Boris Spassky Boris Spassky Boris Vasilievich Spassky (; born January 30, 1937) is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the tenth World Chess Champion, holding the title from 1969 to 1972. Spassky played three world championship matches: he lost to Tigran Petrosian in 1966; defeated Petrosian in 1969 to become world champion; then lost to Bobby Fischer in a famous match in 1972. Spassky won the Soviet Chess Championship twice outright (1961, 1973), and twice lost in playoffs (1956, 1963), after tying for first place during the event proper. He was a World Chess Championship candidate on seven occasions (1956, 1965, 1968,
San Antonio 1972 chess tournament Gligoric, Paul Keres and Bent Larsen, and some promising stars, among them Brazilian Henrique da Costa Mecking and future world champion Anatoly Karpov. As a Category XII event (average rating of 2539), the San Antonio Church's Fried Chicken Inc. First International Chess Tournament was strong enough to be regarded at the time the most important chess competition to be held in american soil since New York 1924 (which attracted at the time elite players like Emanuel Lasker, Alexander Alekhine, José Raul Capablanca, Frank Marshall and Richard Réti, among many others). Newly crowned world champion Fischer and deposed champion Spassky were