NEW YORK — Mark Taimanov, a virtuoso pianist and former Soviet chess champion whose lopsided loss to Bobby Fischer in 1971 in the quarterfinals of a major chess tournament cost him his government salary, died Monday in St. Petersburg. He was 90.
Mr. Taimanov became one of the leading Soviet players after World War II, when the Soviet Union dominated world chess — all while pursuing an equally successful career as a classical pianist, known for performing duets with his wife, Lyubov Bruk.
In 1953, he was among 15 participants in a tournament in Zurich that is widely considered one of the greatest chess competitions ever held.
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The event, called the Candidates tournament, which determines a challenger for the world championship, included two future Soviet world champions, Vasily Smyslov and Tigran Petrosian, and one former champion, Max Euwe of the Netherlands. Smyslov won the tournament, while Mr. Taimanov finished in a tie for eighth with his fellow Russian Alexander Kotov.
Mr. Taimanov qualified for the tournament again in 1971, but in the quarterfinals he faced Fischer, the brilliant American who was at the height of his powers.
The match, in 10 games, was to be decided by whoever got to 5.5 points first, with wins counting as 1 point and draws as a half point. Fischer beat Mr. Taimanov 6-0, without even yielding a draw.
It was an unheard-of result, and to the Soviet authorities, the only explanation had to be a nefarious one, so they blamed Mr. Taimanov. They barred him from traveling abroad, censured him, and cut off his government salary, which all elite chess players received.
“This dramatic match changed my life into hell,” Mr. Taimanov said in an interview with Joel Lautier, a French grandmaster, on the chess news website Chessbase.com in 2002.
His internal exile lasted only two years, however, partly because of Fischer’s continued success. After beating Mr. Taimanov, Fischer overpowered Bent Larsen, a Danish grandmaster who was ranked among the top four in the world. He then vanquished Petrosian. Finally, in 1972, he wrested the world title away from the powerful Russian Boris Spassky.
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The sheer dominance of Fischer made it plain to the Soviet authorities that Mr. Taimanov’s poor outing against him had not entirely been the Russian’s fault. They reinstated his benefits and allowed him to travel again.
But he never got another shot at the title because he never again qualified for the Zurich Candidates tournament. And perhaps as a consequence of the sanctions against him, his marriage to Bruk ended as well, as did their musical partnership.
They had met while studying at the Leningrad Conservatory and married when they were both 19. Soviet regulations virtually prohibited married couples from traveling together in the West, however, so they remained relatively unknown outside the Soviet bloc.
But when Philips Classics put together its “Great Pianists of the 20th Century” series, which included 200 compact discs, the Taimanovs were the only duo in the set.
Discussing his dual careers, Mr. Taimanov saw a similarity in his approach to both. “I conceive chess first and foremost as an art,” he said in the 2002 interview, “and when I play chess, I try to do so as an artist.”