The
World Chess Championship 1972 was a match between challenger
Bobby Fischer of the United States and defending champion
Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union for the
World Chess Championship. The match took place in the
Laugardalshöll arena in
Reykjavík,
Iceland and has been dubbed the
Match of the Century. Fischer became the first American born in the United States to win the World Championship and the second American overall to win the title (
Wilhelm Steinitz, the first world champion, became a naturalized American citizen in 1888). Fischer's win also ended, for a short time, 24 years of Soviet domination of the World Championship.