On the other, once you put on your analyst's hat, you can’t close your eyes to the numerous unforced errors by white that set up the winning combination in this contest.

It’s particularly hard to ignore white’s appalling 11th move, f4 instead of either Nh3 or Nf3, (Nf3 shown below).

click for larger view

<Endgame's> analysis of the game demonstrates the win for black after 20.Bxg6:

<JG27Pyth>, you are now on my favorites list - a dubious honor perhaps, but very obviously overdue :)>

I also felt that was top class humour by <JG>

<ajk68: I think the brilliance begins with the move 15...e5!

Without seeing that move and its continuation the whole attack doesn't work. This is not a move many of us would see (a pawn move 7 moves deep that allows the attack to continue if one is content to sacrifice 3 more pieces).>

I agree, this is where the attack gets really creative. What adds to the brilliance is that Najdorf had to have move 15 - 22 worked out before he played move 10.

<Jimfromprovidence: once you put on your analyst's hat, you can’t close your eyes to the numerous unforced errors by white that set up the winning combination in this contest.

It’s particularly hard to ignore white’s appalling 11th move, f4 instead of either Nh3 or Nf3, (Nf3 shown below).>

The game as a whole wouldn't get into my top games list because as you say, the attack was made possible by pissweak play by white. When selecting the top games from history, I would only choose games where both players fully tested eachother and one player's brilliance triumphed.

It is bizzarre that a player good enough to get a geurnsey against Najdorf could play 9.Ng5??. However, I disagree that 11.f4 is appalling. Sure, after 11.Nf3 or 11.Nh3 white will not get smashed up the way he did. But after retreating the bishop, black has a pawn and retains a (slower) attack, so it is completely lost. 11.f4 instead gives white some practical chances, since black's bishop is trapped and will die. Then the onus is on black to demonstrate the super creative sequence of moves to prove the point of 10...Ng4.

According to Kasparov's book it was played Warsaw 1928, and White's name was actually I.Glinksburg. Kasparov claims to have been told this by Najdorf and/or Najdorf's daughter.

I thought that Kasparov had been personally given the information by Najdorf, but looking more closely at what he wrote, he may have simply read it in a book written by Najdorf's daughter, Liliana (sorry, can't tell you anything about the book).

In "Kings, Commoners and Knaves" Edward Winter notes that the game was first published in a Polish newspaper in August 1930 and speculates that it may have been played in a minor Warsaw tournament in January of that year.

<JG27Pyth: God. So true. I mean I hate that when I'm playing a nice game of chess and I think I'm just going to win a pawn or something, and wham bam, all of a sudden I've just stumbled into a multi-piece sacrifice ending with an elegant pawn mate... I mean how annoying is that!? When I was a lad I was impressed by such things too... but now that I'm 9 years old, I divide my time between running my 7 trillion Euro hedge fund and DNA sequencing my cat, by hand (I want to see if I can figure out how to make her sing the Neil Diamond catalog in Celtic...haha that's impossible, I'm really just trying to make her grow batwings). I certainly don't have time to be impressed by the odd random multi-piece 9 move mating combination sacrifice. OHHH crap... I just bent a spoon with my mind!!! Dammit that is sooo annoying.>