World Chess Championship 1972

World Chess Championship 1972

	Defending champion	Challenger
	Boris Spassky	Bobby Fischer
	8½ Scores 12½
	Born 30 January 1937 35 years old	Born 9 March 1943 29 years old
	Winner of the 1969 World Chess Championship	Winner of the 1971 Candidates Tournament
	Rating: 2660[1] (World No. 2)	Rating: 2785[1] (World No. 1)
← 1969 1975 →

The World Chess Championship 1972 was a match for the World Chess Championship between challenger Bobby Fischer of the United States and defending champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union. The match took place in the Laugardalshöll arena in Reykjavík, Iceland, and has been dubbed the Match of the Century. Fischer became the first American born in the United States to win the world title, and the second American overall (Wilhelm Steinitz, the first world champion, became a naturalized American citizen in 1888). Fischer's win also ended, for a short time, 24 years of Soviet domination of the World Championship.

The first game was played on July 11, 1972. The last game (the 21st) began on August 31, was adjourned after 40 moves, and Spassky resigned the next day without resuming play. Fischer won the match 12½–8½, becoming the eleventh undisputed world champion. The game was covered on ABC's Wide World of Sports and W.N.E.T. Channel 13 in the United States.^[2]