World Chess Championship 1972 World Chess Championship 1972 The World Chess Championship 1972 was a match for the World Chess Championship between challenger Bobby Fischer of the United States and defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. The match took place in the Laugardalshöll arena in Reykjavík, Iceland, and has been dubbed the Match of the Century. Fischer became the first American born in the United States to win the world title, and the second American overall (Wilhelm Steinitz, the first world champion, became a naturalized American citizen in 1888). Fischer's win also ended, for a short time, 24 years of Soviet domination
Bobby Fischer world was coming to an end" and he might as well make some money by publishing "My 60 Memorable Games"; Fischer thought that the Rapture was coming soon. During the mid-1970s Fischer contributed significant money to the Worldwide Church of God. In 1972 one journalist stated that "Fischer is almost as serious about religion as he is about chess", and the champion credited his faith with greatly improving his chess. Yet, prophecies by Herbert W. Armstrong went unfulfilled, and the church was rocked by revelations of a series of sex scandals involving Garner Ted Armstrong. Fischer eventually left the church