List of chess games
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This is a list of notable chess games sorted chronologically.
Contents |
[edit] 1600s
- 1619: Greco - Unknown, Rome. In one of the earliest recorded chess games, Gioachino Greco mates on the eighth move with a queen sacrifice.
[edit] 1700s
- 1788: Bowdler - Conway, London. Thomas Bowdler offers the first example of the famous double rook sacrifice.
- 1790: Smith - Philidor, London. François-André Danican Philidor, who was quoted as saying "Pawns are the soul of chess", demonstrates the power of a superior pawn formation, as well as a nice mating combination.
[edit] 1800s
- 1834: McDonnell - La Bourdonnais, London. Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais's win against Alexander McDonnell, his most famous win of the match (considered an unofficial world championship), demonstrates a mass of pawns overwhelming McDonnell's queen.
- 1843: Staunton - St. Amant, Paris. Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint-Amant resigns in this unofficial world championship match game with Howard Staunton, in which Staunton remarked, "The latter portion of this game is conducted with remarkable skill by both parties."
- 1844: Hoffmann - Petrov, Warsaw. Petrov wins with a queen sacrifice and a relentless king hunt, in a game known as "Petrov's Immortal."
- 1851: The Immortal Game between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. Kieseritzky neglects his development and Anderssen sacrifices his queen and both rooks for a win.
- 1852: The Evergreen game between Adolf Anderssen and Jean Dufresne. Anderssen mates with what Savielly Tartakower called "[a] combination second to none in the literature of the game."
- 1858: The Opera game between Paul Morphy and two allies, the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard. In a Morphy brilliancy, he mates on the 17th move with his last two pieces.
- 1872: Hamppe - Meitner, Vienna, the "Immortal Draw" between Carl Hamppe and Philipp Meitner, involving an enigmatic queen sacrifice.
- 1889: Lasker - Bauer, Amsterdam, the first example of the famous double bishop sacrifice.
[edit] 1900-1950
- 1912: Levitsky - Marshall, Breslau, widely considered one of the greatest queen sacrifices ever played.
- 1922: Bogoljubov - Alekhine, Hastings was called the greatest game of chess ever played by Irving Chernev : "Alekhine's subtle strategy involves manoeuvres which encompass the entire chessboard as a battlefield. There are exciting plots and counterplots. There are fascinating combinations and brilliant sacrifices of Queens and Rooks. There are two remarkable promotions of Pawns and a third in the offing, before White decides to capitulate." (The Chess Companion, Chernev, Faber & Faber Ltd, 1970).
- 1923: The Immortal Zugzwang Game between Fritz Sämisch and Aron Nimzowitsch, Copenhagen.
- 1925: Reti - Alekhine, Baden-Baden between Richard Reti and Alexander Alekhine, involving many deep, complicated combinations; see comprehensive analysis by A.J. Goldsby.
- 1930: The Polish Immortal game features Glucksberg vs. Najdorf. Black sacrifices all four minor pieces for victory.
- 1934: The Peruvian Immortal, sees Peruvian master Esteban Canal demolish 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!" (Fireside Book Of Chess, Simon & Schuster, 1949, pp. 392-93)
[edit] 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.
- 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.
- 1996: Deep Blue - Kasparov, 1996, Game 1, the first game in which a chess-playing computer defeated a reigning world 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.
[edit] 2000s
- 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."
