Language: English.

In the summer of 1972, with a presidential crisis stirring in the United States and the cold war at a pivotal point, the Soviet world chess champion, Boris Spassky, and his American challenger, Bobby Fischer, met in Reykjavik, Iceland, for the most notorious chess match of all time. Their showdown, played against the backdrop of superpower politics, held the world spellbound for two months with reports of psychological warfare, ultimatums, political intrigue, cliffhangers, an farce to rival a Marx Brothers film. Bobby Fischer Goes to War - How a Lone American Star Defeated the Soviet Chess Machine is a very well researched account of an unforgettable matchup.

For both the American and the Russian government, winning was of utmost importance. The Russians influenced chess up to the highest political range - there was nothing Spassky could do without it being exactly noticed. Spassky nevertheless, was a sportsman in the first place, an tried to find his own way into beating Fischer. Fischer didn't let anybody influence him or his team of muppets, although President Nixon tried to get some of the success.

The biggest chess match ever was played under strange circumstances: the soft-tempered Russian and the rebellish American weren't trusted by their influential governments, and thus fought their own battle inside a political chess game.