Boris Spassky, who has died aged 88, was the gallant loser of the most famous match in chess history. The Russian champion conceded his world title to Bobby Fischer at Reykjavik in 1972, but gained a host of admirers for his sportsmanlike behaviour and dignity in defeat. When Fischer had failed to appear for the opening ceremony, Moscow wanted Spassky to claim victory by default and return home. But he had struck a bond of friendship with the American at their previous meetings, and agreed to a first game postponement that allowed the London financier Jim Slater to save the 24-game match by doubling the prize fund.
Spassky then won the first game after his opponent blundered, followed by the second when Fischer defaulted after a dispute over television cameras. The German arbiter Lothar Schmid arranged for game three to be played in a small backstage room, despite renewed opposition from Soviet officials. There was still a narrow escape at the start of the game when Fischer began to complain and Spassky headed for the door, so Schmid forcibly sat them at the board and demanded: “Play chess!”
Once he got into the match, Fischer proved in irresistible form and won five of the next eight games, effectively deciding the outcome. Spassky was stunned, but joined in the applause at the end of the impressive sixth game, and maintained his friendship with his rival when they analysed together at the final ceremony. He was also pragmatic, depositing his share of the prize money in a western bank in defiance of an edict that winnings should be handed to the USSR sports federation.
Spassky was born in Leningrad. Neither his father, Vasili, a construction engineer, nor his mother, Ekaterina Petrovna, a teacher, played chess, though his younger sister Irina became a USSR women’s draughts champion. Spassky first played chess at the age of five on a train during the evacuation of Leningrad to escape the German siege, but then forgot about the game until he returned home after the second world war. By then, his parents were divorced.
In the summer of 1946, Spassky began to visit a chess pavilion in the city’s Central Park and became obsessed with the game: “I used to go at 11am and return home at 11pm. When the pavilion closed in September it was like death, with no chess.” In 1947 he joined the Leningrad Palace of Pioneers (a youth centre for extracurricular activities), where the inspirational Vladimir Zak, who had coached several grandmasters, recognised his talent. At the age of 10, Spassky beat the world’s best player, Mikhail Botvinnik, in a simultaneous exhibition, and improved rapidly. By 15, he was the youngest ever Soviet master, with a positional and solid style.
His late teens saw a series of fine performances. On his international debut, aged 16, at Bucharest in 1953, he defeated the world No 2 Vasily Smyslov. At 18, he won the world junior crown and became the youngest ever grandmaster to date, while at 19 he tied for third in the 1956 world championship candidates tournament in Amsterdam. His new trainer, the combative Alexander Tolush, helped him develop a tactical attacking style.
In the next few years, however, tension and over-ambition set him back. A key game came in the final round of the 1958 USSR championship at Riga, where he needed to beat the new Latvian star Mikhail Tal to qualify for that year’s world title interzonal. Play was adjourned after 45 moves and five hours, and both grandmasters stayed up all night to analyse.
“I was very tired and went to resume … dishevelled and fatigued. Then I was like a stubborn mule. Tal offered a draw, but I refused. I felt my strength ebb, I lost the thread of the game, and my position deteriorated. I proposed a draw, but Tal refused. When I resigned, there was a thunder of applause, but I was in a daze and hardly noticed. I walked out to the street and cried like a child.”
Three years later, in the 1961 Soviet championship and Spassky’s next attempt at the interzonal, came an echo of the Tal episode when Spassky needed to draw with Leonid Stein to qualify, but attacked nervously and adjourned in a lost position. After he resigned during the interval, it emerged that Stein’s intended plan would only have drawn.
During this period Spassky was also blamed for the USSR team’s failure in the 1960 world student championship in Leningrad, where he lost in the decisive match against the US. He was suspended from play abroad for a year, and his first marriage, to Nadezda Latyntceva, whom he had married in 1959, broke down. He described his relationship with his ex-wife as “like bishops of opposite colours”. He also had some notable successes, as when he tied with Fischer at Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 1960, defeating the American in their first career meeting.
Recovery came when he switched trainers from the abrasive Tolush to Igor Bondarevsky, a calm strategist who also became the father figure that Spassky had lacked. Their empathy stimulated him to develop an all-round style that brought great success in the new match system for world title candidates. Qualifying again in 1964-65, he defeated his old rival Tal in the candidates final by a subtle approach, steering into simple positions that Tal disliked or luring his opponent into unsound complications.
Spassky’s first attempt to dethrone the world champion Tigran Petrosian in 1966 proved abortive. At the second, however, in Moscow in 1969, his strategy was subtler, especially in his choice of the provocative Tarrasch defence, which exploited the champion’s cautious approach. “In the first match, I flew at him all the time, like a young, newly fledged tiger, but that was just what Tigran wanted. In the second match I realised that you had to act like a bear, pawing him gradually and slowly.” The contest ended with a 12½-10½ victory for Spassky.
