By Julien Pretot
PARIS (Reuters) – Russian chess grandmaster Boris Spassky has died at the age of 88, International chess federation (FIDE) general director Emil Sutovsky told Reuters on Thursday.
Spassky, who took French nationality in 1978, was the 10th World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969-1972, when he lost it to American Bobby Fischer in Reykjavik in a contest later dubbed as the “Match of the Century”.
During that match in the midst of the Cold War, which he lost 12.5-8.5 despite winning the first two games, Spassky showed great sportsmanship, applauding Fischer after losing the sixth game.
Former world champion Anatoly Karpov, who beat Spassky in the semi-finals of the Candidates tournament in 1974, paid a warm tribute.
“My idols in chess were Jose Capablanca and Boris Spassky. And when I managed to beat Spassky, it was the greatest of victories and, in a sense, defeating something inside me by beating my teacher,” Karpov told state news agency RIA.
“For me, Boris Spassky was an entire era for chess. He became most famous, of course, for being the man who handed over the title to Bobby Fischer.
“But he had chances to win that match. He may have lost by a wide margin, but when everything was in his favour, he let his chances slip away.”
Spassky had been the oldest living world chess champion.
“A great personality has passed away, generations of chess players have studied and are studying his games and his work. This is a great loss for the country,” Russian Chess Federation President Andrei Filatov told the TASS news agency.
Alexander Tkachev, executive director of the Russian Chess Federation, said Spassky’s death was a huge loss for the world of chess.
“Boris Vasilevich lived in Moscow and was in contact with everyone close to him… I knew him in a different way than from books. It was always interesting to speak with him. He was a very interesting story-teller and it’s hard for me to talk about him leaving us,” Tkachev told RIA news agency.
Spassky represented France in three chess Olympiads in 1984, 1986 and 1988, and was seen playing in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris during the 1990s.
After his health deteriorated in the early 2000s, Spassky disappeared from Paris in August, 2012 before resurfacing in Moscow in October that year.
“It was my desire to return to Russia, because my time in France had run its course. It was time to start a new stage. I understood it was time to leave,” he said at the time.
(Reporting Julien Pretot and Tommy Lund in Gdansk, additional reporting by Ronald Popeski, editing by Ed Osmond)
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