In 1984, I claimed a moral win over him; got my greatest chess tutorial from him afterwards

In Boris Spassky’s passing, we have lost a chess pearl. Thankfully for the students of the cerebral game, his pearls can be seen through his games.
I remember as if it were yesterday, when I drew one game with black pieces against him at Lloyd’s Bank way back in 1984. It came in just 19 moves and 90 minutes. Despite me claiming a moral victory of sorts in that game, Spassky himself came across and asked me if I wanted to analyse. He ended up discussing it with me for over two hours. My greatest learning class in chess came free of cost!
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Spassky rejuvenated the Breyer defence of Spanish Ruy Lopez. The former world champion was a great master of King’s Gambit and he was a great Anti-King’s Indian and AntiGrunfeld player. He would crush Kings Indian and Benoni defence with Four Pawn Attack. His wins with white against Sicilian via Rauzer attack are masterpieces.
Don’t forget that the veteran Spassky beat even Garry Kasparov at his peak in the 1980s!
Spassky was very strong from the white side in Caro Kann defence too and crushed Tigran Petrosian. They were good friends and he dethroned Petrosian for the world title in 1969 after a failed attempt in 1966.

I don’t believe that Spassky left the Soviet Union and became a French citizen because he was harassed by the system. For, he went to Moscow regularly and spoke to Russian players in quite a friendly way. But surely, he wasn’t a proud Soviet! He would never say what he didn’t believe in.
I think he did not want to live like Botvinnik, Petrosian or Taimanov within the Soviet framework of the times. He wanted to live lavishly, make money, and spend it well. In his own way, he left the Soviet Union in search of happiness. He made good money, had a better financial life compared to Petrosian.
Spassky was a happy-go-lucky person. But it is untrue that he was ‘not serious’ in the 1972 world championship and ‘wanted to lose’ due to sympathy for Bobby Fischer. Those were lies and propaganda to suggest Soviet supremacy.
Spassky didn’t hate Fischer, as projected in the movie ‘Pawn Sacrifice’ and he wasn’t the sort who would speak anything of Soviet propaganda. He and Yuri Averbakh were probably the most dignified chess players I have ever seen.
(GM Thipsay, a seven-time National Champion, spoke to Amit Karmarkar)