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
Bobby Fischer and 15 draws. Kasparov stated, "Bobby is playing OK, nothing more. Maybe his strength is 2600 or 2650. It wouldn't be close between us". Yasser Seirawan believed that the match proved that Fischer's playing strength was "somewhere in the top ten in the world". Fischer and Spassky gave ten press conferences during the match. Seirawan attended the match and met with Fischer on several occasions; the two analyzed some match games and had personal discourse. Seirawan later wrote: "After September 23 [1992], I threw most of what I'd ever read about Bobby out of my head. Sheer garbage. Bobby is