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Grandmaster Korchnoi Plays Las Vegas

An Evening with Boris Spassky | Spassky-Bronstein USSR Championship 1960 King's Gambit

Grandmaster Larry Evans Lecture | Fischer-Evans Game

Boris Spassky Events

Simultaneous Exhibition | Book Signing Event | Chess Lecture

Review of Clash of the Titans BBC Documentary

10th World Champion Boris Spassky makes appearance out West!

Chess players in the western region of the country were treated to an amazing 5 days of being with former World Champion Boris Spassky. As the special guests of Jerry and Fran Weikel the tournament organizers, Boris Spassky and his wife, Marina from Meudon, France were the center of attention during the Western States Open Chess Tournament in Reno, Nevada.

An Evening with Boris Spassky

The festivities started with a special "Evening with Boris" dinner presentation at the Sands Regency Hotel where the tournament was held. With an elaborate spread equal to any wedding reception, Boris was feted by a host of chess dignitaries, chess players and aficionados.


The dinner lasted over 3 and ½ hours because of all the story telling and memories that Boris brought to life about his career in chess. The high point of his career was becoming the 10th World Champion in 1969 (when "World Champion" meant something, his words) by beating Tigran Petrosian in a second attempt at the crown.

IM Anthony Saidy was the Master of Ceremonies and he brought many interesting stories to the microphone. Most interesting was his discussion of how he tried to get Bobby Fischer out of his house in New York and instead get Bobby onto a plane to Reykjavik, Iceland where he was supposed to be playing his World Championship Match in 1972.

GM Larry Evans a longtime Reno, NV resident followed Dr. Saidy to the podium and reminisced about the 1972 dealings and preparation for the match. Of interest was that Larry had not seen Boris since the 1972 match in Iceland, yet one felt from watching their discussions that they were long lost friends.

Larry presented Boris with the now famous Chess Life & Review magazine that had on the cover a cartoon with Russian officials asking Boris in a practice session, "But Boris, what if he doesn't play P-K4 ?".

Larry found that particularly appropriate since he had helped Bobby prepare other opening systems for the championship match. Larry felt that Bobby gave away too much of a psychological advantage if he continued to stay with his limited repertoire. Larry said later that getting Bobby to change his mind about anything (especially his Sozin Sicilian) was nearly impossible. (See related Fischer-Evans 1958 US Championship game in Larry Evans Lecture section of this article).

Boris admitted in his Sunday evening lecture that he was prepared for Fischer to play something else. He confirmed it by saying he felt he had the better opening results throughout the match yet didn't feel he had the strength or energy to fight in the middlegame where the real challenge was taking place.

GM Sergey Kudrin followed Larry to the podium and gave some thoughts to how important Boris Spassky was during his developing years and more importantly how integral he was in getting Boris to come to Reno. Jerry Weikel for years had been trying to make this happen and it seemed Boris was always busy in October. Since that was the month the tournament occurred, it didn't seem likely the engagement could ever take place. Enter GM Kudrin, who during a 40 minute (or was it a 4 minute) phone call to his Russian mentor managed to get the details worked out. Sergey also served as a capable interpreter during the entire weekend for Boris.

IM John Donaldson was the last speaker to take to the podium and he related how Yasser Seirawan was responsible for Boris living in Paris. After the 1972 match, Boris had a limited ability to travel and play in international tournaments. But one that did take place had Boris taking first place over Anatoly Karpov at Linares, Spain in 1983. It all depended on if Yasser could hold Karpov to a last round draw. During adjournment Boris looked Yasser up to see how he felt about the game and Yasser was sure it was going to be a draw. After resumption it was indeed drawn and Boris won the last major tournament of his career. Of course after he took 1st over his loyal communist comrade, Boris was considered persona non grata by his Russian superiors and went permanently to live in exile in France. So Yasser told John to let everyone know that he had a very direct impact on the career of Boris Spassky!

After much ado about roasting the featured guest, it was finally time to let Boris have his say. He started by rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt and getting down to business. The global chess community is fortunate to have Boris Spassky act as an ambassador who continues to contribute to the history and aura of the game by providing his retrospective interpretation of events most of us only read about in newspapers or magazines.

Now that he is 'retired' Boris admitted to being more mellow (if that's possible). He is the consummate gentleman that now wants to return something to the game that has done so much for him. About 7 times a year he returns to Moscow to help write and edit a weekly chess publication. He talked about why he has never published a compilation of his games. He talked about the letter he wrote to President Bush asking for leniency in the Bobby Fischer situation.

Boris then went over a famous game of his that was used with a slight modification in the movie "From Russia with Love" the James Bond thriller. It was based on his 1960 King's Gambit encounter with recently deceased grandmaster and world championship contendor David Bronstein from the USSR Championship. The moves are listed on the next webpage with comments from game 24 in Modern Chess Brilliancies by Larry Evans, Hypermodern Press 1994 and from Game 37 Spassky's 100 Best Games by Bernard Cafferty, MacMillan Company 1972. The next webpage also describes the other events of the evening.

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