The Road to Reykjavík
The 1972 World Chess Championship nearly didn't happen. Bobby Fischer's path from the Candidates matches to the opening move in Reykjavík was an obstacle course of demands, boycotts, interventions, and last-minute rescues — a drama so improbable that it would strain credulity as fiction. The match almost collapsed at least half a dozen times before a single pawn was pushed.
The Candidates Dominance
Fischer's right to challenge Spassky was earned through the most devastating Candidates performance in history. In the 1970–71 cycle, he dispatched three elite opponents by margins that defied belief.
In the quarterfinal, he shut out Soviet grandmaster Mark Taimanov 6–0 in Vancouver. In the semifinal, he shut out Denmark's Bent Larsen 6–0 in Denver. Two consecutive 6–0 demolitions of world-class grandmasters was unprecedented. Combined with his final seven wins at the Palma de Mallorca Interzonal, Fischer carried a twenty-game winning streak into the Candidates final against former World Champion Tigran Petrosian.
Fischer won the first game against Petrosian, extending the streak to an almost incomprehensible twenty consecutive victories. Petrosian broke the streak in game two, but Fischer won the match 6½–2½.
His performance rating during the Candidates was stratospheric. His Elo rating climbed to 2785 — 125 points above Spassky's 2660, the widest gap ever recorded between a challenger and defending champion, as Kasparov later detailed in My Great Predecessors. Fischer was the overwhelming pre-match favorite. But in their head-to-head history, Spassky led 3–0 with two draws. Fischer had never beaten him.
Read the full story of Fischer's rise through the Candidates →
Fischer's Demands
Once the match was confirmed, the negotiations began — and with Fischer, negotiations were never simple.
Iceland won the hosting bid, putting up a prize fund of $125,000 — at the time, the largest in chess history. But Fischer wanted more. He demanded a share of gate receipts and television revenue. He objected to the size of the playing hall, the lighting, the chairs, the proximity of the audience, and the presence of cameras. He wanted specific brands of orange juice. He wanted a particular kind of chess set.
Some of Fischer's demands were entirely reasonable — better prize money for top-level chess was long overdue, and many of his complaints about playing conditions were later adopted as standard practice. Others seemed designed to test the limits of what organizers would tolerate. The pattern was familiar to anyone who had followed Fischer's career: he would push until he got what he wanted, or walk away entirely.
FIDE President Max Euwe — himself a former World Champion — spent weeks mediating between Fischer, Spassky's team, and the Icelandic organizers. The match was scheduled to begin on July 2, 1972.
The No-Show
Fischer did not fly to Iceland on schedule. The opening ceremony took place without him. July 2 came and went with no sign of the challenger. He was still in New York, making new demands and issuing new complaints. The Icelandic organizers were in despair. Spassky, who had arrived on time and prepared in good faith, was publicly insulted by Fischer's absence.
The chess world held its breath. Was Fischer going to forfeit the match before it even started? He had withdrawn from tournaments before — most notably the 1967 Sousse Interzonal — and many observers believed he was capable of abandoning the greatest opportunity of his career rather than accept conditions he considered inadequate.
Kissinger and Slater
Two interventions saved the match.
The first came from Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon's National Security Advisor. On the evening of July 3, Kissinger telephoned Fischer in New York. The exact words of the conversation are disputed, but the gist was captured by Fischer himself: Kissinger told him to "go over there and beat the Russians." The call underscored the political dimensions of the match — the U.S. government viewed Fischer's challenge as a Cold War opportunity, and Kissinger wanted to make sure America's chess champion showed up for the fight.
The second came from Jim Slater, a British financier and chess enthusiast. Slater publicly offered to double the prize fund, adding $125,000 of his own money to bring the total to $250,000. The gesture was accompanied by a pointed challenge: "If Fischer doesn't want to play for $250,000, we'll know what he is." Slater later said: "I made the offer to remove the money excuse and see if there was some other reason why Fischer didn't want to play."
Fischer accepted. In the early hours of July 4 — American Independence Day — he boarded a plane to Iceland.
Arrival and Final Chaos
Fischer's arrival in Reykjavík did not end the drama. He apologized to Spassky, to Euwe, and to the Icelandic organizers for the delay — a rare concession from a man who almost never apologized for anything. The first game was rescheduled for July 11.
But Fischer continued to demand changes. He objected to the television cameras installed by the Chester Fox film crew, which had paid for exclusive filming rights. He claimed the cameras were too noisy and too distracting. He demanded their removal. When the cameras remained for Game 1, Fischer was visibly agitated during play — a state of mind that may have contributed to his shocking blunder on move 29.
After Fischer lost Game 1 and forfeited Game 2 over the camera dispute, the match appeared to be over before it had truly begun. Down 0–2, Fischer booked flights back to New York. It took another round of frantic negotiation — including chief arbiter Lothar Schmid's personal appeal to Spassky "as a sportsman" — to keep the match alive.
Spassky agreed to play Game 3 in a small back room, away from the cameras and the audience. It was an extraordinary concession from the defending champion, made against the advice of his Soviet seconds. But Spassky, whatever his frustrations with Fischer's behavior, wanted to win the match over the board — not by forfeit.
That decision changed everything.