Boris Spassky, Soviet chess champion who lost Cold War-era match to Bobby Fischer, dies at 88

MOSCOW (AP) — Boris Spassky, a Soviet-era world chess champion who lost his title to American Bobby Fischer in a legendary 1972 match that became a proxy for Cold War rivalries, died on Thursday in Moscow. He was 88.

The death of the one-time chess prodigy was announced by the International Chess Federation, the game's governing body. No cause was given.

Spassky was "one of the greatest players of all time," the group said on the social platform X. He “left an indelible mark on the game.”

The televised 1972 match with Fischer, at the height of the Cold War, became an international sensation and became known as the “Match of the Century.”

When Fischer won the international chess crown in Reykjavik, Iceland, the then-29-year-old chess genius from Brooklyn, New York, brought the U.S. its first world chess title.

Fischer, known to be testy and difficult, died in 2008.

Former world champion Garry Kasparov wrote on X that Spassky “was never above befriending and mentoring the next generation, especially those of us who, like him, didn’t fit comfortably into the Soviet machine.”

Spassky emigrated to France in 1976.

On its website, the chess federation called Spassky's match with Fischer “one of the most iconic” in the history of the game.

Yugoslav grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric said that Spassky's secret strength “lay in his colossal skill in adapting himself to the different styles of his opponents,” the Washington Post reported.