Chess right of a deposed champion to a rematch, and the next champion, Armenian Tigran Petrosian, a player renowned for his defensive and positional skills, held the title for two cycles, 1963–1969. His successor, Boris Spassky from Russia (champion 1969–1972), won games in both positional and sharp tactical style. The next championship, the so-called Match of the Century, saw the first non-Soviet challenger since World War II, American Bobby Fischer, who defeated his Candidates opponents by unheard-of margins and clearly won the world championship match. In 1975, however, Fischer refused to defend his title against Soviet Anatoly Karpov when FIDE did
Bobby Fischer del Plata (scoring 10/14), a half-point behind Luděk Pachman and Miguel Najdorf. He tied for 4–6th in Santiago (scoring 7½/12) behind Ivkov, Pachman, and Herman Pilnik. At the Zürich International Tournament, spring 1959, Fischer finished a point behind future World Champion Mikhail Tal and a half-point behind Yugoslavian grandmaster Svetozar Gligorić. Although Fischer had ended his formal education at age 16, dropping out of Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, he subsequently taught himself several foreign languages so he could read foreign chess periodicals. According to Latvian chess master Alexander Koblencs, even he and Tal could not match the commitment