Boris Vasilievich Spassky ( also Spasskij ; ; born January 30, 1937 ) is a Soviet-French chess grandmaster.

In addition, Spassky had secured Geller as his coach, who also had a plus score against Fischer.

Spassky won an exhibition match over Robert Hübner at Solingen, 1977 by 3½ – 2½, then defeated Lubomir Kavalek, also at Solingen, by 4 – 2 in another exhibition.

Topalov has also been similarly denounced by numerous top players, including former World Champions Anatoly Karpov, Boris Spassky, and Viswanathan Anand, grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi, former US Champions Lev Alburt and Yasser Seirawan, and others.

It was also a venue for political conferences, and an occasional chess venue, attracting top-class players such as Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer.

Fischer also had a much higher Elo rating than Spassky, or indeed any player in history.

Evans has also commentated on some of the most important matches for Time magazine and ABC's Wide World of Sports, including the 1972 Fischer versus Spassky match, the 1993 PCA world title battle between Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short and the Braingames world chess championship match between Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov in 2000.

Adams first played there at age 10, and by 12 missed an international master result by only half a point in his Lloyds Bank Masters debut where, in line with Barden's policy of matching the best talents against top grandmasters, he also performed well in a blitz game against Spassky.

Geller was also a coach to World Champions Boris Spassky and Anatoly Karpov.

Although it is not unknown for Black to play also on the kingside with, for example, a breakout with Nh5 in conjunction with f5, Fischer and Kasparov won famous games with this strategy against Boris Spassky and Viktor Korchnoi, respectively.

Annotators ' use of punctuation also tends to be influenced by the result of the game ; in the 11th game of the 1972 World Championship, Spassky played a very surprising move, 14. Nb1, retreating the knight to its initial square.

Boris Spassky also played the St. George Defence, albeit by transposition, in the 22nd game of his 1966 world championship match against World Champion Tigran Petrosian.

Spassky won the first game as Black in good style, but tenacious, aggressive play from Karpov secured him overall victory by + 4 − 1 = 6.

Spassky thought that Fischer would have won in 1975 but Karpov would have qualified again and beaten Fischer in 1978.

Polgár is the only woman to have won a game from a current world number one player, and has defeated nine current or former world champions in either rapid or classical chess: Anatoli Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Boris Spassky, Vasily Smyslov, Veselin Topalov, Viswanathan Anand, Ruslan Ponomariov, Alexander Khalifman, and Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

Spassky won the Soviet Chess Championship twice outright ( 1961, 1973 ), and twice lost in playoffs ( 1956, 1963 ), after tying for first place during the event proper.

Spassky made his international debut in 1953, aged sixteen, in Bucharest, Romania, finishing equal fourth with Laszlo Szabo on 12 / 19, an event won by his trainer, Alexander Tolush.

At the 23rd Soviet final, held in Leningrad in January – February 1956, Spassky shared first place on 11½ / 19, with Mark Taimanov and Yuri Averbakh, but Taimanov won the subsequent playoff to become champion, defeating Spassky in both their games.

In the 24th Soviet final, played at Moscow in January – February 1957, Spassky shared fourth place with Tolush, as both scored 13 / 21, while Mikhail Tal won the first of his six Soviet titles, which began his ascent to the world title in 1960.

Another disappointment for Spassky came at the qualifier for the next Interzonal, the Soviet final, played in Moscow 1961, where he again lost a crucial last-round game, this to Leonid Stein, who thus qualified, as Spassky finished equal fifth with 11 / 19, while Petrosian won.

Spassky won at Belgrade 1964 with an undefeated 13 / 17, as Korchnoi and Borislav Ivkov shared second place with 11½.

In the 1964 Soviet Zonal at Moscow, a seven-player double round-robin event, Spassky won with 7 / 12, overcoming a start of one draw and two losses, to advance to the Amsterdam Interzonal the same year.

Spassky won two tournaments in the run-up to the final.

