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Bobby Fischer vs Robert Byrne
"Fischer fiddles while Byrne roams" (game of the day Dec-29-2021)
United States Championship (1965), New York, NY USA, rd 8, Dec-23
French Defense: Tarrasch Variation. Guimard Defense (C03)  ·  0-1

ANALYSIS [x]

FEN COPIED

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Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 1 OF 4 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Feb-22-03  drukenknight: More FIsher/Winawer. This looks to be some sort of prepared variation by Byrne. After all how many people play 3...Nc6?

Look at the symmetry involved after the first 4 moves. Maybe Sneaky could explain what is going on there and who it favors.

In the game, is 13...Re8 stronger?

Jan-11-04  drkruss: It's a Tarrasch, and I wonder if Fischer was surprised by Byrne's 33rd move where he gives up the exchange to obtain a winning endgame position.
Sep-07-04  iron maiden: Robert Byrne's personal score against Fischer: +1 -2 =6. Pretty respectable, especially considering the years in which they played.
Oct-29-04  PinkPanther: It says 4-1 in Fischer's favor with 6 draws from where I'm sitting.
Oct-29-04  PinkPanther: Aha, I see, you weren't taking blitz into account.
Oct-30-04  aw1988: This looks like a kind of mutated Chigorin defense.
Oct-30-04  PinkPanther: No, c4 being played is a fundamental part of the Chigorin's Defense, since it happens on usually the 2nd move :) and as you can see, here it never was.
Oct-30-04  aw1988: Which is why I said mutated. :)
Oct-30-04
Premium Chessgames Member
  Eggman: <<I wonder if Fischer was surprised by Byrne's 33rd move where he gives up the exchange to obtain a winning endgame position.>>

No way. Actually, it's pretty standard when up material to look for opportunities to simplify (to a win) with the aid of a sacrifice. The idea certainly would have been on my mind, and I can't imagine it escaping Fischer's.

Oct-30-04
Premium Chessgames Member
  Eggman: <<Aha, I see, you weren't taking blitz into account.>>

Especially in the good old day before the 'net, one would never take something as frivolous as blitz into account.

Jun-24-06  BobbyBishop: right eggman..many inexperienced players try to hang on to their extra material to the point of altering their plans just to do it not even considering returning it for positional superiority.
Jun-24-06  RookFile: Well, it's all a matter of style. For example, a guy like Alekhine may have preferred 33... Qf6 34. Qxd5 Qf4+ 35. Kg1 Rc2. With a queen and two rooks to attack the white king position, I see no prospect of white's king surviving this.
Nov-15-06  syracrophy: <RookFile> There's no need on taking the game so long, and I think that 33...Qxf3! was precise, as it eliminates all the heavy pieces of the board, and leaving Black with his material advantage

A beautiful way of eliminating all the pieces, indeed

Mar-28-07  Marmot PFL: Looks like one of Fischer's 60 Forgettable Games. I would expect a 1600 player to see 12...Bd6 (threatening MATE) and 13...Bxe2
Mar-28-07  Resignation Trap: As far as I know, this is the only game where Fischer played 3.Nd2 against the French.
Mar-29-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  tpstar: <Resignation Trap> Right on = Repertoire Explorer: Robert James Fischer (white)
Mar-29-07  euripides: Hard to tell what happened here. At first, as <marmot> says, it looks as if Fischer missed the zwischenzug 12...Bd6 when he played 12.Nxc6. But he must have seen this idea a move earlier, or he would have played 11.Nxc6 to win the e7 bishop. Perhaps he confused the move order in one of the lines.

Anyway, Byrne's 3...Nc6 works very well in this game. Petrosian later tried 3...Nc6 against Fischer's usual 3.Nc3 but Fischer did much better:

Fischer vs Petrosian, 1971

Apr-01-07  Peter Nemenyi: <Robert Byrne's personal score against Fischer: +1 -2 =6. Pretty respectable, especially considering the years in which they played.>

Byrne was a hard man to beat, and it's not surprising that he could usually hold the draw against Fischer when he was on form. What's interesting is that he was able to draw with Bobby in three U.S. Championships--1958, 1960, and 1966--in which he didn't play well, scoring below 50% in each case.

Apr-20-07  ChessNe1: <iron maiden: Robert Byrne's personal score against Fischer: +1 -2 =6. Pretty respectable, especially considering the years in which they played.>

CG.Com has the written record as being R. Byrne +1 -4 =6 v. R. Fischer in their game collection.

Apr-20-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  keypusher: <ChessNe1> the extra two Fischer wins are blitz games.

Of Fischer's two official wins, the first is of course an all-time classic, and I think the second is pretty amazing too. Then there is this game:

R Byrne vs Fischer, 1959

Apr-20-07  ChessNe1: <keypusher> do blitz games count? If Byrne had won the two, would he have been seen as the better player? I dunno. Blitz games decide tied scores in tournaments, right?

Now, that 1959 game you showed me had all the energy of a fist fight!

Apr-21-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  keypusher: <do blitz games count?>

Not to me, or to most people. If you look in Wade and O'Connell's book of Fischer games, which includes his scores against all his opponents, his score against Byrne is given as +2-1=6.

<If Byrne had won the two, would he have been seen as the better player?>

No.

<Blitz games decide tied scores in tournaments, right?>

Rarely in major tournaments, never in the 1960s or 1970s. People make more of blitz now they did in Fischer's time, but it's still not a big deal.

Dec-22-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  chancho: This was payback to Fischer for the brilliancy loss that Fischer inflicted on Byrne the year before:

R Byrne vs Fischer, 1963

May-01-09  WhiteRook48: and it was also payback for the Fischer's win over his brother.
Jun-01-09  Petrosianic: <do blitz games count?>

Define "count"? Are they rated? No. Are they in some databases? Yes. Does chessgames.com count them when tallying up player's lifetime scores against each other? Yes. Do most players take them seriously? No. Why not? Well, in addition to the haphazard nature of blitz itself, and the misleading-ness of mixing them with classical games, there's also the fact that records are so incomplete. As fellow Manhattan Club members for years, Fischer and Byrne may have played hundreds of blitz games against each other, of which we have only 2.

Incomplete records are of little value. And that happens even with classical games sometimes. Fischer played a short match against Matulovic in 1958, which he won 2½-1½, but the game Fischer lost is the only one that survives. Chessgames doesn't have the three other classical games from that match, but does include two blitz games from 1970. Although, in that case at least, the two fudges almost cancel each other out.

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