Game of the Century - Bobby Fischer vs Donald Byrne

hi everyone this is kevin from the chess website comm and today we're going to be going over the chess game of the century and it was played between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer now most of you are probably familiar with Bobby Fischer one of the greatest chess minds of all time you may not have heard about Donald Byrne you may have seen this game before Donnell Byrne is an international master a very strong international master at that it's a lot of you may see this and say you know Bobby Fischer should win this game easily but you have to keep in mind that this game was actually played when Bobby Fischer was 13 years old so as we kind of go over the moves and analyzing it and come up with some of the thoughts behind some of Bobby Fischer's move it's going to be just mind-blowing to think that a 13 year old can come up with some of the stuff that Bobby Fischer was coming up with in this game as we go along you'll see some of the great ideas but at the same time this this game has not only one of the best moves in chess history but also one of the greatest sacrifices in chess history so I if you haven't already seen this game it's going to be a real treat if you have I still think it'll be you know really great for you to go back and look at some of the great moves and analyze them and govern the commentary that we're going to be discussing today burn playing the white pieces started with Knight to f3 simple development move trying to control the center and Bobby Fischer responded with Knight to f6 again just marrying the move here from here burn played pawn to c4 trying to gain a little bit control of the center and Bobby Fischer responded with pawn to g6 getting ready to fianchetto his bishop to this g7 square Bobby Fischer elected to play a hyper modern defense trying to control the center with his minor pieces and not really getting his pawns involved in the center control of the game until later on Bern decided to bring his Knight to c3 simple development move game the same time controlling the center of the board and Bobby Fischer continued with Bishop to g7 burn from here played pawn to d4 again trying to control the center in Bobby Fischer Castle Don the King set now the next move was kind of surprising not because it was a bad move but just because at this time in chess was very common for white to play pawn to e4 this is the Kings Indian defense buttburn really gave a lot of respect to Bobby Fischer even though he was 13 years old it was well known that he really understood a lot of the book lines and really understood the theory behind them Bobby Fischer spent a lot of time studying the game of chess and so burn instead of opting to play a defense the Kings Indian defense the he knew Bobby Fischer was really you know well in depth at that he decided instead to go with the line that made sense as far as opening principle with Bishop to f4 but he thought that maybe Bobby Fischer wasn't really you know as studied up on this and then he thought that you know being a stronger player by title international master that this would allow him to you know play a little bit out of Fischer's strong suit and have a better game here from here Bobby Fischer played pawn to d5 this is the Grunfeld offense and from here why decided to bring his Queen to b3 and this is the Russian system so if you want to read up a little bit on that but really getting his key his Queen involved really trying to put a lot of pressure on not only this d5 pawn here but into the center in general he's trying to really gain Center control with this move here Bobby Fischer as far as you know his move options he doesn't have a lot of good moves pawn to c4 is definitely the best move it does give up the center for right now but it does take away a tempo from the White Queen here because the White Queen is going to have to recapture and lose a move here so after the White Queen recaptures then Bobby Fischer brings his pawn to c6 c6 and this is kind of a a waiting move that's trying to not allow white to move up the board anymore and keep in mind anytime you see a player especially in the Grunfeld defense if they're going to bring their pawn to c6 here more times than not they're going to sometime soon bring their knight - to d7 here so that's kind of what Bobby Fischer's thinking in the back of his head from here burn continue to put all the pieces in place where he wants to he's bringing his pawn now to e for this does a few things one it allows his LightSquared bishop to get out of the action get developed so he can castle on the kingside for further king safety at the same time it's a really good square Bobby Fischer was really allowing white to just completely dominate the center of the board right now and so burn just you know taking what's given to him he has the center of the board so he's just taking that from here as we talked about before Bobby Fischer had planned on bringing his Knight to d7 very common move as far as development he later on is going to get this Knight you know kicked off to a different square but for now this is a completely fine square and from here burn decides to bring his rook to d1 you always want to put your rooks behind pawns as they push up the board and so this is a logical move to bring his rook to d1 now keep in mind that his queen was here before so this night here on f3 at some point could be pinned down with the bishop on g4 once this Queen went away from d1 the pin could no longer be there but now that the rook is here on d1 we may see a pin later on down the road with a Bishop to g4 here now from here Bobby Fischer decided to bring his knight to b6 again getting a tempo this Queens going to have to move here obviously he's being attacked and so yes Bobby Fischer is moving his minor piece twice you never want to move one of your pieces twice unless you have a good reason for it and one of those reasons is to gain a tempo so Bobby Fischer although