The 1972 World Chess Championship saw Bobby Fischer of the US challenge the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky in the "Match of the Century." Fischer ended up winning.
The last game of the historic 1972 'Match of the Century' in Reykjavik, IcelandImage: J. Walter Green/AP/picture alliance
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Bobby Fischer and the world's fascination with chess
For many chess fans, he is still the greatest: Bobby Fischer became World Champion in Iceland 50 years ago. The "Match of the Century" in Reykjavik is legendary.
Image: J. Walter Green/AP/picture alliance
On his way to becoming world chess champion
The then 29-year-old grandmaster from New York was renowned to be both brilliant and eccentric: Bobby Fischer contributed to turning the World Chess Championship into a spectacle. He is shown here on August 23, 1972, on his way to a game at the championship held in Reykjavik, Iceland. A week later, Fischer obtained the title he had been working towards since his youth: world chess champion.
Image: J. Walter Green/AP/picture alliance
The chess prodigy
Robert James Fischer, known as Bobby, was born on March 9, 1943 in Chicago. Fischer grew up in Brooklyn, New York, with his mother, a nurse who was followed by the FBI due to suspicion she was a communist. The family had little money. Even as a child, Bobby was a very strong chess player. In 1958, at the age of 14, he became the youngest ever US chess champion.
At the age of 16, Fischer was already one of the best chess players in the world. His competitors mainly came from the Soviet Union, the world's chess powerhouse since the Second World War. At the time, Fischer's great role model was the Latvian-Soviet grandmaster and later World Champion, Mikhail Tal. In 1959, the two met in Zurich. The game ended in a draw.
During the 1960s, Boris Spassky (right) became the best player in the Soviet Union. Then in 1969, Spassky became world champion. Before the match in Iceland, he had never lost to Bobby Fischer. The popular Russian came to Reykjavik confident of his victory. Did he underestimate his opponent?
Image: AFP
The 'Match of the Century'
Adding to the tension, it wasn't clear if Fischer would actually show up to face Spassky. The former child prodigy from New York had failed to appear or arrived late to previous games. Fischer did not trust Soviet chess players and the World Chess Federation. At the last minute, the Icelandic organizers managed to get Fischer to come to Reykjavik. In the first round, he conceded defeat.
Image: J. Walter Green/AP/picture alliance
The Cold War played on a chessboard
Amid the Cold War, the match opposing the US and the USSR fascinated the public. Fischer's particular demands — for example, to have the cameras removed from the game — added to the unprecedented media hype surrounding the chess championship. After a high-class match, Fischer clearly prevailed, and officially took the World Chess Champion crown from the Soviet Union on September 1, 1972.
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1992: Fischer reappears
It is the biggest mystery in chess history: After the 1972 World Chess Championship, Fischer retired from chess, forfeiting his title without defending it. He publicly returned to the chessboard only once, in 1992, facing Boris Spassky again in a private match in the former Yugoslavia. He won again. But having violated US sanctions to play the game, he was labeled a fugitive and fled into exile.
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Finding a home in Reykjavik
As an emigre, Fischer spent time in different countries until 2004, when he was detained in Tokyo and faced deportation to the US. Mentally ill, he had also made headlines with his anti-American and antisemitic statements. But he still found support from a group of Icelandic chess players who managed to bring him back to Reykjavik, where he spent the last years of his life before dying in 2008.
In 2020 — almost 50 years after the "Match of the Century" — chess was suddenly on everyone's lips again. The Netflix series "The Queen's Gambit," starring Anya Taylor-Joy in the role of chess genius Beth Harmon, was a massive hit during the pandemic.
Beth Harmon's character was in part inspired by Bobby Fischer's life. The myth lives on.
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Magnus Carlsen: Fischer's successor?
Bobby Fischer has long been considered by many to be the greatest player of all time. "Fischer was an incredibly competitive player, and that still impresses today," said Icelandic grandmaster Helgi Olafson, who supported Fischer in his final years in Iceland. This irrepressible will to win also characterizes the current world champion, Magnus Carlsen — who, like Fischer, was a child prodigy.
