His 1972 match against American Bobby Fischer is considered one of the most famous duels in the history of the game as well as a metaphor for the competition for Cold War supremacy.
A televised 1972 match between Spassky and Fischer, at the height of the Cold War, became an international sensation and was known as the "Match of the Century."
Boris Spassky, a Soviet-era world chess champion who lost his title to Bobby Fischer in a legendary 1972 match that became a proxy for Cold War rivalries, died Thursday in Moscow.
Soviet chess legend Boris Spassky, who lost the 1972 "Match of the Century" to American Bobby Fischer in a Cold War-era showdown, has died at 88. The match, viewed as a symbolic battle between the U.S. and Soviet Union, ended the USSR’s long-standing dominance in chess.
The Soviet-era former chess prodigy, who played in “one of the most iconic” games in history against American Bobby Fischer at the height of the Cold War, died at age 88.