The years 1965-70 were Spassky’s peak period, during which he held off the fast rising Fischer. He won at Santa Monica in 1966, beating the American in their individual game, and outplayed him again in the USSR v US match at the 1970 Olympiad. Despite Fischer’s record-breaking 20-game victory sequence in 1970-71, Spassky believed he could win in Reykjavik, but before the match his coaches criticised the champion’s relaxed attitude. Nikolai Krogius thought him “flippant. Spassky believed he understood Fischer well, and that he would find the key to Fischer’s chess during the match.” Spassky was also convinced that Fischer would not vary his opening repertoire.
When Fischer almost walked out after his poor start, it seemed Spassky was right, but the American then hit peak form and produced a series of opening surprises. Spassky lost confidence, made elementary blunders and was soon three points behind. He was much more resilient in the second half of the match, and his overall performance was far better than Fischer’s other opponents during the American’s surge in 1970-72.
On his return to Moscow, Spassky was sharply criticised in the Soviet press, and it was soon apparent that the rising star Anatoly Karpov was being groomed as the new hope. During this period, too, Spassky’s second marriage, to Larisa Solovyova, broke down. He fought back in 1973 when he won the Soviet championship, but his loss to Karpov in the 1974 candidates semi-final effectively ended his greatest years.
Spassky’s third wife, Marina Shcherbachova, granddaughter of the Russian war general Dmitry Shcherbachev, whom he married in 1975, worked at the French embassy in Moscow. They were allowed to leave the USSR in 1976 and settled in France, where Spassky became a citizen in 1978 and later represented France in the chess Olympiad. He lost to Viktor Korchnoi in the 1977 candidates final, and from then on his career went into a slow decline, though he remained in the world top 10 until the late 1980s.
In 1992 a Serbian banker offered Fischer and Spassky a colossal $5m prize fund for a rematch of Reykjavik. The American had not played for 20 years, while Spassky was ranked outside the world top 100 grandmasters, but the series in Montenegro and Belgrade had the grandiose title of “revenge match of the 20th century”. Spassky was unwell for much of the match, lost 5-10 with 15 draws, but was unconcerned. He believed he had brought Fischer back to chess, while he liked to contrast his $1.65m loser’s purse with the $250 he had received in 1968 for a candidates semi-final against Bent Larsen. He and Fischer pragmatically transferred their prize money out of the sponsor’s bank, which proved to be involved in malpractice and crashed a few months later.
The rematch in Serbia was played in defiance of UN sanctions, and the US initiated an arrest warrant for Fischer, who then became a fugitive. He was arrested in Japan in 2004 and threatened with deportation to the US to face trial. Spassky wrote an open letter to President George W Bush, pointing out that he had committed the same crime: “Put me in the same cell with Bobby Fischer, and give us a chess set.”
Spassky continued to play occasionally into the 90s, notably in a 1993 match in Budapest where the all-time No 1 female player, Judit Polgár, beat him 5.5-4.5. He remained active and popular in the ensuing decades, in veteran matches, as a referee, a commentator, a speaker at chess clubs, and at his chess school in the Urals.
In 2010, Spassky suffered a stroke that left him paralysed on his left side. He rehabilitated slowly in France, then in 2012 he abruptly left his wife and relocated in Moscow, alleging mistreatment by his Paris clinic.
Despite having to use a wheelchair, Spassky continued to take an active interest in chess. He attended the Magnus Carlsen v Vishy Anand world title match in Sochi in 2014 as an honoured guest, and gave a press conference where he spoke of Fischer and his other eminent opponents.
Spassky was cultured, handsome, calm and athletic. At college he was a high jumper and volleyball halfback, and after he lost the world title he became a keen tennis player. Sometimes he would arrive at chess games in tennis gear, put his racket beside the board, and agree a quick draw. His conversation was often ironic, and he was a mimic whose favourite targets were Lenin and Botvinnik. But he also had an introspective, modest and sometimes melancholy side to his character.
Spassky’s peak period in world chess was relatively short, and his rout by Fischer at Reykjavik was a career-defining moment, yet history is likely to regard him as a great champion. His harmonious and universal playing style combined grace with power, and his best games have the classic lucidity that can inspire amateurs. His forte was the middle game, where his imaginative yet sound and deeply planned strategy could erupt into decisive tactical attacks. His notable opening was the king’s gambit 1 e4 e5 2 f4, rarely seen at the top level, where his 16 wins and no losses included victories over Fischer and Karpov.
Spassky was unlucky in that he had to contend with Tal and Karpov at their peaks as well as with Fischer. As a personality, he was among the most articulate and likable of the world champions, a man who charmed ordinary fans while keeping the respect and admiration of his peers.
Spassky had a daughter, Tatiana, from his first marriage; a son, Vasili, from his second; and another son, Boris Jr, from his third.
• Boris Vasilievich Spassky, world chess champion, born 30 January 1937; died 27 February 2025