he moved this twice is not going to lose a move since the Queen has to move and from here Byrne decided to bring his Queen to c5 now this is a pretty aggressive move a lot of analysts that look at this say that would have been a little safer just to bring the Queen back to b3 again White has complete control the center right here he has a slight advantage and it would be completely okay to bring this Queen back to b3 but burn decided to play a little bit aggressive here and decided to bring his queen to c5 there's no real strong attack right now but he just doesn't want to play passive right now against Bobby Fischer from here Bobby Fischer like all great chess players continued his development by bringing his minor piece into the game he brought his Bishop to g4 now this is the very aggressive movement as we talked about before he's pinning this knight down to the rook here on d1 that was brought over from a1 and you know we can go through the entire game and talk about you know what you know great moves were made what bad moves were made but I think one of the worst moves in the game was the next move by burn and burn played Bishop to g5 now the problem with this is white really needs to one finish his development he needs to get his light square bishop into the game you know bringing his Bishop to e2 that only destroys the pin with his knight on f3 but at the same time it allows his King to castle on the King side you know have King safety and at the same time White has a really good setup what this move to g5 does is one it wastes the tempo he's already moved his Bishop to f4 and again as we talked about you don't want to move your minor pieces twice unless you have a good reason in my mind there's not a good reason to bring your Bishop to g5 only except to say you're pinning down my knight I want to try to pin down your knight if you ever move your EEP on I'm pinning down your knife to your queen but it just doesn't do as much as it should and at the same time Bobby Fischer has his King Castle he has complete safety and all his minor pieces are developed white over here has a good game if he would just continued his development the game would have gone completely different but you know that's what chess is and this mistake was made Bishop to g5 and now from here black had one of the greatest moves the people said you know chess has ever seen so if you haven't seen this game if you want to go ahead and pause see if you can come up with you know Bobby Fischer's next move I'm going to highly doubt that you do but hey if you're some sort of chess genius and you come up with this move that'd be fantastic but the move is Knight to a4 now this move was only made by Bobby Fischer because Byrne played his Bishop to g5 the bird wanted continued his development with Bishop to e2 and then castle on the Kings side this moved the night to a or would not have been as great and the planet Bobby Fischer had would not have been able to evolve like it did but in this case Bobby Fischer knew two things he knew that the king was not safe and at the same time he knew that this pawn on e4 was very very weak if he could take this pawn out then he could really have a strong attack on the kingside because the King right now is not safe so what he noticed is the defender of this pawn on e4 is this night here on c3 so he is coming down here and it looks like he is sacrificing his knight on a4 so that he can gobble up this pawn on e4 now keep in mind here white is not able to right away take this Knight on a4 and Bobby Fischer had to do a lot of calculation and burn and you know his own right had to do a lot of calculation because he actually decided to decline this Knight here on a 4 because he saw there was really no good move for him in the continuation if he takes on a4 obviously Bobby Fischer's going to bring his knight and take on e4 and really there's three continuations that white could have here one of them being if he brings his Queen to e7 and then the Queen comes down to a5 from Bobby Fischer attacking the King the pawn could come to b4 after this Knights taken and this Knights taken then the rook could come to e7 if the bishop comes to e7 to block then after this trade off right here then the bishop can could come back to f4 and this excuse me to f8 and this is going to be very good obviously white cannot hold on to all this material and at the same time look at this pawn structure for white it's just not very good and as you can see for Bobby Fischer he has great pawn structure and everything's pretty much coordinating together and at the same time you know the King from white is still anyone and it's still unprotected so that's not going to be a good variation at the same time if we go back instead of taking with the Queen if we burn decided to take with his Bishop on e7 then after you know Bobby Fischer takes the Queen and Byrne takes the Queen the night on a four is going to be gobbled up and then the bishop is going to come back to g5 and then after the trade-off here as you can see right here the material is the same Bobby Fischer could continue and take this pawn on b2 but as you can see as far as material wise Bobby Fischer's completely fine he's up a pawn and material and at the same time the pawn structure is completely obliterated from four burn and Bobby Fischer still has his pawn structure intact so those are two and the last one that people have analyzed is if he brings his Knight to e4 then the Queen could come down to c1 but if his Queen comes down to c1 then obviously Bobby Fischer come in to a5 now the rook could come over excuse me the knight could come to c3 and after the bishop comes to f3 in the exchange happens on f3 then the knight could come kick back over and capture on g5 as you can see right here Black is equalized as far as the material but the same time we still have this problem with the the pawn structure very weak for white and at the same time he still is not castled and his King is still out in the open so in