Bobby Fischer

Boris Spassky and Mr. Fischer, right, met at the XIX World Chess Olympiad in Siegen, Germany, in 1970.

Bobby Fischer stopped playing serious chess after beating Boris Spassky in their World Chess Championship Match in 1972. In 1974, Anatoly Karpov qualified as the challenger for the next match against Bobby Fischer. The latter, however, refused to defend his title. On April 3rd, 1975, Karpov was declared the 12th World Champion. In his book “Memoirs of a Chess World Champion”, Karpov writes: “I don’t know how Fischer feels about it, but I consider it a huge loss that he and I never played our match. I felt like the child who has been promised a wonderful toy and has it offered to him but then, at the last moment, it’s taken away.” But what would have happened had Bobby Fischer played Anatoly Karpov in 1975? Would Fischer have been able to defend his title or would Karpov have won the match? To cut a long story short – Sadly, we’ll never know the answer. However, it is still tempting to speculate about the outcome of the match which never took place. In his latest chess video, IM Valeri Lilov takes a closer look at an interesting two-part article on chess.com in which the author claims that a four-game match between Fischer and Karpov took place in a parallel universe. IM Lilov investigates these 4 games as he is very impressed by the game’s quality. Even if all the games are fictional, it is still highly instructive to analyze them as they reflect the playing style of both players very well. Go to Fischer Wikipedia Page