Montreal, in quite unbearable heat (due to a cooling system error, the arena temperature at the end of the second period exceeded +40 (!) degrees Celsius, some sources even mention +46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit)), the first game started and, despite being down 0:2 in the first minutes of the game, the USSR unexpectedly won 7:3 in the end.

Meanwhile, in Reykjavik on September 1, Spassky surrendered in the postponed 21st game and Fischer won the whole match 12.5:8.5 to become the 11th World Chess Champion. Interestingly, the game on move 41 was postponed with Spassky in a hopeless position. The home analysis showed that there was no hope of escape, and Spassky telephoned Fischer to say that he was giving up. However, this capitulation did not satisfy Fischer and he demanded a surrender at the table.

At the same time, it should be noted that although Fischer did not play any more games in official FIDE tournaments after that, he and Spassky remained on friendly terms. In 1992, in violation of all international sanctions against the regime of Slobodan Milošević, the two played an unofficial replay of the match in Belgrade - "20 years later". 30 games, of which Fischer won 10, Spassky 5 and 15 ended in a draw.

There is no doubt that every era has its events of a century, but there were so few real events in Soviet times that this chess match for the world title still retains that aura of uniqueness for many of those who lived at the time. In the world of chess, it remains the event of the century, as Fischer is the greatest chess weirdo of all time who nevertheless also achieved the world title.

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