Esteban Canal demolishes his amateur opponent with the sacrifice of two rooks and queen.
1935: The Pearl of Zandvoort. Savielly Tartakower gave this name to the decisive game of the Max Euwe vs. Alexander Alekhine World Championship Match.
1938: Parr – Wheatcroft, London, described by authors Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld as « one of the greatest combinative games on record! »
1950–1999
1956: The Game of the Century between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer. Byrne (playing White), after a standard opening, makes a seemingly minor mistake on move 11, losing tempo by moving the same piece twice. Fischer pounces, with brilliant sacrificial play, culminating in a queen sacrifice. Byrne captures the queen, but Fischer gets far too much material for it – a rook and two bishops – and coordinated them to force checkmate.
1957: The Immortal losing game between Bogdan Sliwa and David Bronstein. Black has a lost game but sets some elegant traps in attempting to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
1972: World Chess Championship 1972, Game 6, between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. Fischer shows a mastery of queenside play and delivers a crushing attack. Spassky joined the audience in applauding Fischer’s win and called it the best game of the match.
1972: World Chess Championship 1972, Game 13. Fischer manages to set traps for Spassky and win, in a game previously considered to be a draw after detailed analysis from both players.
1975: Pavao Keglevic (Croatia) – Peter Markland (England) 1975. Many of the old games could not have been played a CC master in the 21st century, because any computer-assisted player would avoid the decisive error. This game between two ICCF Grandmasters is an exception.
1980: The ‘Incorrect’ Opening, 1980 European Team Championship, Anatoly Karpov and Tony Miles. Miles, Black, defeats Karpov after opening with 1…a6!?, a move so unorthodox as to receive a B00 on the ECO code.
1985: The Octopus Knight, game 16 of the World Chess Championship 1985 match. Garry Kasparov as black gets a dominating knight (called an « Octopus knight » by Raymond Keene) on d3 against Anatoly Karpov.
1992: Forbes – Fischer, Sveti Stefan. The last recorded game of Bobby Fischer’s career, an informal game played with Cathy Forbes after the 1992 match between Fischer and Boris Spassky in Yugoslavia. Forbes blunders on her 27th move, resigning after Fischer’s responding move.
1995: The Pearl of Wijk aan Zee, between Roberto Cifuentes-Parada and Vadim Zvjaginsev. One of the most stunning sacrificial attacks in chess history, sacrificing a knight, an exchange, and his queen to force mate against White’s king on the sixth rank.
1996: Deep Blue – Kasparov, 1996, Game 1, the first game in which a chess-playing computer defeated a reigningworld champion using normal time controls.
1997: Deep Blue – Kasparov, 1997, Game 6, the last game of the 1997 rematch.Deep Blue won, making it the first computer to defeat a world champion in a match over several games.
1999: Kasparov versus the World, in which Garry Kasparov, the reigning world champion, faced the rest of the world in consultation, with the World Team moves decided by vote. Over 50,000 individuals from more than 75 countries participated in the game.
1999: Kasparov – Topalov, Wijk aan Zee. Rook sacrifice with 15+ moves forced sacrificial combination. One of the most commented chess games ever, with extensive press coverage.
21st century
2000: Kasparov – Kramnik, Classical World Chess Championship 2000, Game 3. Kramnik revives the Berlin Defense to the Ruy Lopez (which had fallen out of favour), in which the queens are exchanged on move 8. The queenless endgame is difficult for Kramnik to defend but limits Kasparov’s options, and the game ends in draw by agreement.
2006: Deep Fritz – Kramnik, World Chess Challenge: Man vs. Machine, Game 2, Bonn, Germany. Reigning world champion Vladimir Kramnik overlooks a mate in one against the Deep Fritz chess computer, in what Susan Polgar called the « blunder of the century. »
2006: Thorfinsson – Gunnarson, Iceland. In a game played on Icelandic television, Black is mated after committing a blunder. After the broadcast, Bobby Fischer telephoned the game’s analyst to point out a spectacular winning combination for Black, missed by the players and commentators, that includes a double check and a discovered check.
