Boris Spassky

Boris Vasilyevich Spassky (Russian: Борис Васильевич Спасский; January 30, 1937 – February 27, 2025) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster who was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. Spassky played three world championship matches: he lost to Tigran Petrosian in 1966; defeated Petrosian in 1969 to become world champion; then lost to Bobby Fischer in a famous match in 1972.

Spassky won the Soviet Chess Championship twice outright (1961, 1973), and twice lost in playoffs (1956, 1963), after tying for first place during the event proper. He was a World Chess Championship candidate on seven occasions (1956, 1965, 1968, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1985). In addition to his Candidates wins in 1965 and 1968, Spassky reached the semi-final stage in 1974 and the final stage in 1977.

Spassky immigrated to France in 1976 and became a French citizen in 1978. He continued to compete in tournaments, but was no longer a major contender for the world title. Spassky lost an unofficial rematch against Fischer in 1992. In 2012, he left France and returned to Russia.

Boris Vasilyevich Spassky was born in Leningrad, into a Russian family, on January 30, 1937. His father, Vasili Vladimirovich Spassky, served in the military. He came from the family of Vladimir Alexandrovich Spassky, a prominent Russian Orthodox priest of the Kursk Governorate, later a protoiereus of the Russian Church (since 1916), as well as a State Duma deputy (1912–1917) 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 Ryadnevo village of the Gdov district (now Pskov Oblast) as an illegitimate daughter of Daria Ivanovna Ivanova (from a local peasant family) and Andrei Kupriyanovich Kupriyanov, a landlord who owned houses in Saint Petersburg and Pskov. After some time Daria Ivanovna fled to St. Petersburg, leaving her daughter with Petr Vasiliev, a relative of hers, who raised Ekaterina under the surname of Petrova. She joined her mother later on.

Spassky learned to play chess at the age of five on a train evacuating from Leningrad during the siege of Leningrad in World War II. During the war, he was sent to an orphanage in Siberia. He first drew wide attention in 1947, aged 10, when he defeated Soviet champion Mikhail Botvinnik in a simultaneous exhibition in Leningrad. Spassky's early coach was Vladimir Zak, a respected master and trainer. During his youth, from the age of 10, Spassky often worked on chess for several hours a day with master-level coaches. He set records as the youngest Soviet player to achieve first category rank (aged 10), candidate master rank (aged 11),^{[citation needed]} and Soviet Master rank (aged 15). In 1952, aged 15, Spassky scored 50 percent in the Soviet Championship semi-final at Riga, and placed second in the Leningrad Championship that same year, for which he was highly praised by Botvinnik.^{[citation needed]}

As a statistic encompassing all of the games of his career, Spassky's most-played openings with both the White and Black pieces were the Sicilian Defence and the Ruy Lopez.

Spassky beat six undisputed World Champions at least twice (not necessarily while they were reigning): Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, and Garry Kasparov.^{[citation needed]}

Spassky made his international debut in 1953, aged sixteen, in Bucharest, Romania, finishing tied for fourth place with László Szabó on 12/19, an event won by his trainer, Alexander Tolush. At Bucharest he defeated Vasily Smyslov, who challenged for the World Championship the following year. In the same year, Spassky was awarded the title of International Master by FIDE at its congress in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. In his first attempt at the Soviet Championship final, the 22nd in the series, held in Moscow 1955, Spassky tied for third place with 11½/19, after Smyslov and Efim Geller, which was sufficient to qualify him for the Gothenburg Interzonal later that year.^{[citation needed]}