World Chess Championship 1972 Kasparov, had prearranged outcomes. He then challenged Spassky (tied for 96th–102nd on the FIDE rating list at the time) to a rematch, leading to the 1992 Fischer–Spassky match. 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
World Chess Championship champion retained the title if the match was tied at 12–12 including draws. Eventually FIDE deposed Fischer and crowned Karpov as the new champion. Fischer privately maintained that he was still World Champion. He went into seclusion and did not play chess in public again until 1992, when he offered Spassky a rematch, again for the World Championship. The Fischer–Spassky (1992 match) attracted good media coverage, but the chess world did not take this claim to the championship seriously. Karpov dominated the 1970s and early 1980s with an incredible string of tournament successes. He convincingly demonstrated that he was the