Blogs
Fischer - Spassky 1972 WCH, Game 8 (A39 - English Opening)

Fischer - Spassky 1972 WCH, Game 8 (A39 - English Opening)

NimzoRoy
| 3

Fischer played a TN (theoretical novelty) in the English Opening - Symmetrical System - 4 Kts Variation on his 10th move, but Spassky took it in stride and had a playable game with a likely draw until he decided to unnecessarily sac the exchange on move 15. Even then he had fair compensation - a Bishop and pawn for Rook and the Bishop pair, but four moves later he made a gross blunder insuring his eventual defeat. With commentary and analysis from several GMs (Evans, Gligoric, Flohr, Kotov and Evans) and several more Soviet masters you'll get to see many diverging opinions that make the game much more interesting than just relying on one source for analysis and commentary.

Halldor Petursson (1911 - 1976) was a famous caricature artist in Iceland who drew 18 cartoons on the match for a local newspaper. I say 18 because the link to them shows 18 of them in postcard form, maybe he did even more that didn't end up in the postcard series. The cartoons cannot be seen in their full splendor here so be sure to view them at their source.                                          http://www.dos.is/chess/3_halldor_postcards.html

Above: Bobby, who liked to bowl when he wasn't playing chess, bowls over a hapless Spassky while his seconds GMs Geller (far left) and Krogius (left) look on unhappily. Chief Match Arbiter GM Schmid (wearing sunglasses) looks on while Fischer's second GM Lombardy is on the far right and his atty Fred Kramer (bald, wearing glasses) is cheering him on.