When Bobby Fischer won the 1972 World chess championship against Boris Spassky it was seen as a triumph of the individual. It was Bobby against the world, and the world never stood a chance. In his candidate matches he had beaten Bent Larsen and Mark Taimanov 6-0, then Tigran Petrosian to become the challenger for the world title. Since 1948 the world chess championship had been won by Soviet players.
Boris Spassky was then world champion and the match was due to take place in Reykjavik, Iceland. Bobby took some persuading to turn up for the match, and was offered money by a British businessman, he eventually arrived for the match.
The first game of the match seemed to be drifting to an uneventful draw when in the ending Bobby grabbed a pawn only to lose his bishop. After losing the first game the second game was a big row, which was not unknown where Bobby Fischer was concerned. I should not comment on this as I was not there, but the upshot of it was that Bobby lost game 2 by default, this was unprecedented in world title matches.
So the beginning of the match had been a disaster for Bobby, the first two games had not been lost so much as given away. Games 3-10 were about the best display of chess that you were ever likely to see. Bobby varied from his usual king's pawn opening and Boris Spassky had no answer, the two game lead vanished.
If games 3-10 were a disaster for Boris Spassky
then game eleven was a disaster for Bobby.
He played the poisoned pawn variation of the Sicilian defence
and lost his queen.
Like a lot of human beings Bobby had some bad failings
and he was reluctant to resign as he had been in game one,
the final position was best described as an embarrassment.
There were a lot of draws in the second half of the match
but some fighting chess.
Bobby won the last game, game 21
resulting in an emphatic victory.
More to follow, hopefully.