Boris Spassky, a Soviet-era world chess champion who lost his title to American Bobby Fischer in a legendary 1972 match that became a proxy for Cold War rivalries, died Thursday in Moscow. He was 88.

The world champion, dethroned by the American in the middle of the Cold War, died on February 27 in Moscow at the age of 88 after a life worthy of the movies

When Mr. Spassky, a Russian, played Bobby Fischer, an American, in Iceland at the height of the Cold War, the media attention reduced them to pawns in a wider drama.