BORIS SPASSKY (1937-2024)Born in Leningrad, he and his brother were evacuated from the city when it was under siege by the Germans in The Great Patriotic War. His parents would barely survive the siege. After their return to Leningrad, when he was nine years old, his brother took him to Krestovsky Island, and there he saw a chess pavilion. It was there where he fell in love with the game. "Looking back, I had a sort of predestination in my life. I understood that through chess I could express myself, and chess became my natural language."
Spassky always said that he "became a professional at 10" when he started working with his first coach, Vladimir Grigorievich Zak, at the Leningrad Palace of Pioneers in 1947. Zak trained him but also fed him in times of severe poverty, and helped him to get a stipend, enough to support his whole family. He rose through the ranks, becoming World Junior Champion in 1956. He attended Leningrad University, majoring in journalism largely because the head of that department allowed him to take time off to attend chess training camps and tournaments. It didn't matter anyway; chess would become his career.
He had second thoughts after a disastrous loss to future World Champion Mikhail Tal in 1958. “After my loss to Tal, I went out into the street. I was absolutely depressed, tears were running down my cheeks… Suddenly, while walking I met David Ginsburg, the journalist who had worked in the chess newspaper
64 before the war and was later sent to the Gulag. ‘Is it worth being so upset?’ he asked me. ‘Well, Tal will play his match with Botvinnik, and he will win the title. But later he will lose the return match to Botvinnik. Some time later Petrosian will become world champion, and then your turn will come…’"
His turn came in 1969, when he defeated Tigran Petrosian to become the 10th World Champion of chess.
Three years later, he would defend his title against Bobby Fischer. According to the rules of the competition, Spassky could have claimed victory after Fischer forfeited the second game:
Some days before the start of the third game I spoke for half an hour on the telephone with Pavlov, the president of the Soviet Sports Committee. He demanded that I should declare an ultimatum which, I was sure, Fischer, [FIDE president Max] Euwe and the organizers would have never accepted; so, the match would be broken off. The whole telephone conversation was just a never-ending exchange of two phrases: ‘Boris Vasilievich, you must declare an ultimatum!’; to which I responded, ‘Sergei Pavlovich, I shall play the match!’
"After Reykjavik, the Sports Committee couldn't forgive me for declining the chance to retain the world championship title. I could easily have done that simply by leaving the match. I had every justification, with FIDE President Max Euwe even telling me: ‘Dear Boris, you can quit the match at any moment. Take as much time as you need, go to Moscow or wherever else, but recover and think things over.’ I replied: ‘Thanks for the good advice, Max, but I’ll do things my way.’"Spassky would continue to compete - and win - but wouldn't regain the World Championship.
In 1976, the Soviet Union allowed him to move to Paris, which allowed him to choose himself which tournaments to play. He became a French citizen in 1978 but kept playing under the Soviet flag until 1984. He would later participate in three Olympiads for France.
He'd meet Fischer for a rematch in 1992, with a similar result (Fischer won). The pair actually became friends, and would call and chat about chess until Fischer's death in 2008. That was the last major match he'd compete in, though he'd appear in the occasional tournament until 2009. "I felt that I had no more energy to play, that I had lost any desire to win."
His health declined, and he moved back to Moscow in 2012. In February 2018 he was elected honorary president of the Russian Chess Federation.
“[His play] does not lend itself to a distinct division into any clearly expressed components, making it unique and unrepeatable. With Spassky everything is somehow diffuse and misty—and this, evidently, confirms his image of a universal chess player. It is generally considered that the universal chess style, involving an ability to play the most varied type of positions, stems from Spassky.” - Garry Kasparov
"Spassky sits at the board with the same dead expression whether he’s mating or being mated. He can blunder away a piece, and you are never sure whether it’s a blunder or a fantastically deep sacrifice." - Bobby Fischer
"He was not only a wonderful champion, but also a fascinating personality. Anyone who met him will surely remember him - forever. His character came through in every possible way, especially with his sense of humour, his brilliant mind, his facial expressions. He turned to chess and life with GREAT curiosity." - Judit Polgar
"In general, what a chess player needs has always been the same, with a love of chess the main requirement. Moreover, it has to be loved naturally, with passion, the way people love art, drawing, and music. That passion possesses you and seeps into you. I still look at chess with the eyes of a chi|d." - Boris Spassky
If you want to see a Spassky game, this scene from
From Russia With Love uses the Spassky-Bronstein game from Leningrad 1960, which he named as one of his favorites:
Spassky and Danish Grandmaster Bent Larsen in 1967: