In 1970, Fischer began a new effort to become World Champion. His dramatic march toward the title made him a household name and made chess front-page news for a time. He won the title in 1972, but forfeited it three years later.
Entry into World Championship cycle from his round 3 game against
Miguel Najdorf in the 1970
Chess Olympiad in
Siegen, Germany The 1969 US Championship was also a zonal qualifier, with the top three finishers advancing to the Interzonal. Fischer, however, had sat out the US Championship, as he had sat out the 1968 championship. In his reply to the invitation, he complained that the tournament was too small and short:
Ed Edmondson, executive director of the
US Chess Federation, tried to persuade Fischer to change his mind, but to no avail. At the start of 1970, Fischer was ineligible to play in the upcoming
Palma de Mallorca Interzonal. Before the Interzonal, in March and April 1970, the world's best players competed in the
USSR vs. Rest of the World match in
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, often referred to as "the Match of the Century". There was general surprise when Fischer decided to participate. Fischer flew to Belgrade with the intention of playing for the rest of the world. Bent Larsen, however, due to his recent tournament victories, demanded to play first board instead of Fischer, even though Fischer had the higher
Elo rating. To the surprise of everyone, Fischer agreed. The USSR team eked out a 20½–19½ victory, but Fischer scored 3 - 1 against Petrosian, winning the first two games and drawing the last two. Tal marveled that "During the entire tournament he didn't leave a single pawn
en prise!", while the other players "blundered knights and bishops galore". for the
USSR vs. Rest of the World match in 1970 In April–May 1970, Fischer won at
Rovinj/
Zagreb with 13/17 (+10−1=6), by a two-point margin, ahead of Gligorić,
Hort, Korchnoi, Smyslov, and Petrosian. In July–August, Fischer crushed the mostly grandmaster field at
Buenos Aires, winning by a 3½-point margin, scoring 15/17 (+13−0=4). Fischer then played first board for the US Team in the 19th Chess Olympiad in Siegen, where he won an individual silver medal, scoring 10/13 (+8−1=4), Right after the Olympiad, Fischer defeated
Ulf Andersson in an exhibition game for the Swedish newspaper
Expressen. At the FIDE Congress, held in conjunction with the Olympiad, the possibility of modifying the Interzonal roster to allow Fischer to play was discussed. This was voted down, but it was decided that if one of the three US qualifiers dropped out on Fischer's behalf, the US Chess Federation was authorized to revise its list of entrants. Benko, one of the three qualifiers, agreed to give up his spot in the Interzonal to give Fischer another shot at the World Championship; Lombardy, who would have been "next in line" after Benko, did the same. Fischer won the Interzonal (held in
Palma de Mallorca in November and December 1970) with 18½/23 (+15−1=7), far ahead of Larsen,
Efim Geller, and
Robert Hübner, with 15/23. Fischer finished the tournament with seven consecutive wins.
Candidates matches In the 1971 Candidates matches, Fischer was set to play
Mark Taimanov, the Soviet grandmaster and concert pianist, in the quarter-finals. The match began in mid-May in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Fischer was generally favored to win. Taimanov's preparation for the match included a detailed dossier on Fischer, prepared by Botvinnik when he was in talks to play a match with Fischer in early 1970. After Fischer defeated Taimanov in the second game of the match, Taimanov asked Fischer how he managed to come up with the move 12. N1c3, to which Fischer replied "that the idea was not his—he had come across it in the monograph by the Soviet master
Alexandr Nikitin in a footnote". Taimanov said of this: "It is staggering that I, an expert on the Sicilian, should have missed this theoretically significant idea by my compatriot, while Fischer had uncovered it in a book in a foreign language!" With the score at 4–0, in Fischer's favor, the fifth game adjournment was a sight to behold. Schonberg explains the scene: Fischer beat Taimanov by the score of 6–0. There was little precedent for such a lopsided score in a match leading to the World Championship. Upon losing the final game of the match, Taimanov shrugged his shoulders, saying sadly to Fischer: "Well, I still have my music." As a result of his performance, Taimanov "was thrown out of the USSR team and forbidden to travel for two years. He was banned from writing articles, was deprived of his monthly stipend... [and] the authorities prohibited him from performing on the concert platform." Fischer was next scheduled to play against Bent Larsen. "Spassky predicted a tight struggle. 'Larsen is a little stronger in spirit. Before the match, Botvinnik had told a Soviet television audience: Fischer beat Larsen by the identical score of 6–0. Robert Byrne writes: "To a certain extent I could grasp the Taimanov match as a kind of curiosity—almost a freak, a strange chess occurrence that would never occur again. But now I am at a loss for anything whatever to say... So, it is out of the question for me to explain how Bobby, how anyone, could win six games in a row from such a genius of the game as Bent Larsen." Just a year before, Larsen had played first board for the Rest of the World team ahead of Fischer, and had handed Fischer his only loss at the Interzonal.
Garry Kasparov later wrote that no player had ever shown a superiority over his rivals comparable to Fischer's "incredible" 12–0 score in the two matches. On August 8, 1971, while preparing for his last Candidates match with former world champion Tigran Petrosian, Fischer won the
Manhattan Chess Club Rapid Tournament, scoring 21½/22 against a strong field. Despite Fischer's results against Taimanov and Larsen, his upcoming match against Petrosian seemed a daunting task. Nevertheless, the Soviet government was concerned about Fischer. "Reporters asked Petrosian whether the match would last the full twelve games... 'It might be possible that I win it earlier', Petrosian replied", and then stated: "Fischer's [nineteen consecutive] wins do not impress me. He is a great chess player but no genius." Petrosian played a strong in the first game, gaining the advantage, but Fischer eventually won the game after Petrosian faltered. This gave Fischer a run of 20 consecutive wins against the world's top players (in the Interzonal and Candidates matches), a
winning streak topped only by Steinitz's 25 straight wins in 1873–1882. Petrosian won the second game, finally snapping Fischer's streak. After three consecutive draws, Fischer swept the next four games to win the match 6½–2½ (+5−1=3).
Sports Illustrated ran an article on the match. Upon completion of the match, Petrosian remarked, "After the sixth game, Fischer really did become a genius. I, on the other hand, either had a breakdown or was tired, or something else happened, but the last three games were no longer chess." Fischer's match results befuddled Botvinnik: "It is hard to talk about Fischer's matches. Since the time that he has been playing them, miracles have begun." Fischer gained a far higher rating than any player in history up to that time. On the July 1972 FIDE rating list, his
Elo rating of 2785 was 125 points above (World No. 2) Spassky's rating of 2660. His results put him on the cover of
Life magazine, and allowed him to challenge World Champion Boris Spassky, whom he had never beaten (+0−3=2).
World Championship match Fischer's career-long stubbornness about match and tournament conditions was again seen in the run-up to his match with Spassky. Of the possible sites, Fischer's first choice was
Belgrade,
Yugoslavia, while Spassky's was
Reykjavík, Iceland. For a time, it appeared that the dispute would be resolved by splitting the match between the two locations, but that arrangement failed. After that issue was resolved, Fischer refused to appear in Iceland until the prize fund was increased. The London financier
Jim Slater donated an additional US$125,000, bringing the prize fund up to an unprecedented $250,000 ($ million in ) and Fischer finally agreed to play. Before and during the match, Fischer paid special attention to his physical training and fitness, a relatively novel approach for top chess players at that time. Leading up to this match, he conducted interviews with
60 Minutes and
Dick Cavett explaining the importance of physical fitness in his preparation. He had developed his tennis skills to a good level and played frequently on off-days in Reykjavík. He had also arranged for exclusive use of his hotel's swimming pool during specified hours, and swam for extended periods, usually late at night. According to Soviet
Grandmaster Nikolai Krogius, Fischer "was paying great attention to sport, and that he was swimming and even boxing" The match took place in Reykjavík from July to September 1972. Fischer was accompanied by William Lombardy; besides assisting with analysis, Lombardy may have played an important role in getting Fischer to play in the match and to stay in it. The match was the first to receive an American broadcast in prime time. Fischer lost the first two games in strange fashion: the first when he played a risky pawn-grab in a drawn
endgame, the second by forfeit when he refused to play the game in a dispute over playing conditions. Fischer would likely have forfeited the entire match, but Spassky, not wanting to win by default, yielded to Fischer's demands to move the next game to a back room, away from the cameras, whose presence had upset Fischer. After that game, the match was moved back to the stage and proceeded without further serious incident. Fischer won seven of the next 19 games, losing only one and drawing eleven, to win the match 12½–8½ and become the 11th World Chess Champion. It was called "The Match of the Century", and received front-page media coverage in the United States and around the world. Fischer's win was an American victory in a field that Soviet players – closely identified with and subsidized by the state – had dominated for the previous quarter-century. Kasparov remarked: "Fischer fits ideologically into the context of the Cold War era: a lone American genius challenges the Soviet chess machine and defeats it". Dutch Grandmaster
Jan Timman called Fischer's victory "the story of a lonely hero who overcomes an entire empire". Fischer's sister observed: "Bobby did all this in a country almost totally without a chess culture. It was as if an
Eskimo had cleared a tennis court in the snow and gone on to win the world championship". Upon Fischer's return to New York, a Bobby Fischer Day was held. He was offered numerous product endorsement offers worth "at least $5 million" ($ million in ), all of which he declined. He appeared on the cover of
Sports Illustrated with the American Olympic swimming champion
Mark Spitz and also appeared on
The Dick Cavett Show, as well as on a
Bob Hope TV special. Membership in the US Chess Federation doubled in 1972, and peaked in 1974; in American chess, these years are commonly referred to as the "Fischer Boom".
Forfeiture of title Fischer was scheduled to defend his title in 1975 against
Anatoly Karpov, who had
emerged as his challenger. Fischer, who had played no competitive games since his World Championship match with Spassky, laid out a proposal for the match in September 1973, in consultation with FIDE official Fred Cramer. He made three principal (non-negotiable) demands: • The match continues until one player wins 10 games, draws not counting. • No limit to the total number of games played. • In case of a 9–9 score, the champion (Fischer) retains the title, and the prize fund is split equally. Fischer argued that these demands were reasonable because otherwise a player who had taken the lead could trade some pieces and draw some games, coasting towards the title. This was arguably what had happened in the 1972 match (games 14–20 were all drawn), but it was a style of chess that Fischer found offensive. Under the proposed 10-win format, one would still have to play for a win. Many observers considered Fischer's requested 9–9 clause unfair because it would require the challenger to win by at least two games (10–8). Botvinnik called the 9–9 clause "unsporting". Korchnoi,
David Bronstein, and
Lev Alburt considered the 9–9 clause reasonable. Korchnoi in particular stated: There was also the practical issue of hosting an unlimited match. If neither player could prove superiority and the match was an endless series of draws, the match would be astronomically expensive. In response to FIDE's ruling, Fischer sent a cable to Euwe on June 27, 1974: The delegates responded by reaffirming their prior decisions, but did not accept Fischer's resignation and requested that he reconsider. Due to the continued efforts of US Chess Federation officials, a special FIDE Congress was held in March 1975 in Bergen, Netherlands, in which it was accepted that the match should be of unlimited duration, but the 9–9 clause was once again rejected, by a narrow margin of 35 votes to 32. FIDE set a deadline of April 1, 1975, for Fischer and Karpov to confirm their participation in the match. No reply was received from Fischer by April 3. Thus, by default, Karpov officially became World Champion. In his 1991 autobiography, Karpov professed regret that the match had not taken place, and claimed that the lost opportunity to challenge Fischer held back his own chess development. Karpov met with Fischer several times after 1975, in friendly but ultimately unsuccessful attempts to arrange a match, since Karpov would never agree to play to 10.
Brian Carney opined in
The Wall Street Journal that Fischer's victory over Spassky in 1972 left him nothing to prove, except that perhaps someone could someday beat him, and he was not interested in the risk of losing. He also opined that Fischer's refusal to recognize peers also allowed his paranoia to flower: "The world championship he won ... validated his view of himself as a chess player, but it also insulated him from the humanizing influences of the world around him. He descended into what can only be considered a kind of madness". Years later, in his 1992 match against Spassky, Fischer similarly said that it was Karpov who refused to play against him under Fischer's conditions. Whether Karpov could have beaten Fischer is a matter of speculation. Lev Alburt felt that the decision to not concede to Fischer's demands rested on Karpov's "sober view of what he was capable of". Spassky thought that Fischer would have won in 1975, but Karpov would have qualified again and beaten Fischer in 1978.
Garry Kasparov argued that Karpov would have had good chances, because he had beaten Spassky convincingly and was a new breed of tough professional, and indeed had higher-quality games, while Fischer had been inactive for three years. Karpov himself said in 2020 that he thought he had chances, although he could not say he would be favored. ==Sudden obscurity==