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Fischer – Spassky 1972

Match of the Century Revisited

Tibor Karolyi author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Quality Chess UK LLP

Published:7th Sep '22

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Fischer – Spassky 1972 cover

The World Championship match between Fischer and Spassky in Reykjavik 1972 was played at the height of the Cold War. The image of a lone American genius defeating the Soviet machine captivated a worldwide audience unlike anything else in chess history. Exactly fifty years later, Fischer – Spassky 1972 takes a fresh look at both the chess and the human aspects of this monumental match.

Bobby Fischer is one of the greatest chess players of all time. His astonishing journey up to the 1972 match was documented in The Road to Reykjavik. In this volume, award-winning author Tibor Karolyi completes his study of Fischer’s career with in-depth analysis of the legendary Reykjavik match and the controversial Fischer – Spassky 1992 rematch.

"How do you tell a story that has been told many times? Károlyi does not choose to create something new, but opts for a contemplative approach, in which he analyses various sources about the match in addition to the games. He covers key perspectives by covering each side’s comments from both the most famous grandmasters of the day and the mainstream media (particularly the New York Times). This gives the reader a real sense of the interest there was in both matches at the time and exposes you to the discrepancy between American and Russian sources…

Still, it would not do the book enough justice to consider it merely a summary of earlier sources. The analyses are strong, accessible and offer surprising insights that had not been noticed before, giving the book its unique character." -- IM Herman Grooten


"50 years on this is the ‘Match of the Century Revisited’ and unsurprisingly the combination of Karolyi and Quality Chess has done a fine job." -- CHESS magazine

ISBN: 9781784831790

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 960g

520 pages