Donald Byrne vs Vasily Smyslov (1962)

Donald Byrne vs Vasily Smyslov
Mar del Plata 1962 · English Opening: King's English Variation. Reversed Sicilian (A21) · 1-0

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explore this opening	find similar games	1 more D Byrne/Smyslov game
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Nov-20-03		stef21: nice game when 2 rooks are overcome by Queen, notice the rooks are disconnected, that makes the difference

Nov-25-03		myratingstinks: I disagree stef21. In my humble opinion the exchange of black's queen for 2 rooks was a very bad trade. The queen in the endgame is easily worth more than 2 rooks, connected or not. Just my 2 cents...........

Nov-25-03		raylopez99: Wow. Usually when a player exchanges rooks for queen he has a plan that wins. Smyslov got upset here by Byrne

Nov-25-03		Benjamin Lau: Myratingstinks, not really. The two rooks, as stef21 pointed out, are usually = or slightly > the queen so long as they are coordinated (which is a bit more correct than "connected.") White mainly won in this game because he was able to bust open the position with 23. e5!, allowing his bishop pair to completely dominate and overwhelm the hapless knights. It also helped that white had a central pawn majority which Byrne converted into a passed pawn.

Jun-17-04		Whitehat1963: Nice upset of the recent world champion, showing that Byrne was certainly no slouch, despite Fischer's drubbing in 1956.

Apr-22-10		jerseybob: Smyslov's opening plan - assuming he had one - never quite comes together. 8..Bxf3 looks better than the abject retreat back to d7. And the bishop eventually takes the very same knight 21 moves later but at a much higher cost. Good forceful game by Byrne.

Apr-22-12		An Englishman: Good Morning: Today's online edition of the New York Times mentions that this game was the subject of the first chess column in that paper's history. Byrne's sacrifice of 2 Rooks for the Queen is a rarity; essentially, he's sacrificing for the sake of playing e4-e5.

Apr-22-12		Ziggurat: 3...Bg4 just looks wrong.

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