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 1972 of the World Championship. The first game was played on July 11, 1972. The last game (the 21st) began on August 31, was after 40 moves, and Spassky resigned the next day without resuming play. Fischer won the match 12½–8½, becoming the eleventh undisputed World Champion. In 2016, former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov commented on the global significance of the match, saying: I think the reason you look at these matches probably was not so much the chess factor but to the political element, which was inevitable because in the Soviet Union, chess was treated by the Soviet authorities