Boris Spassky, Soviet chess world champion that lost the "match of the century", dies aged 88

Boris Spassky, one of the best chess players of all-time, has died on February 27, aged 88. The Soviet world champion took part in what has been known as "the match of the century", a duel against American Bobby Fischer for the world champion title, in the context of the Cold War between United States and the Soviet Union that had an unprecedented repercussion for a chess match.

Spassky was born in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, and learned to play chess before reading and writing. He became the tenth world champion in 1969, but three years later lost the title to Bobby Fischer. The American victory, ending - only temporarily - Soviet dominance on chess, turned Fischer into a star and left Spassky in a state of depression, losing his second marriage, and being persecuted by the KGB...

Things wouldn't stay that way for much, as Fischer blew his chances of defending the title after disagreeing with the rules, so he lost the World Champion title in 1975. Meanwhile, Spassky returned to play chess, regained credibility in the URSS but moved to France, marrying again and gaining French nationality.

Spassky and Fischer played a rematch in 1992, to a significant much lessened media coverage. The match, played in Belgrade, by then Yugoslavia during the civil war, meant that Fischer violated the US sanctions by visiting it, so he was persecuted by the US government until his death in 2008, at 64. Spasski then defended his former rival: "Bobby and myself committed the same crime. Put me in the same cell with Bobby Fischer and give us a chess set".

Those are some just small parts of the incredible story of these two grandmasters, as read in The Washington Post.

Anatoly Karpov, who followed Fischer as World Champion between 1975 and 1985, said that "Spassky was a genuine and unique all-rounder. He defended and attacked equally well and he accumulated positioning superiority. It was he who began the infatuation with universality, which continues to this day", as recorded by Chess Federation of Russia.