this situation Byrne actually decided to decline the knight on a for even though it looks like Bobby Fischer's just giving it up Boren looked at the variations in stall you know even though he's giving this up down the road this is not going to be good for me so you know when you see that Byrne plays you know Queen to a3 that's kind of why if you look at and you say you know why didn't why didn't you just take on a floor well that's why he didn't pick on a4 so Bobby Fischer continued with his plan he captured the night here on c3 again trying to remove this defender of the e4 pawn now keep in mind Byrne has two options he can capture with his pawn and he can capture with this Queen but he knows that really Bobby Fischer wants to come in and take this pawn on e4 and once he does this then this pawn on e7 is going to be hanging so right now I doesn't want to take with this Queen because he wants to attackers his Queen on a3 and his Bishop on g5 to both be attacking this pawn here on e7 so just keep in mind that Bern does take with this pawn you know from b2 but that's why if you're wondering why didn't he take with this Queen that's exactly why but from here Bobby Fischer continued with his plan taking with his knights on from f6 to e4 and again as we talked about before it was not a free pawn because now Bern was able to bring his Bishop to e7 from here Bobby Fischer with his queen being attacked he brought his Queen to b6 starting to really form a strong attack against the white king here and as you can see white in this decision decided that he really needs to get you know safety for his King where he's going to be in a lot of trouble so what he did he should have done a long time ago he developed his LightSquared Bishop and he brought it to to c4 here now keep in mind he probably should have developed this a long time ago but it is good that he decided that he wanted to now get some safety for his King since Bobby Fischer's starting to really put a lot of pressure on the white king for white Bobby Fischer now decided to bring his Knight to c3 and capture now keep in mind that the queen is not going to be able to recapture here on c3 because now the route could come over to e8 and is pinning this bishop down to the King on e1 so if you're like why don't he just recapture that's exactly why in this situation Bobby Fischer would have won material so instead Byrne brought his Bishop back to c5 now if you haven't seen this game go ahead and take a minute and think about what blacks should do as far as his plan going forward in this game from here Bobby Fischer played rook to e8 again kind of an in-between move putting the check on the king the King decided to move to f1 now keep in mind he really couldn't come to d2 cuz from here the knight could come back to e4 check the king once the King moves back to c1 then the bishop could come to h6 again putting a lot of pressure the King now moves to c2 then Knights going to come back here and take this Bishop on c5 really just losing a bishop here are losing material so that's not going to work so instead after the rook comes to e8 Byrne decided to play King to f1 which seems logical enough again he's still putting pressure on this Queen on b6 he knows that Bobby Fischer's probably going to play his queen somewhere so he's just kind of waiting here but Bobby Fischer had other things in plan and he played what a lot of people perceived to be the greatest sacrifice in chess history and he brought his Bishop to e6 now if you came up with this move I don't believe you because I looked at this game a long time and you may be a better chess player than I am but there's no way that I'm playing e6 in this chess game but Bobby Fischer is better at chess than I am and he did play it even at 13 he was better than I will ever be so he played Bishop to e6 and Byrne decided to go ahead and take the Queen again if you have a queen you know it's pretty hard not to take so he went ahead and took the Queen and then Bobby Fischer went ahead and played Bishop to c4 and then just started a windmill tactic and just started gobbling up all of burns pieces so from here the king has to come back to d1 it's kind of forced and so the knight comes to e2 again this is the windmill effect the King's going to have to come back to f1 he gobbles up this pawn here on the for the King goes back he brings the knight back King comes back to f1 he now brings his Knight to c3 attacking this rook here on d1 the King has to go back again he continues to be put in check by this Bishop here on c4 and he can't come back to the e-file because this rook is so nicely placed from on e8 now from here is a great move you plays pawn takes to b6 and what this does is one it takes another minor piece but at the same time it's gaining another tempo because it is now not only attacking capturing this piece on v6 but he's attacking the Queen on a three from here burn played Queen to b4 again not a lot of options that he has here and Bobby Fischer brought his rook down to a four down you can start to see all the Bobby Fischer's pieces are really starting to you know work together this Bishop here on g7 has this long diagonal covered holding down you know protection on this night the Knights protecting the rook the rook is protecting the bishop so all those pieces are kind of working together whereas you can see for white his Kings over here on g1 is rook on H ones not doing anything and none of his pieces are really connected or doing things so you can really see even though Bobby Fischer gave up a queen all of his pieces are working really well together now after he starts to attack the Queen the Queen comes to b6 trying to gobble up some material but at the same time it's still kind of lost right here Bobby Fischer now decides to come in and take this rook on d1 and now burn the side of the he really needs to get his king out of the way his King really can't move and so you know a lot of threats that Bobby Fischer has he can come down and checkmate