World champion will be remembered for the ‘match of the century’ against American Bobby Fischer in 1972

Soviet chess grandmaster Boris Spassky, who was famously defeated at the height of the cold war, has died at 88, the Russian Chess Federation has announced.

“The tenth world champion Boris Spassky has died at 88,” the federation said in a statement on its website on Thursday, calling it a “great loss for the country”. The statement did not say when he died or from what cause.