Bobby Fischer - World Champion 1972

Bobby Fischer - Chess World Champion 1972 - Designed for Desktop. No internet connection required! This app shows all 20 games (with annotations) played in the world-championship-1972 match between Fischer and Spassky (Fischer refused to appear for game 2 giving a default win to Spassky). Each move has its own diagram. The expectations on Spassky were enormous because for the Soviets, chess was part of the political system. While Fischer was often famously critical of his home country ('Americans want to plunk in front of a TV and don't want to open a book'), he too carried the burden of expectation because of the political significance of the match. The excitement surrounding the match was such that it was called the 'Match of the Century', even though the same term had been applied to the USSR vs. Rest of the World match just two years before. Spassky, the champion, had lost the world championship match against Petrosian in 1966. In 1968, he won matches against Geller, Larsen, and Korchnoi to again win the right to challenge Petrosian for the title. This time Spassky won 12½ - 10½. Before the match, Fischer had played five games against Spassky, with two draws and Spassky winning three. However, in the candidates matches en route to becoming the challenger, Fischer had demolished world-class grandmasters Taimanov and Larsen,each by a perfect score of 6 - 0, a feat no one else had ever accomplished in any candidates match. After that, Fischer had split the first five games of his match against former World Champion Petrosian, then closed out the match by winning the last four games. No bare statement conveys the magnitude and impact of these results. Fischer sowed devastation. From the last seven rounds of the Interzonal until the first game against Petrosian, Fischer won 20 consecutive games, nearly all of which were against top grandmasters.The games played in this match against Spassky are for Fischer what divine melody is for great composers! Enjoy!"