Spassky

Bobby Fischer claimed to have definitively refuted it after a famous loss with Black to nemesis Boris Spassky 12 years before their epic title match.

At age 10, he followed with keen interest the match in which American grandmaster Bobby Fischer defeated the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky in 1972.

But as with Boris Spassky against Bobby Fischer nearly 130 years later, Saint Amant’s play improved remarkably after the disastrous start.

The clock in the Kremlin's Spassky Tower strikes midnight.

In 1992, he won an unofficial rematch against Spassky but ended up facing an arrest warrant for breaking U.N. sanctions on Yugoslavia, where the match was held.