Grandmaster games · Third Rosenwald Memorial Tournament 1956
The Game of the Century
At thirteen, Bobby Fischer lets Donald Byrne take the queen, and every other black piece joins a mating attack.
The setting
New York, 17 October 1956: round 8 of the Rosenwald Memorial at the Marshall Chess Club. Thirteen-year-old Bobby Fischer has Black against Donald Byrne, one of the strongest American masters of the day. Fischer's tournament as a whole was modest, but this game made headlines. Hans Kmoch, writing in Chess Review, named it the Game of the Century and ranked it with the finest games ever played by a prodigy. Fischer later annotated it in Bobby Fischer's Games of Chess (1959).
Why study it
Here you can watch a thirteen-year-old think further than a master. Byrne spends one tempo too many with the queen and the bishop while the king sits on e1, and Fischer sees, a move before it is on the board, that the open e-file is worth a knight and then a queen. Live both minds: Byrne's reasonable plans that each lose a move, and Fischer's lines that run twelve plies deep, to a windmill of discovered checks and a mate with every piece.
Live it from inside a mind
Each player speaks in the first person, in a voice of their own: what they see, what they fear, the lines they calculate, why they choose. Switch minds at any move.
Donald Byrne
White · United States
One of the leading American masters of the 1950s, about 26 at the time. Byrne won the 1953 U.S. Open Championship, played for the United States at three Olympiads and became an International Master in 1962.
Bobby Fischer
Black · United States · peak 2785
A junior of thirteen here, facing master opposition in one of the first strong tournaments of a long career. In 1958, aged fifteen, Fischer became the youngest grandmaster in the world, and in 1972 the world champion.
White against Bobby Fischer, a thirteen-year-old junior. I expect a sound game: take the centre, develop, castle, and wait for the junior to overreach. I start with the knight and keep the choice between an English and a queen's pawn game open.
Black against Donald Byrne, one of the strongest masters in the country. I will fianchetto, castle early and let White build a big centre. A centre is only as strong as the pieces behind it, and I want to find out whether Byrne's pieces are ready.
The game in 7 chapters
- 1
A Grünfeld in disguise moves 1–5
Byrne opens with 1.Nf3 and 2.c4 and builds a classical centre. Fischer fianchettoes, castles, and after 5.Bf4 strikes at the centre with 5...d5: a Grünfeld Defence.
- 2
The queen walks moves 6–10
Byrne's queen goes to b3, takes on c4 and then steps to c5. Fischer gains time on it with ...Nbd7 and ...Nb6, then develops with ...Bg4, and the white king is still on e1 with the f1 bishop at home.
- 3
One tempo too many moves 11–14
11.Bg5 moves the bishop a second time. Fischer answers with the knight offer 11...Na4, removes the c3 knight and takes the e4 pawn. The e-file opens towards Byrne's uncastled king.
- 4
The queen is offered moves 15–17
Byrne wisely refuses the rook with 15.Bc4, but 15...Nxc3 and 16...Rfe8+ chase the king to f1. Then comes 17...Be6, leaving the queen to be taken.
- 5
The windmill moves 18–25
18.Bxb6 takes the queen, and Fischer's bishop on c4 and knight give discovered checks in turn, collecting the d4 pawn, the bishop on b6 and the rook on d1. Black ends with two rooks, two bishops and a knight against a queen, a rook and a knight.
- 6
Every piece guarded moves 26–34
Fischer takes the a2 and f2 pawns, trades rooks and puts the bishop on d5 and the knight on e4, where each guards the other. Byrne's queen has nothing to attack, and 34...Kg7 frees the pinned bishop.
- 7
The mating net moves 35–41
The bishops, the knight and the rook drive the white king from g1 across the first rank to c1, where 41...Rc2 is mate.