- Bobby Fischer's Best Endgames.
To mourn the death of Bobby Fischer, I have put together a collection of some of his best endgames, since I'm an endgame fan myself. Although Bobby was better known for middle game combinations and attacks like Donald Byrne-Fischer 1956, Robert Byrne-Fischer 1964, and Fischer-Spassky 1972(rnd 6), he was also one of the strongest endgame players that ever lived. Here are his famous and not-so-famous endgame masterpieces--I have limited it to no more than two pieces per side.
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51 games, 1956-1992 - Fire Baptisms
This collection is not just namesake openings, it is for chess history: famous (and a few not-so-famous) victories by players playing the openings that were subsequently named after them (though there are exceptions, eg the Budapest and Meran defenses). Note that a few famous players such as Petrov, Ruy Lopez and Philidor analyzed but did not play the openings named after them. Many others--Jaenisch, Falkbeer, Panov, Rauzer, Sozin, Kan, Kalashnikov, etc--don't have a win with their openings recorded in this database. Enjoy.
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94 games, 1826-2005 - Off-Board Shenanigans
Here are many amusing and not-so amusing off-board incidents that happened during these games. The fun doesn't just occur on the chessboard itself. Note that a few of the more famous incidents either have no recorded game (e.g, Blackburne throwing Steinitz out the window, or Nimzowitsch haranguing a Nazi officer), or did not occur during a chess game (e.g, the Aronian - Gormally fracas).
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42 games, 1560-2008 - One Hundred and One Great Endgames
I have a particular liking for well-fought endgames. Here are a few "endgame immortals", which are undeservedly less well-known than the great brilliancies. Many of these games (from 1970 or earlier) appear in (a) Tartakower/DuMont's _500 Master Games of Chess, (b) Chernev's _The Most Instructive Games Ever Played_ and Shereshevsky's _Endgame Strategy_.
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101 games, 1851-2007 - The Cutthroat Petrov
Yes, you read right. If you think the Petrov Defense is a boring way to start a chess game, that's only because you don't play it correctly. All you need to do is to be on the tactical alert and fireworks result even in this supposedly sleep-inducing opening. Don't believe it? Play over the following games, then decide.
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70 games, 1842-2009 - The Unbelievable
I've collected here several games that no one could believe happened if they didn't see it with their own eyes. The fantasy element comes from either the final position or the course of the chess game, or both. A few of these (eg Adams-Torre, Alekhine-NN) are unbelievable in the literal sense--they were either compositions or were derived from post-mortem analysis.
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21 games, 1849-2007 - Tragicomedies (Dvoretsky)
This is an incomplete collection of all of the games with this title featured in Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. They are titled Tragicomedies because they show players of master level or higher, even World Champions, making all sorts of mistakes in the endgame (some of them real howlers). If you think you're hopeless in your endgame technique, or lack thereof, look here and take heart by figuring out where these great players went wrong. The games are arranged by ending and the blunder(s) are indicated by the move number.
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101 games, 1870-2003
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Kibitzing
