7. Spassky – Fischer (1972 game 9) – 9. … b5
Much has been said about the match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in 1972. Fischer was coming off a completely dominant performance in the candidates (a performance that will probably not be repeated). This particular game is not one of the most popular games of the match but the novelty became one of the most important ideas in the Semi-Tarrasch. The game was invariably drawn so it didn’t receive the amount of attention that most games from this match warrant. An interesting side note to this game was that I found a game between an opponent I played from 1972 in this particular line. I can only assume that they were following the Spassky-Fischer game but perhaps Denis Strenzwilk created one of the most important novelties in the semi-tarrasch? The game I found was Kevitz-Strenzwilk 1972 US Open, if any of you have any information on this game I’d love to hear about it.
To date this line has been played in 81 games and 41 GM games scoring 39.5% for white in the big database. Prior to this novelty people would play 9. … Bb4+.
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