King's Gambit, Fischer Defense King's Gambit, Fischer Defense The Fischer Defense to the King's Gambit is a chess opening variation that begins with the moves: Although 3...d6 was previously known, it did not become a major variation until Fischer advocated it in a famous 1961 article in the first issue of the "American Chess Quarterly". In the "Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings", the Fischer Defense is given the code C34. After Bobby Fischer lost a 1960 game at Mar del Plata to Boris Spassky, in which Spassky played the Kieseritzky Gambit, Fischer left in tears and promptly went to work at devising a new defense
World Chess Championship 1972 an eccentric 29-year-old American, was a vocal critic of the Soviet domination of chess, because he believed that Soviet players gained an unfair advantage by agreeing to short draws among themselves in tournaments. In August 1962 "Sports Illustrated", and then in October the German magazine "Der Spiegel", published Fischer's article "The Russians Have Fixed World Chess", in which he expounded this view. Fischer himself rarely agreed to early draws in unclear positions. The pressure on Spassky was enormous because for the Soviets, chess was part of the political system. While Fischer was often famously critical of his home country ("Americans