World Chess Championship 1969 World Chess Championship 1969 The 1969 World Chess Championship was played between Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky in Moscow from April 14 to June 17, 1969. Spassky won. The 1967 Interzonal Tournament was played in Sousse, Tunisia in October and November. The first six placegetters qualified for the Candidates, along with Boris Spassky and Mikhail Tal who were seeded into the Candidates matches as finalists of the previous tournament. A major controversy occurred when Bobby Fischer, who was leading the tournament with seven wins and three draws in ten rounds, abandoned the event over a dispute with the organisers. Because
American Chess Quarterly in its pages was "A Bust to the King's Gambit" by U.S. Champion and future World Champion Bobby Fischer, which appeared as the first article in the first issue. In that article, Fischer advocated what became known as the Fischer Defense to the King's Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d6), brashly claiming, "In my opinion the King's Gambit is busted. It loses by force." Fischer later played the King's Gambit himself with great success, winning all three tournament games in which he played it, but choosing the Bishop's Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Bc4) rather than the King's Knight's