AThe Boston Globe Boston, Massachusetts Sunday, October 31, 1971 - Page 73
Chess: Fischer-Spassky to be Match of Millennium by Harold Dondis
Tigran Petrosian, the Armenian tiger, the unbeatable Soviet titan, cunning, subtle, diabolical in style and strategy, has fallen to the computer mind of Bobby Fischer by a score of 6½, 2½. Fischer won the last four games.
If American baseball or football champions were to lose to teams of Russian players, we might realize what a blow Bobby Fischer is now in a position to deal to the Russian spirit.
World chess dominance has been the private preserve of the Russians for the last 25 years. Chess is a national game for the Soviets, cultivated in their schools, and prowess in chess has been held up high by Soviet writers as a symbol of the Soviet intellectual competence.
Boris Spassky alone remains between Fischer and the world title, Spassky is the only person in the world today who conceivably has the ability to stop Fischer. Brilliant, lackadaisical, good-natured, popular Boris Spassky, is versatile, enduring and nerveless.
The fantastic success of Fischer has made Spassky the most besieged champion ever to hold the crown. Spassky's Elo rating must now be far below Fischer's.
Chess is a few centuries older than a thousand years. This being so, the Spassky-Fischer match in the spring surely will, indeed must, be known as the Match of the Millennium.
