19
Feb
Boris Spassky – Soviet Union
Boris Vasilievich Spassky (also Spasskia) (Russian: БориÌÑ Ð’Ð°ÑиÌльевич СпаÌÑÑкий) (born January 30, 1937) is a Russian chess player and former world champion.
Early life
He was born in Leningrad, and learned to play chess at the age of five on the train evacuating from Leningrad during World War II. Spassky was the most impressive Soviet chess prodigy since Mikhail Botvinnik. He first drew wide attention in 1947 at age ten, when he defeated Soviet champion Botvinnik in a simultaneous exhibition. His early coach was Vladimir Zak, a respected master and trainer.
Towards Grandmastership
At age 16, Spassky scored very impressively in 1953 at a strong international tournament in Bucharest, Romania. At age 18 he won the World Junior Chess Championship held at Antwerp, Belgium, and became a Grandmaster, a record at the time. Spassky competed for the Lokomotiv Voluntary Sports Society. He qualified from the 1955 Goteborg Interzonal into the 1956 Candidates’ Tournament, held in Amsterdam, where he finished in the middle of the ten-player world-class field, astonishing for a 19-year-old. Expectations for him were very high, and this put pressure on the young star.
But Spassky then went into a comparative slump, failing to qualify out of the extraordinarily strong Soviet vanguard into the world title series of 1958 and 1961. A switch in trainers, from the volatile attacker Alexander Tolush to the calmer strategist Igor Bondarevsky, proved the key to his resurgence. He won his first of two USSR Championships at Baku 1961. He qualified from the 1964 Soviet Zonal into the Amsterdam Interzonal the same year, where he tied for first place, and qualified for the Candidiates’ Matches the next year. With Bondarevsky, Spassky’s style broadened and deepened, with poor results mostly banished, yet his fighting spirit was even enhanced. He added psychology and surprise to his quiver, and this proved enough to send him to the top.
World Champion
Spassky was considered an all-rounder on the chess board, and his adaptable “universal style” was a distinct advantage in beating many top Grandmasters. In the 1965 cycle, he beat Paul Keres with careful strategy, and Efim Geller with mating attacks. Then, in his Candidates’ Final match (the match which determines who will challenge the reigning world champion for the title) against Mikhail Tal the legendary tactician (Tbilisi 1965), Spassky often managed to steer play into quieter positions, either avoiding former champion Tal’s tactical strength, or extracting too high a price for complications. This led to his first World Championship match against Tigran Petrosian in 1966. Spassky lost the match with 3 wins against Petrosian’s 4 wins, with the two sharing 17 draws. In the next two years, his playing success again gained the right to challenge Petrosian, as he won three Candidates’ matches, over Geller, Bent Larsen, and Viktor Korchnoi. Spassky’s flexibility of style was the key to his eventual victory over Petrosian by two points in the 1969 World Championship, by adopting Petrosian’s negative style.
Spassky’s reign as a world champion only lasted for three years, as he lost to Bobby Fischer of the United States in 1972 in the “Match of the Century”. The contest took place in ReykjavÃk, Iceland, at the height of the Cold War, and consequently was seen as symbolic of the political confrontation between the two superpowers. Going into the match, Fischer had never won a game from Spassky in five attempts, while losing three times. In addition, Spassky had secured Geller as his coach, and Geller also had a plus score against Fischer. However Fischer was in excellent form, and won the title match convincingly.
Continues to challenge
Spassky continued to play, winning several championships, including the 1973 Soviet championship, which was a very important tournament for him. In the 1974 Candidates’ matches, Spassky first defeated American Robert Byrne, but then lost the semi-final match to the up-and-coming Anatoly Karpov in Leningrad, +1 -4 =6. Karpov had publicly acknowledged that Spassky was superior, but had nevertheless outplayed him over the board. In 1977 he reached the Candidates’ final, but lost to Korchnoi, +4 -7 =7. This was the last time he would be a serious contender for the world championship, although he remained one of the world’s elite players through to the mid-1980’s, and reached the Candidates’ matches in 1980 and 1985.
Later career
Spassky’s later years showed a reluctance to totally devote himself to chess. He relied on his natural talent for the game, and sometimes would rather play a game of tennis than work hard at the board. Since 1976, Spassky has been happily settled in France with his third wife; he became a French citizen in 1978, and has competed for France in the Chess Olympiads.
In 1992, Fischer, after a 20-year hiatus from chess, re-emerged to arrange a “Revenge Match of the 20th century” against Spassky in Montenegro and Belgrade; this was a re-enactment of the 1972 World Championship. At the time, Spassky was rated 106th in the FIDE rankings, and Fischer didn’t appear on the list at all (owing to his 20-year inactivity). This match was essentially Spassky’s last major challenge. Spassky lost the match with a score of +5 -10 =15.
On October 1, 2006, Spassky suffered a stroke during a chess lecture in San Francisco; his wife Marina reported several days later that Spassky was doing well. [1]
Legacy
Spassky’s best years were as a youthful prodigy in the mid 1950s, and then again as a mature warrior in the mid to late 1960s. He seemed to lose ambition once he became World Champion. Perhaps since the climb had been so difficult, through so many super-strong Soviet players, he had little left at that stage. The first match with Fischer took a severe nervous toll; his preparation was largely bypassed by Fischer. He keenly felt the disappointment of his nation for losing the title.
Never a true openings maven, at least when compared to contemporaries such as Geller and Fischer, he excelled in the middlegame with highly imaginitive yet usually sound and deeply planned play, which could erupt into tactical violence as needed.
Spassky succeeded with a wide variety of openings, including the King’s Gambit, an aggressive line rarely seen at the top level. His contributions to opening theory extend to reviving the Marshall Attack in the Ruy Lopez, developing the Leningrad Variation for White in the Nimzo-Indian Defence, the Spassky Variation on the Black side of the Nimzo-Indian, and the Closed Variation of the Sicilian Defence for White. Spassky is respected as a universal player, one of the classiest gentlemen in the history of chess, a great storyteller, a bon vivant on occasion, and someone who is rarely afraid to speak his mind on controversial chess issues, and who usually has something important to relate.
Source page: Wikipedia under Wikipedia license
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