The following is an encore presentation of everything everywhere daily.

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in almost every arena,

space, sports, and of course the military.

Everything they competed in was designed to show the superiority of their respective systems.

In 1972, one of the greatest Cold War rivalries came to a head in Reykjavik, Iceland.

It didn't take place at a sporting event or on a battlefield.

Rather, it took place over a period of two months on a chessboard.

Learn more about the 1972 World Chess Championship,

aka the Match of the Century,

on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. daily. To be completely honest, the Cold War rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and chess really wasn't much of a rivalry. The Soviet Union completely

dominated the upper ranks of chess for decades. From 1948 to 2007 every

world chess champion save for, all came from the Soviet Union or Russia.

In fact, you can take it back as far as 1927 where the champion was a Russian

Russian who fled to France because of the Communist Revolution.

Soviet chess was a machine.

They recruited bright players with talent at a very young age.

The Soviets took chess seriously and treated it as a sport, not a game.

Soviet chess players would be rigorously trained and studied games of past grandmasters.

They would also analyze and drill on opening moves, and they would be able to constantly practice against some of the best players in the world.

Coming into 1972, the reigning world champion was Boris Spasky.

Spasky was a product of the Soviet chess system.

He was a world junior champion and a two-time Soviet champion.

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