Tactical analysis shows that Black could take the pawn e5 with 20...♗xe5 or with 21...♗xe5.

Instead, Fischer played 21...♕d7 and after 22 ♖ad1!, instead of playing 22...♗xe5 made a mistake 22...♖fe8?.

<The position after 22...♖fe8:>

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Note that on 23 ♘c5? Black has the answer 23...♕d5!.

However, Spassky missed here a strong move 23 b3!. The idea is that after 23...♗d5 the square d5 is occupied, and White will play 24 ♘c5!.

However, Black has a strong answer 23...c5!, after which the position is approximately equal.

In the game, Spassky played such slow or passive moves as 23 f4, 25 ♕c3, 26 ♔h2 and 27 ♘d3.

As a result, Black dissipated White's attack and after 29...♕xd6 30 exd6 ♗xc3 31 bxc3 Black had simply an extra pawn in the complex endgame:

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The analysis of that fantastic endgame of the 13th match game needs a separate book.

Above, I have used the book

He did mention it!

He wrote:

25 Q-B3!?

<WMD: <Timman's match book, crediting Smyslov, indicates the line 25.e6 Nc4 26.Qe2! as being critical. "The plan is 26...Nxb2 27.Nf5!, a very original attacking idea. The former World Champion stops here with the statement that White has a fierce attack. No doubt he had the variation 27...Bc4 28.exf7+ Kxf7 29.Qxe7+ Rxe7 30.Rxe7+ Kf8 31.Nd7+ in mind.">>

<andrea volponi: 25 e6!(la migliore mossa)...Nc4...>

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I'm thinking this game was the template for Alekhine's defence players for years to come. Invaluable for theory.

An extraordinary game.

25. e6 Nc4 26. Qe2 b6 27. Nf5 gxf5 28. Rxd5 bxc5 29. Qxc4 Bd4+ 30. Kh2 fxe6 31. Rxf5 Qa6 32. Qa2 c4 33. Rh5 Bg7 34. g5 Qb5

If by "fine game" you mean one of the most dramatic fights, it is that, on the same kind of level as Capablanca-Alekhine, Game 11, or Topalov-Kramnik, Game 2.

But if you mean best played game, it's certainly not that. You alluded to the missteps and errors yourself.

If I were to rate Fischer's wins in this match by quality of play, I'd make it something like this:

Game 13 is the most epic battle, much like Game 11 of Capablanca-Alekhine, or Game 17 of Karpov-Korchnoi. But part of what makes battles epic is that they tend to have an ebb and flow to them, with first one player then the other having an edge. And it requires mutual mistakes to swing that way.

You stopped the running 'surprise' gag. Never mind I think it had run our of steam.

All the games are good, this one is a diamond. But my favourite in game 6 due to the first move! and what followed. Spassky too thought it was good. After game 6 he joined in on the applause.

In game 6 Fischer vs Spassky, 1972 this position arose.

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and White played 6. e3...Ehh? It must be 6.e5 h6 7.Bg5...this does not look right.

And I wonder how many people had misread the first move. I did and played 1.e4 instead of 1.c4 from the moves in a newspaper. (another surprise.)
That is the position you get from game 6 if you start off with 1.e4.

These days they make it sound like c4 was a total thunderbolt out of the blue, but there were rumblings on the horizon that Fischer might try something like this. He'd already played 1. c4 against Polugaevsky, and 1. b3 against Mecking. He even played 1. d4, albeit in a Blitz game. The Chess Life & Review cover wasn't psychic, just making an educated guess from what we'd already seen.

As for what Boris would do, it was no great surprise, to Fischer or anybody else, that he'd play the Tartakower Variation, which he'd never lost with. It would have been really cool if he'd played the Tarrasch Defense, which he'd played several times in the 1969 World Championship, but being caught off guard he stuck to what he knew best.

Of course back then no net or game databases, no instant news, the only thing I had on Fisher was a 1969 copy of M60Mg's with chunks of it going over my head. 'best by test.' I could understand.

I've checked a few books that came out soon after the match ( four appeared within 2-3 weeks of the match ending) all used 'surprised' or 'unexpected' in the first note.
Reshevsky (his book pub 1972) writes; "...this was perhaps the first time he ever resorted to this move." (even he was unsure.)

These days; click-click on a mouse and you can see every recorded move by Fischer. Back then it was what you knew and there no way to find out unless you fired off a snail mail letter to a magazine.

Or in some cases, made up what you think happened.
Sammy continues; 'Spassky, after taking some time to get over the shock of the unexpected move..."
Was Sammy there, I do not think so.

In the pre-internet age, USCF published lots of pamphlets. Not nearly big enough to be considered books, but they could be very informative. Many of them were opening treatises, like Larsen's "Why Not the Philidor Defense?" (If you read it, you'll find out why not.)

But one I still have somewhere is a booklet called "Fischer 1970", which, as it sounds, contains every game Fischer played that year. No annotations, just a sentence or so of descriptions of each game. Even without notes it was enormously valuable. You'd find the games you were interested in and go over them on your own. One of the first things I did when I bought it was to see what openings and opening moves Fischer had played that year.

When that first omnibus book of Fischer's games came out, someone wrote a letter to Larry Evans asking if Fischer had missed an easy win in this game:

Fischer vs A Saidy, 1957

Larry confirmed that he had (30. Qh6!), but defended the lapse by opining that there was something morbid about publishing EVERY available game from a player. That's definitely not a comment that's stood the test of time.

Well 1.c4 was a surprise to me and here we are still talking about it. 😊

When you think about it this match has a few famous single moves that has launched a thousand posts.
1.c4, 29 Bxh2 and Fischer playing 8...Qxb2 for a second time in game 11.

I have some of the chess digest or chess enterprise pamphlets. I bought a load of books including those at the B.H.Wood bookstall in my first U.K. tournament back 1973.

The other iconic move in this match that seems to have lost its luster over time, is 14. Nb1 from Game 11. At the time, people showered this move with exclams, calling it the greatest thing since sliced bread. "Spassky says he came up with it over the board, but nobody believes him" went one comment. It was one of only two moves in the entire <match> that Gligoric gave two exclams to (and you'd never guess the other).

But all this wore off as people gradually realized that the move just wasn't that great. Edmar Mednis totally nailed it:

MEDNIS: <14. N-N1!?

A move which was invariably given two exclamation marks -- 14. N-N1!! after the game. May I respectfully suggest that if Spassky had gone on to lose this game it would have read 14. N-N1??

If we look at the nature of the position, it should be apparent that neither of these extremes is warranted. White has difficulties in how to continue, so he decides to first kick Black's Queen. However, this is an open position and White's QN is placed well on QB3. Retreating it to QN1 obviously cannot be a winning maneuver. It is simply an interesting concept which works because Fischer has an off game. Under the circumstances 14. N-Q1!? would also have probably won.

As a historical note, it may be stated that those commentators who were loudest in applauding 14. N-N1!? neither played it themselves nor worried about it when their turn came. One example is Tal-R. Byrne, Leningrad Interzonal 1973, which continued 14. Q-K3, R-B1; 15. N-N1 Q-R5; 16. P-B4, N-R4; 17. Q-QB3, NxP; 18. QxP, R-R3 and it turned out that Black stood quite well.>

Yes, your theory about Bxh2 makes a lot of sense.

Although everything he did on and off the board was already being studied by chess players, now the whole world would be privy to it and a lot of it would be written by hacks who never played the game.

He wanted publicity for the game, he did not realise he would be at the centre of it and what if he lost v Karpov with the whole world watching.
No thank you, I've did my bit, goodbye.

I gave an opinion Spassky's OTB idea.

Spassky vs Fischer, 1972 (kibitz #258)

I'm thinking Spassky knew of it as a suggestion but it was not explored fully because his team did not expect Fischer to risk it again. So instead of following the previous game he played it to get Fischer out of his prep.
More of an OTB decision than inspiration. A bit of both.