Image: Jose Mendez/EPA/picture alliance
A German prodigy
A young German has also been exceptionally good for a number of years. Vincent Keymer (right), who is now 17 years old, is the best chess player in Germany and on his way to the top 10 in world chess. At the age of 14, he played against world champion Magnus Carlsen for the first time — and narrowly lost. In 2021, Keymer became Vice European Champion in Reykjavik.
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Bobby Fischer (1943 - 2008)
Bobby Fischer was buried in Iceland in 2008. His opponent in the "Match of the Century," the Russian Boris Spassky, now lives in seclusion in Moscow — the effects of two strokes have confined him to a wheelchair. "Spassky always worried about Fischer ... like a big brother," said Icelandic chess champion Helgi Olafson, who knew both players well.
Where is Bobby Fischer? It is July 1, 1972, and the National Theater in Reykjavik is getting restless. The hall where the "Match of the Century" is to open is mostly full, but one seat remains empty.
Robert ("Bobby") Fischer, the challenger from the USA, is not there. And someone else is missing: Gudmundur Thorarinsson, the young head of the Icelandic Chess Federation.
Thorarinsson, now 82 years old, remembered the scene in his 2022 book, "The Match of All Time."
"I had negotiated with Fischer's lawyer until the last minute — it was always about money," wrote Thorarinsson. Fischer was demanding that the players receive 30% of the proceeds from the television rights and the box office, in addition to a prize haul of $125,000 (€118,000).
But in vain: There was no commitment from the chess grandmaster from New York. "I then arrived 15 minutes late for the opening, had no speech prepared and didn't know what to say on stage," Thorarinsson recalled.
He did not, however, call off the hugely anticipated match-up between representatives of global superpowers in the midst of the Cold War. Fischer was the top-ranked player in the world but Russian player Boris Spassky was the defending champion.
The International Chess Federation decided to postpone the game for two days. "What would have happened in the chess world if we Icelanders had canceled the match at that time?" said Thorarinsson, who believed Fischer would turn up.
"I knew that Fischer had worked his whole life towards this title match," he said.
Bobby Fischer (right), aged only 16, plays Russian Mikhail Tal at an international chess tournament in Zurich in 1959Image: Jules Vogt/PHOTOPRESS-ARCHIV/KEYSTONE/picture alliance
Gentleman vs. genius
After an American patron raised the prize money at short notice, Fischer finally boarded the plane bound for Reykjavik. The sleepy Icelandic capital was thrust into the world press spotlight in anticipation of the East versus West chessboard match-up.
Opposing the eccentric and brilliant New Yorker, Bobby Fischer, was the confident and worldly Russian champion, Boris Spassky.
"Most Icelanders at the time wanted the likeable Spassky to win," recalled Icelander Helgi Olafson, then a 16-year-old chess talent and later grandmaster, in his 2012 book "Bobby Fischer Comes Home." "Spassky was a gentleman."
But it was Bobby Fischer who provided the spectacle. "Chess is war on the board," he once said. "The object is to crush the other man's mind."
On July 11 he finally sat down at the board for the first game, which Spassky won. Fischer did not take part in the second round after he complained about noise and the light. He suspected tricks by the Soviet team. Fischer refused to continue and forfeited. There were fears the World Chess Championship was on the verge of being canceled.
A German referee saved the match
The German referee Lothar Schmid, himself a chess grandmaster and owner of the Karl May publishing house in Bamberg, then found a solution.
The match would be played in a back room where there is normally a ping-pong table.
"Lothar Schmid was an excellent referee," recalls Gudmundur Thorarinsson. The start of the third game was legendary. On the spur of the moment, Schmid pushed the two into their seats and shouted, "now play chess!"
And Fischer played. The third game was a turning point in the match. Spassky, perhaps affected by the back and forth, made mistakes and conceded an unexpected defeat. From that moment on, Fischer took command on the chessboard.
"Spassky was always about chess, so he kept playing despite Fischer's antics," said Helgi Olafsson, who believed there was too much focus on the US American. "We forget what a great player and sportsman Boris Spassky is."
Nonetheless, after a win in the 21st round, Fischer had an unassailable lead on September 1, 1972. The decades-long dominance of the Soviet Union in chess was broken. The USA may not have won the Cold War in Reykjavik, but they had won the battle on the chessboard.
