This day in history: American Bobby Fischer beats Russian Boris Spassky to become the world chess champion on this day in 1972. The Russians were very good at chess. In the USSR, chess was state-subsidized, with the best players being awarded generous grants and becoming national heroes. The Soviets dominated international chess, winning 24 consecutive world championship titles.
Ayn Rand mused about what would happen to the game if it resembled the Soviet/Socialist reality: "What would happen if, after playing for hours and successfully cornering your opponent, some arbitrary power changed the rules? What would happen if the rules of chess were updated to conform to a dialectic reality and your queen turned suddenly White to Black, becoming the queen of your opponent? What if you had to play by teamwork and couldn’t make a move until the team voted? What if you had to move at the whim of someone holding a gun to your back? What if there were two sets of rules, proletariat and bourgeois, being played simultaneously? What if winning triggered a social penalty?"
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