Spassky's Best Games

The Russian Boris Spassky was a chess genius who became World Champion in 1969. But he was also kind in defeat after losing his title to American Bobby Fischer in 1972 in the Match of the Century.

This biography includes sixty of Spassky's best games, annotated by former Russian champion Alexey Bezgodov, and a biographical outline of over a hundred pages, written by Dmitry Aleynikov, director of the Moscow Chess Museum.

Spassky was born in St. Petersburg in 1937, moved to France in 1976 and returned to Russia in 2010. On his way to the World Championship, he convincingly defeated all his contemporaries in matches, including Paul Keres, Efim Geller, Mikhail Tal, Bent Larsen and Viktor Korchnoi. He lost his first match for the final title against Tigran Petrosian, but won on his second attempt in 1969. With his full style, fighting spirit and psychological acumen, he could beat anyone at any time and, for example, won at least two matches against six world champions: Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov.

It 's Alexey Bezgodov he's a grandmaster and former russian champion. For New In Chess, he wrote books on world champion Tigran Petrosian and the Caro-Kann and Tarrasch chess openings. Russian politician he's the director of the Moscow Chess Museum.