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The myth of Bobby Fischer
The story of the 1972 World Chess Championship does not end with the closing ceremony. The match triggered a worldwide chess boom.
"All of a sudden, chess was a thing that interested everyone and you could even earn money with it — even if you didn't come from the Soviet Union," noted Helgi Olafsson.
But in the wake of the Match of the Century, the old question is asked about the victor. Where is Bobby Fischer?
He did not show up to play against the young Russian Anatoly Karpov in 1975 to defend his world title. After that, nothing was heard of the chess player Bobby Fischer for a long time.
Then in 1992, having not completed a competitive match for 20 years, Fischer competed in an unofficial but lucrative rematch against Boris Spassky in the Republic of Montenegro during the Bosnian War.
Fischer once again showed his class and defeated his old rival for the second time.
But this competition was to shape the further course of Fischer's life: As Yugoslavia was under an embargo, the US government issued a warrant for Fischer's arrest for taking part in the match.
The controversial 1992 rematch between Spassky (left) and Fischer in Yugolsavia Image: Dagobert Kohlmeyer/dpa/picture-alliance
'A humanitarian action'
"Fischer felt persecuted — and indeed he was," Helgi Olafson noted. The increasingly paranoid Fischer went into exile and became even more eccentric.
He espoused conspiracy theories and made antisemitic and anti-American statements. The low point was reached in 2005: The ex-world champion was in poor health and was held in custody pending deportation in Japan.
But in Iceland, the ex-champion had not been forgotten and a committee was formed to bring Bobby Fischer to Iceland. It succeeded in convincing Iceland's foreign minister to grant Bobby Fischer Icelandic citizenship.
Arrangements were finally made with the US and Japan for him to leave for Iceland. In March 2005, the time had come: A shaggy-bearded Bobby Fisher landed back in Reykjavik, the place of his great triumph.
Final stop Reykjavik
"He was a broken man when he came back to Iceland," recalled Helgi Olafson, who supported the former world champion in his final years.
"I made it clear to Fischer right at the beginning that I had no interest in his crazy stories," Olafson wrote.
"When Fischer suddenly stopped playing at 29, he was just Bobby Fischer without chess, a man without a real life," he added. But the former champion enjoyed some peace of mind during his final years in Iceland.
In 2008, Fischer's health deteriorated and he succumbed to the kidney disease for which he refused treatment. Bobby Fischer, for many the best chess player of all time, was dead at the age of 64.
Chess: the game of kings and artists
From Humphrey Bogart to Marlene Dietrich, here's a selection of stars who are also fans of chess.
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Pastime of the stars
American Western actor John Wayne (right) was an enthusiastic chess player. German film diva Marlene Dietrich (left) is said to have always traveled with a huge chess board. The board game was particularly popular among Hollywood stars in the 1930s to 1950s. Dietrich and Wayne are pictured here in 1942 on the set of the film "Pittsburgh."
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Chess in Casablanca
Humphrey Bogart, as café owner Rick Blaine (left), sits intently at the chess board. The classic scene in "Casablanca" (1942) remains unforgettable. Bogart was an avid chess player off camera as well. He got lessons from US chess champ Herman Steiner.
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Brecht at the board
German poet and director Bertolt Brecht, pictured here around 1942, regularly played chess. After fleeing the Nazis, he lived in exile in Denmark. During the summers of 1934, 1936 and 1938, he was visited by his friend Walter Benjamin, who was living in exile in Paris, and the two would duel each other at the checkered board together every day.
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Think before you move
Chess is not only popular in films, but also in comics — like this edition of Lucky Luke. The Western hero drawn by Belgian cartoonist Morris is famous for drawing his pistol faster than his own shadow can. But speed isn't necessarily an advantage when it comes to playing chess.
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Chess for a good cause
British musician Sting, founder of the band Police, went up against Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov in New York in 2000. Their match was even broadcast on Times Square. The duel was a charity meant to raise money for a rain forest protection organization that Sting had supported.
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This text is an updated version of an article published on July 1, 2022. It was originally written in German.