In March – April 1970, Spassky played first board for the Soviet side in the celebrated USSR vs. World event at Belgrade, where he scored + 1 − 1 = 1 in the first three rounds against Larsen before Stein replaced him for the final match, as the Soviets won by the odd point, 20½ – 19½.

In November and December, Spassky finished the year by tying for sixth with Tal, scoring + 4 − 2 = 11, at the Alekhine Memorial in Moscow, which was won by Stein and Anatoly Karpov, the latter's first top-class success.

Going into the match, Fischer had never won a game from Spassky in five attempts, losing three.

During 1975, Spassky played two events, the first being the annual tournament at Tallinn, where he finished equal second with Fridrik Olafsson, scoring 9½ / 15 (+ 5 − 1 = 9 ), one point behind Keres, the last international event won by the latter before his sudden death in June 1975.

Spassky won an exhibition match with Dutch grandmaster Jan Timman at Amsterdam 1977 by 4 – 2.

This match saw Spassky fall ill, exhaust all his available rest days while recovering ; then the healthy Hort used one of his own rest days, to allow Spassky more time to recover ; Spassky eventually won the match.

His next Candidates ' match was against Portisch at Geneva 1977, and Spassky won by 8½ – 6½, to qualify for the final.

In this match, Spassky fell behind behind 2½ – 7½ after losing the tenth game ; however, he then won four consecutive games.

Karpov improved so quickly under Botvinnik's tutelage that he became the youngest Soviet National Master in history at fifteen in 1966 ; this tied the record established by Boris Spassky in 1952.

In 1969, Karpov became the first Soviet player since Spassky ( 1955 ) to win the World Junior Chess Championship, scoring an undefeated 10 / 11 in the finals at Stockholm.

In 1952, at fifteen, Spassky scored 50 percent in the Soviet Championship semifinal at Riga, and placed second in the Leningrad Championship that same year, being highly praised by Botvinnik.

In his first attempt at the Soviet Championship final, the 22nd in the series, held in Moscow 1955, Spassky tied for third place with 11½ / 19, after Smyslov and Efim Geller, which was sufficient to qualify him for the Gothenburg Interzonal later that year.

By sharing seventh place with 11 / 20 at Gothenburg, Spassky qualified for the 1956 Candidates ' Tournament, held in Amsterdam, automatically gaining the grandmaster title, and was then the youngest to hold the title.

Spassky tied for first place at Moscow 1959 on 7 / 11, with Smyslov and David Bronstein.

Soon after Spassky notched a victory at Riga 1959, with 11½ / 13, one-half point in front of Vladas Mikenas.

Spassky finished in a tie for ninth at the 27th Soviet final in Leningrad, with 10 / 19, as fellow Leningrader Viktor Korchnoi scored his first of four Soviet titles.

Spassky travelled to Argentina, where he shared first place with Bobby Fischer, two points ahead of Bronstein, at Mar del Plata 1960 on 13½ / 15, defeating Fischer in their first career meeting.

Spassky shared second with Polugaevsky at Havana 1962 with 16 / 21, behind winner Miguel Najdorf.

Then, in his Candidates ' Final match against Mikhail Tal at Tbilisi 1965, Spassky often managed to steer play into quieter positions, either avoiding former champion Tal's tactical strength, or extracting too high a price for complications.

Spassky then finished ahead of Petrosian and a super-class field at Santa Monica 1966 ( the Piatigorsky Cup ), with 11½ / 18, half a point ahead of Bobby Fischer, as he overcame the American grandmaster's challenge after Fischer had scored 3½ / 9 in the first cycle of the event.

The final was against his Leningrad rival Korchnoi at Kiev, and Spassky triumphed (+ 4 − 1 = 5 ), which earned him another match with Petrosian.

Spassky shared first at the annual IBM event held in Amsterdam 1970 with Polugaevsky on 11½ / 15.

In February – March 1973, Spassky finished equal third at Tallinn with 9 / 15, three points behind Tal ; he tied for first at Dortmund on 9½ / 15 (+ 5 − 1 = 9 ) with Hans-Joachim Hecht and Ulf Andersson.