Boris Spassky, former world chess champion, died yesterday. His match against Bobby Fischer in 1972 put the game on the front pages of the world's newspapers.
He was brave and fluent player, who made you feel that you could play attacking chess like that too. He was equally at home playing king's pawn and queen's pawn openings as White - a novelty in those days, but now something expected of every grandmaster. I'm reminded of the way W.G. Grace revolutionised batting in cricket by being able to play off the front and back foot.
There's a good obituary in chess.com, which gives full details of his career and some examples of his brilliant play.
In one of my columns for the Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy, I quoted David Edmonds and John Eidinow's Bobby Fischer Goes to War:
In the summer of 1946, Spassky passed his days watching the players in a chess pavilion "with a black knight on top" on an island in Leningrad's river Neva. "Long queen moves fascinated me," he recalls. "I fell in love with the white queen. I dreamed about caressing her in my pocket, but I did not dare to steal her. Chess is pure for me."
Spassky had learnt how the pieces move by watching older children play when he was sent to an orphanage during the Siege of Leningrad. When he was back home, his first trainer used to feed him as well as teach chess. He remembered those summer days in the chess pavilion:
He had thirteen kopeks for his fare and a glass of water with syrup to see him through until the last streetcar carried him home. His feet were bare. "Soldiers' boots were my worst enemy."
As I added in that column, chess can be a great escape.
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