It has been 50 years since the most famous chess match of all time – a Cold War clash that saw the US and the Soviet Union battle over a chessboard.
America’s Bobby Fischer eventually defeated world champion Boris Spassky, but the contest was far bigger than just two men and 64 squares. It always had been.
The game of chess has existed for nearly 1,500 years, but in the 20th century it became a vessel for the US and the USSR to vie for intellectual supremacy – amid allegations of collusion and scandal.
The popular game is now back in the news after world number one Magnus Carlsen lost in a shock upset to Hans Niemann, and allegations of cheating against Neumann followed.
Sky News takes a look at some of the biggest scandals in the history of Chess, and how it has shaped our geopolitics.
Magnus Carlsen calls out Hans Niemann and says cheating is an ‘existential threat’ to chess
It’s the scandal that has been rumbling on for weeks and has now boiled over with an explosive statement from Magnus Carlsen.
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Carlsen, the current world number one and widely considered to be one of the best of all time, pulled out of a tournament earlier this month after losing to teenager Hans Niemann.
Later, in an online rematch against Niemann, Carlsen resigned after making only one move.
The pair of defeats for the game’s best active player led to allegations of cheating against Niemann, who had been ranked significantly lower than Carlsen.
On Monday, Carlsen issued a blistering statement on Twitter saying that he thought Niemann “has cheated more – and more recently – than he has publicly admitted”.
Niemann has admitted to cheating in online games in the past, but has rejected any suggestions he has ever done so in over the board (in person) chess or that he has used computer assistance in a major tournament.
1962: Bobby Fischer cries foul over a series of Soviet draws
The Carlsen-Niemann feud may be under the spotlight, but it’s by no means the first scandal to hit the chess world.
Ten years before his famous match-up with Spassky, Bobby Fischer claimed that Soviet players were colluding at the 1962 Candidates Tournament.
Controversial player Fischer alleged that the Soviets had conspired to prevent any non-Soviet from winning the tournament.
He claimed that the players who eventually finished as the top three – Tigran Petrosian, Paul Keres and Efin Geller – had prearranged to draw all 12 of the their games against each other in order to conserve their energy for the end of the tournament.
In a 2002 interview Yuri Averbakh, who was head of the Soviet team, confirmed the existence of the drawing pact.
Chess as a battleground for the Cold War
In the 1960s and 1970s the Cold War was in full swing and chess was highly popular and seen as a battleground between the Soviet Union and America.
“For the Soviet Union, supremacy at the chess board was a demonstration – as its rulers saw it – of the superiority of their socialist system over the Western capitalist one”, English Chess Federation Dominic Lawson told the BBC in 2005.
Fischer’s victory over the Russian Spassky is probably the most famous chess matchup of all time and – briefly – ended 24 years of Soviet domination of the World Championship.
Three French masters accused of trying to cheat by text
Three French masters-level players were suspended after they were accused of using an elaborate text scheme to cheat at a tournament in 2010.
Cyril Marzolo followed developments over the internet and used computer software to establish the best next move, the BBC reported.
The move was then sent in a coded text message to another member of the team, Arnaud Hauchard, who would then sit at a particular table in the competition hall to communicate the move to Sebastien Feller who was playing the game.
