Boris Spaski

Boris Vasilyevich Spaski, also anglicized as Boris Spassky (in Russian, Бори́с Васи́льевич Спа́сский; Leningrad, 30 January 1937), is a French nationalized Soviet-Russian International Chess Grandmaster. He was proclaimed tenth world chess champion in 1969 by defeating Tigrán Petrosián, also a Soviet player.

Early Years

Spassky was born in Leningrad, present-day Saint Petersburg, to Russian parents. Her father, Vasily Vladimirovich, was a member of the army. as well as a deputy of the duma (1912-17), and an active member of the Union of the Russian People. Boris's mother, Ekaterina Petrovna Spasskaya (née Petrova), was a schoolteacher. She was born in the village of Ryadnevo, in the Gdov district, which currently belongs to the Pskov Oblast, the illegitimate daughter of Daria Ivanovna Ivanova, from a peasant family, and Andrei Kuprianovich Kupriyanov, a landlord who had houses in Saint Petersburg and Pskov. After some time, Daria Ivanovna went to St. Petersburg, leaving her daughter with a relative named Petr Vasillev, who raised Ekaterina and gave her the surname Petrova; she would later join her mother.

Spasky learned to play chess at the age of five, while on a train following the evacuation of Leningrad during the siege of the city by Nazi troops in World War II. He came to attention when he defeated Soviet Union champion Mikhail Botvinnik in a simulcast match in Leningrad in 1947, at just ten years old.Spasky's first coach was Vladimir Zak, a highly respected teacher. During his youth, from the age of ten, he used to study the game, for many hours a day, with high-level teachers. He set records as the youngest Soviet to reach the first category level (age 10), master candidate (age 11), and master (age 15). In 1952, at the age of fifteen, he scored 50% in the semi-final of the Soviet championship in Riga, and came second in the Leningrad championship the same year, much to Botvinnik's praise.

Career

He was a child chess prodigy and his style was universal: he beat Mikhail Tal with attacks on the king, Tigrán Petrosian with prophylaxis.

Spassky decided to change coaches, from the volatile attacker Alexander Tolush to the calmer tactician Igor Bondarevski. This turned out to be the key to his revival. He won the first of two USSR titles at the 29th Soviet championship in Baku 1961, with a score of 14½/20, half a point ahead of Lev Polugaevsky. Spaski shared second with Polugaievski in Havana 1962 with 16/21, behind the winner Miguel Najdorf. He placed fifth, with Leonid Stein at the 31st Soviet championship held in Yerevan 1962, with 11½/19. At Leningrad 1963, site of the 31st Soviet final, Spaski tied for first with Stein and Ratmir Kholmov, with Stein. winning the tie-break, which was held in 1964. Spaski won Belgrade 1964 with an unbeaten 13/17, while Korchnoi and Borislav Ivkov shared second place with 11½. He finished fourth at Sochi 1964 with 9½/15, when Nikolai Krogius won. In 1966, he came to dispute the title of World Champion against Tigran Petrosian, but he, displaying an aggressive game like the one proposed by Boris, managed to retain the crown. In 1969 he managed to snatch it away, making a positional game like the one proposed by Tigran, thus consecrating himself World Champion.

Variant Spaski of the Marshall Attack (1963) Judas: 1.e4 e5 2.Cf3 Cc6 3.Ab5 a6 4.Aa4 Cf6 5.0-0 Ae7 6.Te1 b5 7.Ab3 0-0 8.c3 d5 9.ed5 Cd5 10.Ce5 Ce5 11.Te5 c6 12.d4 Ad6 13.Te1 Dh4 14.g3 Dh3 16.Ae3

Although he made enough merits to go down in history as a great player, more than for his contribution to the development of chess, he is known for being the player who lost to the American Robert James Fischer in the match held in Reykjavik (Iceland).) in 1972, which was called the «meeting of the century». It was held in the middle of the cold war and was a symbol of the confrontation between the two superpowers. Until then, Fischer had not beaten Spaski, who also prepared the championship with Yefim Géler, who had also beaten Fischer in the past. But the American won conclusively through a series of surprising starts, which sought to throw Spaski's preparation to the ground. The final result was 12.5 - 8.5 in favor of the American. After the match, Spaski was no longer the dominant player he had been before. But he would win the Ciudad de Linares International Chess Tournament in 1983. He fell out of favor in the Soviet Union, becoming a French national in 1984.

Later, he participated in several qualifying cycles for the world title. In 1974, he was eliminated in the semifinals by Anatoli Kárpov, future world champion, and in 1978 he reached the semifinal, where he was defeated by Viktor Korchnoi.

In 1992, he played a revenge match with Bobby Fischer in Sveti Stefan (in what is now Montenegro, then Yugoslavia), in which he was defeated again. In this last game, the level of the contenders was far from that which elevated them in the world of chess; but it created a great expectation, since it supposed the return of Fischer to the boards after twenty years of absence. It was organized by a Yugoslav businessman with a purse of 5 million dollars (3.35 million for the winner and 1.65 million for the loser).