c/o Max Vitek

In this game, we are looking at a game by Bobby Fischer, one of the most famous and skilled chess players in the world. In the third round of the U.S. Championship in 1963, Fischer with the black pieces is playing against Robert Byrne, another very strong American grandmaster.

After a King’s Indian response to the Queen’s Gambit, Fischer plays a very exciting and aggressive game where he sacrificed a knight many moves ago, Fischer arrives at the following position, in which two grandmaster commentators believed that Byrne had a won game. However, this game, as Byrne realized one move ago, belongs to Fischer with a deadly sequence of moves that crushes white’s position. (Black to move)

Last Week’s Solution:

24. Bf7+ Kh8 25. Be8!

After the brilliant Be8, black has no response. If Rxe8, then the queen takes the bishop and wins with back rank mate. If black tries to protect with the queen, then white can pick up the queen, the bishop, or even the king depending on how black moves. Noticing how one can block the rook’s line of the sight for just barely enough time to squeeze out a victory, granted Réti the victory, and the first brilliancy prize.

Max Vitek can be reached at mvitek@wesleyan.edu.