you know once he starts to take some pieces off the board so he knows that he needs to really start to try to counter-attack and really get somewhere for his King to go here so he plays pawn to h3 and from here Bobby Fischer decides to go ahead and take this pawn on a 2 doesn't really want to have to worry about any pawns on the Queen side so now he can pretty much focus all his attention on the Kingston burn decided to continue and get his King to some safety brings his King to h2 here and Bobby Fischer continues to gobble up more and more material bringing his knight to f2 and from here Byrne decided he really needed to do something with this rook on h1 it hasn't done anything all game and so he decided to bring it to be one and trade off these rooks here because he knows that this rook on the e8 has been a pain putting a lot of pressure at the same time it's kind of a way that he can free up an attack with his Queen on the black King here from Bobby Fischer on g8 so after the the rook comes down to e one burn now plays his Queen to d8 now Bobby Fischer has two ideas he could either one bring his rook to e8 or he could instead block with his Bishop on f8 and I think Bobby Fischer chose the better of the two moves and he played Bishop to f8 he knows he's going to lose his his rook either way but by doing his Bishop here on f8 once Bern plays Knight takes on e 1 as you can see his knight is really far away from the action and that was a super smart move from Bobby Fischer because he knows if you're going to trade you might as well have your opponent you know have his minor pieces as far as away from the action as possible there's no real way for this night here on e1 and this Queen here on d8 to really you know attack together unless it's three four five moves down the road where Bobby Fischer can easily get all his moves all his pieces developed exactly how he wants to and kind of work together very seamlessly and that's exactly what Bobby Fischer starts to do he first brings his bishop to d5 centralizing his Bishop obviously Bishop's work well in the center where they can kind of attack the entire board at the same time he's really starting to get all his pieces so that they can all kind of work together so that's his first movement from here Bern decided to bring his knight back to f3 again he wants his Knight can't do anything on e1 so he wants to try to get it back into the game Bobby Fischer now plays his Knight to f4 again pretty much all of those pieces are now protected except one and that takes place in the next move and the Queen now comes to b8 and Bobby Fischer plays pawn to b5 and as you can see here if you look at all the pieces this rook here on a two is protected by the bishop the bishop is protected by the pawn all of the pieces are really working you know well together and there's not a lot that Bern has here as far as counter planning what does he really do here you're just kind of waiting to see what Bobby Fischer is really going to do because you can't do much with just one Queen dancing all over the board Bern decided to play h4 trying to get some sort of counter play on the Kings side Bobby Fischer said all my pieces are completely developed how I want them to I'm going to play h5 it's kind of a waiting move and just to let you know I'm not going to allow you to do anything else on the kingside so burn really doesn't have any moves with his Queen so he decides to get his knight involved into the game bringing his knight to a central square e 5 trying to put some sort of pressure and now Bobby Fischer decides that he no longer wants to have his King pin down she brings his King to g7 at the same time allowing his Bishop free since his bishops no longer pin his Bishop if he wants to later on can come down to d6 have a brilliant pin on this knife can't do anything obviously he can't take with his Bishop from b8 because the knight here from efore would be protecting the square on d6 so burn saw this and he's going to have to retreat his King he cannot lose any more material and he definitely does not want to have his only minor piece left pinned down to the king so he decides to bring his King down to g1 and now Bobby Fischer plays Bishop to c5 checking the King here and that was just really a mating pattern there's really not a lot that you know Byrne could do here he does bring his king to f1 Bobby Fischer now brings his knight to g3 and again he's just pretty much going to March burn all the way down the firing line and then have a nice little checkmate at the end here so burn obviously can't come to the second rank because the rook obviously a rook on the second rank is always dangerous and kind of shows one reason why here and he can't retreat back to g1 obviously because the bishop here on c5 so he has to continue down the board on e 1 and now Bobby Fischer played Bishop to b4 and again he has to continue to march down the it's a forced move he has no other options and Bobby Fischer now plays Bishop to b3 forced move to c1 now he brings his knight back into action he's now forced again to come to b1 and now after his knight comes to c3 then it's going to be checkmate him one after the nut King comes back to c1 then the rook comes to see to in his checkmate so a brilliant game by Bobby Fischer he really showed even sacrificing his queen he knew that he could really use all of his minor pieces you know cohesively and dominate the game once all his pieces are working together and white even though he had the Queen was kind of scattered none of his pieces were working together that Bobby Fischer knew that that was the correct move so fantastic fantastic sacrifice from Bobby Fischer fantastic game played by a thirteen-year-old I don't even know how you play chess at 13 like that but hope you guys enjoyed this game it is the game of the century because it was so fantastic if you haven't checked out the website make sure you do that WWH s website com and I will see you guys in the next video thanks for watching

