The Game of the Century: Fischer at 13 Sacrifices His Queen and Wins

On October 17, 1956, Robert James Fischer, 13 years old, played a move in the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament in New York that Hans Kmoch called “a complete strategic masterpiece” in Chess Review magazine. He published the game under the title “The Game of the Century.” That was 1956. The name has held up.

Fischer played the Grünfeld Defense as Black against Donald Byrne, a strong American player who was giving the boy a knight-and-move advantage in informal games just a few years earlier. On move 17, Fischer played 17…Be6!!: a move that let Byrne take his queen on the next move. Fischer emerged from the sequence with a decisive material advantage and eventually won.

He was 13. He received a portable radio as the tournament prize.

The game

The opening is a Grünfeld Defense, arising after Fischer plays …g6, …Bg7, and …d5 in response to Byrne’s queen-pawn opening. On move 11, Byrne plays Bg5, a natural developing move that contains a positional error: it allows Fischer to play 11…Na4!, which attacks the queen and initiates a sequence of piece exchanges that leaves Black’s knight on c3: a dominant outpost.

The critical sequence follows:

1. Nf3 Nf6   2. c4 g6    3. Nc3 Bg7
4. d4 0-0    5. Bf4 d5   6. Qb3 dxc4
7. Qxc4 c6   8. e4 Nbd7  9. Rd1 Nb6
10. Qc5 Bg4  11. Bg5? Na4! 12. Qa3 Nxc3
13. bxc3 Nxe4! 14. Bxe7 Qb6 15. Bc4 Nxc3!
16. Bc5 Rfe8+ 17. Kf1 Be6!! 18. Bxb6 Bxc4+
19. Kg1 Ne2+  20. Kf1 Nxd4+ 21. Kg1 Ne2+
22. Kf1 Nc3+  23. Kg1 axb6  24. Qb4 Ra4
25. Qxb6 Nxd1 26. h3 Rxa2   27. Kh2 Nxf2
28. Re1 Rxe1  29. Qd8+ Bf8  30. Nxe1 Bd5
31. Nf3 Ne4   32. Qb8 b5    33. h4 h5
34. Ne5 Kg7   35. Kg1 Bc5+  36. Kf1 Ng3+
37. Ke1 Bb4+  38. Kd1 Bb3+  39. Kc1 Ne2+
40. Kb1 Nc3+  41. Kc1 Rc2#

Game score public domain, played October 17, 1956, Rosenwald Memorial Tournament, New York.

The move: 17…Be6!!

The double exclamation mark on 17…Be6 is unanimous among annotators. Byrne’s queen is on b6 attacking Fischer’s queen on b6. Fischer plays his bishop to e6, interposing it on the b3-e6 diagonal, but also, and this is the point, allowing Byrne to capture Fischer’s queen on the next move with 18.Bxb6.

After 18.Bxb6 Bxc4+ (the bishop discovers a check), the knight on c3 generates a series of discovered checks that Byrne’s king cannot escape: 19.Kg1 Ne2+ 20.Kf1 Nxd4+, picking up the queen, 21.Kg1 Ne2+ 22.Kf1 Nc3+ 23.Kg1 axb6. At this point, Fischer has won back the queen and has a rook, bishop, and knight against Byrne’s queen. The rest is a long technical conversion.

Move 41 is Rc2#, a back-rank checkmate delivered by the rook. Fischer played the combination perfectly and the endgame perfectly. He was 13 years old.

Why Kmoch called it the game of the century

Hans Kmoch was an Austrian grandmaster and chess writer who had seen the world’s best players compete for three decades. He had watched Alekhine, Capablanca, Botvinnik, Keres. When he saw the Byrne-Fischer game, he wrote: “In the history of chess, few games have received so much praise from experts as the one which young Robert Fischer played in this tournament. The surprise sacrifice, the remarkable series of checks and counter-checks, and the final simplification into an won ending were all far beyond what one might expect from a 13-year-old.”

The game was published, analyzed, and discussed. Fischer’s talent was already known in chess circles. The Rosenwald game made the scale of it visible outside those circles.

The connection to Fischer’s later career

Five years after the Rosenwald game, Fischer was the strongest player in the United States. Ten years after it, he was ranked among the top players in the world. In 1972, the year of the Reykjavik match against Spassky, he was the best player alive.

The same principles that produced the Game of the Century (piece coordination, tactical vision that runs deeper than opponents expect, willingness to let the material count go temporarily negative) appear in every phase of Fischer’s career. His annotations in My 60 Memorable Games demonstrate the same thinking applied to the Najdorf Sicilian fifteen years later.

Frank Brady’s biography Endgame (Crown, 2011) covers the Rosenwald tournament and places the game in the context of Fischer’s childhood and development in Brooklyn. It remains the most thoroughly researched account of Fischer’s life.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Game of the Century in chess? Fischer vs. Donald Byrne, played October 17, 1956, in the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament in New York. Fischer was 13 years old. The game is named for the queen sacrifice on move 17 (17…Be6!!) that allowed Fischer to initiate a winning combination. Chess journalist Hans Kmoch named it in Chess Review magazine.

How old was Fischer when he played the Game of the Century? 13 years old. He was born March 9, 1943, and the game was played October 17, 1956.

What is the key move in the Game of the Century? 17…Be6!!, Fischer plays his bishop to e6, allowing Byrne to capture Fischer’s queen on the next move. After 18.Bxb6 Bxc4+, a series of discovered checks by the knight wins back the material with a decisive advantage.

What opening was played in the Game of the Century? The Grünfeld Defense, arising after 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.d4 0-0 5.Bf4 d5. Fischer’s fianchettoed bishop and active knight play created the tactical complications that led to the famous combination.

Sources

• Kmoch, Hans. “The Game of the Century.” Chess Review, 1956.
• Brady, Frank. Endgame: Bobby Fischer’s Remarkable Rise and Fall. Crown, 2011.
• Fischer vs. Byrne, 1956 game score, chessgames.com

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