page_title: Bobby Fischer
section_title: World Championship match
hierarchical_section_title: Bobby Fischer / 1969–1972: World Champion / World Championship match
caption_attribution_description: Bobby Fischer in Amsterdam voor besprekingen met FIDE-voorzitter Max Euwe over de tweekamp om het wereldkampioenschap met Boris Spassky. Fischer heeft krant gekocht
context_page_description: Robert James Fischer was an American chess grandmaster and the eleventh World Chess Champion. Many consider him to be the greatest chess player of all time.
  A chess prodigy, at age 13 he won a brilliancy which was dubbed "The Game of the Century". At age 14, he became the youngest ever U.S. Chess Champion, and at 15, he became both the youngest grandmaster up to that time and the youngest candidate for the World Championship. At age 20, Fischer won the 1963/64 US Championship with 11 wins in 11 games, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. His book My 60 Memorable Games, published in 1969, is regarded as essential reading. He won the 1970 Interzonal Tournament by a record 3½-point margin, and won 20 consecutive games, including two unprecedented 6–0 sweeps, in the Candidates Matches. In July 1971, he became the first official FIDE number-one-rated player.
  Fischer won the World Chess Championship in 1972, defeating Boris Spassky of the USSR, in a match held in Reykjavík, Iceland. Publicized as a Cold War confrontation between the US and USSR, it attracted more worldwide interest than any chess championship before or since.
context_section_description: Fischer's career-long stubbornness about match and tournament conditions was again seen in the run-up to his match with Spassky. Of the possible sites, Fischer's first choice was Belgrade, Yugoslavia, while Spassky's was Reykjavík, Iceland. For a time it appeared that the dispute would be resolved by splitting the match between the two locations, but that arrangement failed. After that issue was resolved, Fischer refused to appear in Iceland until the prize fund was increased. London financier Jim Slater donated an additional US$125,000, bringing the prize fund up to an unprecedented $250,000 ($1.53 million today) and Fischer finally agreed to play.
  Before and during the match, Fischer paid special attention to his physical training and fitness, which was a relatively novel approach for top chess players at that time. Leading up to this match he conducted interviews with 60 Minutes and Dick Cavett explaining the importance of physical fitness in his preparation. He had developed his tennis skills to a good level, and played frequently during off-days in Reykjavík. He had also arranged for exclusive use of his hotel's swimming pool during specified hours, and swam for extended periods, usually late at night. According to Soviet grandmaster Nikolai Krogius, Fischer "was paying great attention to sport, and that he was swimming and even boxing …"
  The match took place in Reykjavík from July to September 1972. Fischer was accompanied by William Lombardy; besides assisting with analysis, Lombardy may have played an important role in getting Fischer to play in the match and to stay in it. The match was the first to receive an American broadcast in prime time. Fischer lost the first two games in strange fashion: the first when he played a risky pawn-grab in a drawn endgame, the second by forfeit when he refused to play the game in a dispute over playing conditions. Fischer would likely have forfeited the entire match, but Spassky, not wanting to win by default, yielded to Fischer's demands to move the next game to a back room, away from the cameras, whose presence had upset Fischer. After that game, the match was moved back to the stage and proceeded without further serious incident. Fischer won seven of the next 19 games, losing only one and drawing eleven, to win the match 12½–8½ and become the 11th World Chess Champion.
  The Cold War trappings made the match a media sensation. It was called "The Match of the Century", and received front-page media coverage in the United States and around the world. Fischer's win was an American victory in a field that Soviet players – closely identified with and subsidized by the state – had dominated for the previous quarter-century. Kasparov remarked, "Fischer fits ideologically into the context of the Cold War era: a lone American genius challenges the Soviet chess machine and defeats it". Dutch grandmaster Jan Timman calls Fischer's victory "the story of a lonely hero who overcomes an entire empire". Fischer's sister observed, "Bobby did all this in a country almost totally without a chess culture. It was as if an Eskimo had cleared a tennis court in the snow and gone on to win the world championship".
  Upon Fischer's return to New York, a Bobby Fischer Day was held. He was offered numerous product endorsement offers worth "at least $5 million" ($30.6 million today), all of which he declined. He appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated with American Olympic swimming champion Mark Spitz and also appeared on The Dick Cavett Show, as well as on a Bob Hope TV special. Membership in the US Chess Federation doubled in 1972, and peaked in 1974; in American chess, these years are commonly referred to as the "Fischer Boom". This match attracted more worldwide interest than any chess championship before or since.
caption: Fischer in Amsterdam in 1972
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