Channel: thechesswebsite

Views: 3,107,041

Rating: 4.8302555 out of 5

Keywords: chess, game of the century, bobby fischer, donald byrne

Id: M624T3PTggU

Length: 24min 52sec (1492 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 18 2010

Reddit Comments

[u/fistfullaberries]

Usually a Grandmaster will resign after his position is lost but Bryne played though until the end of this game because Fischer's play was so spectacular. He wanted Bobby to have the satisfaction of checkmate.

On a side note, When I was in high school my history teacher also taught my chess class. He was usually very low key and kind of boring until the day when he had us play through this game. He had this wild look in his eye and his voice and hands were trembling when he played through the moves. He kept saying "Now WATCH THIS. WATCH THIS PART!"

[u/unknown_error_]

I can't believe I sat through a 24 minute chess commentary. I was entertained.

[u/Rubdix]

This makes me really want to get better at chess.

[u/Spindax]

This is almost like watching a commentated game of Starcraft.

[u/A_Prattling_Gimp]

Wow, I am not a chess player but I understand the mechanics of the game and I appreciate the strategy used. I never thought I'd find a chess game exciting, but that was like hardcore pawnography.

[u/LSU_Tiger]

http://medlem.spray.se/tal0/archive/centurygame.html

While the Fischer game was interesting, my vote for "Game of the Century" is Kasparov-Topalov Wijk aan Zee, 1999.

The link above is Kasparov's own analysis of the game.

Unfortunately it will be difficult to follow for most non-chesss players as the analysis is complicated and there is no video, but alas-- this was a game of unrivaled beauty and perfection.

[u/infiniteslinky]

If you came up with this move, I dont believe you.

[u/fuzztone]

He also turned out to be nuttier than squirrel shit. Sad, really.

[u/soxandpatriots1]

Wow. what really struck me was how all of Fischer's pieces were really working together. Every piece was helping out another piece. That cohesion and connection is amazing.