Boris Spassky, the gentleman chess player

Now that we have left us perhaps we can stop remembering Boris Spassky tenth world champion of the history of chess, exclusively for the world match lost with Bobby Fischer in 1972 in Reykjavik. The one that is universally recognized as ‘the game of the century’ was for Spassky, universal player and master of kindness, perhaps the least Soviet among the Soviets, only an important chapter of a life 88 years long.

Spassky had the great misfortune of meeting Fischer to his maximum. But luckily he had already had the opportunity to demonstrate the (medium) game to the world. “When playing against Bobby, it’s not about winning or losing. It is a matter of survival“It was true. During that match, in Iceland, crushed by the Muscovite expectations of revenge on the Americans, Spassky showed the world what it was, and which should always be, the virtue of every chess player: absolute respect for the game and for the opponent. A value to defend in every situation, even in the face of the most oppressive of the requests, to the (Geo) politics. In St. Petersburg he had shown that there was nothing wrong with being a friend of a man born in Chicago and raised in New York.

It is an attitude, that of behaving as a gentleman, that Spassky will keep for life. He did not matter what kind of torment he had had Fischer and how much, over the years, he had shown himself more and more asocial, incorrect and even cruel and vulgar in his judgments and in his extreme positions. Spassky will defend him on every occasion, even over the years, Until President Bush, with a letter from a frightening humanity, grace for his faults, his crimes. “Bobby and I got stained with the same crime. So apply the penalties to me too: you stop me, put me in the cell with Bobby Fischer and make us have a chessboard”. For Spassky it was not a question of defending or judging a person but of understanding it and, as far as possible, to forgive her.

There is another anecdote that has always struck me in this story. “Once” Spassky said “I met Fischer in an empty restaurant. Robert, who suffered from persecution, had started to inspect the place thoroughly. He was looking for spies anywhere, everywhere. I calmed it by telling him: everything is fine, Bobby. I have already destroyed all the Soviet security cameras”. I think they can be counted on the tip of the fingers, and with great difficulty, the people who managed to guess what he really passed through the head of the American champion. Spassky was definitely one of those. Despite the behavioral distance that existed between the two. If Fischer confirmed several times that he wanted to “crush the ego” of his opponents, the Russian replied that the thing that gave him the most satisfaction It was “fighting with equal arms” with opponents of great value. Two very different people who found themselves, for superior issues, to represent adverse and conflicting worlds. Two people who, after all, wanted to “just play chess” and who met several times, over the years, not to get lost in sight.

The weight of responsibilities

Spassky was born in 1937 and meets the chess at 5 years, by train, while fleeing with his family from the siege of Leningrado. “I cried after losing the first game, with my brother Georgi.” The father disappears soon leaving the mother to raise the three children. Boris also has a sister, very strong too. That for the game was a strong, overwhelming, but not exclusive passion. He is said to be a complete athlete and that he loved to run, try his hand in distances as a sprinter, challenge his limits. In addition to the ping pong. But in the end the chess prevail.

If we used today’s rhetoric, we would talk about “child prodigy”, immediately capable of inceting youth titles in the USSR and Europe. The first ring arrives in 1947, when, at the age of ten,He defeats the Soviet champion, Michail Botvinnik, in a simultaneous performance in St. Petersburg. In 1955, in Antwerp, in Belgium, he instead became the Juniores world champion, prelude to the jump among the professionals. A jump that was not traumatic since, among the many records, it also collected that of being among the youngest of all time to qualify for a candidate tournament. Spassky, in short, was a predestined.

In 1969, overcoming Petrosian, he became world champion, to the second attempt. He also wins the Soviet championship on two occasions, in 1961 and 1973. In those years, moreover, he managed to beat all the strongest players of the time. From this to Larsen, from Korchnoi to Keres, from Smyslov to Geller. But at the same time difficult moments crossed it, full of poor results and heavy disappointments. Then comes Fischer. The first time in 1960, at Mar del Plata, in Argentina. And it is probably that a spark, a silent understanding.

The darkest period comes for Spassky after 1969 and before 1972, when he has a crown in his head. “You cannot imagine how much I felt relieved when I stopped being the world champion. They were the hardest years of my life: I was crushed by the responsibilities. I was the king but I did not receive any external help from anyone”. The naked king, the king alone. The king who loses all the possibility of percocco. Spassky (a little) as fischer.

Difficult not to believe him. Especially if we consider that the Soviet Union had dominated the chess for decades and, in Iceland, it was expected that Spassky maintained its supremacy. With all possible means. The defeat was a serious blow. In the following years he decided to move to France, even if he always maintained a link with his homeland and never denied his origins. In 2006, he described himself like a Orthodox Christian, a Russian monarchist and nationalist. One linked to the myth of the Tsars, to the roots of his people, to the faith.

His private, also dotted with difficult moments, including 3 wives and 3 children, one for marriage. And despite the coldness that often brought to the chessboard, Spassky had a difficult, angular character, in which emotions often found an unexpected, almost theatrical outburst. There are those who tell of great anger, and as many despair, for the outcome of games and tournaments. But he also had the joke ready. To a journalist who asked him if he preferred sex or chess replied: “It depends on the position”. Simple and brilliant. Exactly as his game was but also his approach to life.