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Bobby Fischer vs Bent Larsen
"Game of the Dane" (game of the day Jul-16-2009)
Palma de Mallorca Interzonal (1970), Palma de Mallorca ESP, rd 9, Nov-20
Sicilian Defense: Fischer-Sozin Attack. Leonhardt Variation (B88)  ·  0-1

ANALYSIS [x]

FEN COPIED

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Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 6 OF 6 ·  Later Kibitzing>
May-05-19  N.O.F. NAJDORF: I don't get this.

Presumably, Fischer intended to meet 26 … Qc8 with

27 Rxd6

but he decided that after 26 … Qc4

27 Rxd6 wouldn't work

I can't see where the difference lies.

After 26 … Qc8

. 27 Rxd6 Re7

what would white have played?

May-05-19
Premium Chessgames Member
  beatgiant: <N.O.F. NAJDORF> On 26...Qc8 27. Rxd6 Re7? White has <28. Qxg7+> Rxg7 29. Rxg7+ Kh7 30. Rdxd7, and to stop the mate threat it looks like Black will have to play 30...Qxd7 31. Rxd7. White ends up with an extra knight.
May-05-19
Premium Chessgames Member
  beatgiant: <N.O.F. NAJDORF> While on 26...Qc4 27. Rxd6, Black can reply <27...b3> 28. c3 Rxa4. It looks like White will lose the knight with a worse position than in the game.
Jan-22-20  AliSawalha: Nxe6 pinned the knight and lose
Feb-01-20  N.O.F. NAJDORF: Thanks for your analysis, beatgiant, which I am ashamed to admit I have only just seen after all this time.

They do say that foreseeing a piece taking another piece backwards is one of the hardest things to visualise (cf. the tragic Reshevsky v Savon interzonal game) and that seems to be what happened here to Fischer.

It took me a while to realise that the difference between your two variations lies in the fact that in the first one, a rook is blocking Black's queen from taking the knight on e6.

I had realised that Fischer's blunder 26 Ne6 - instead of the obvious Nf5 - had to have something to do with targeting g7 and covering f8 at the same time, and that's what your first variation does.

Feb-02-20  Patszer: A Fischer loss in 1970 does not fall into the natural order of things.
Feb-02-20  SChesshevsky: <A Fischer loss in 1970 does not fall into the natural order of things.>

Might consider this more a Fischer experiment gone wrong. Don't think he ever played before or had since the 0-0-0, g4, h4 idea. Even just the 0-0-0 Sozin play seemed rare for him. Maybe for good reason after getting blown up by Geller earlier:

Fischer vs Geller, 1967

But you have to give Fischer some credit for experimenting against a dangerous opponent in a big tournament.

Feb-02-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  perfidious: One common thread shared between this game and the loss to Geller at Monaco in the Najdorf Poisoned Pawn is that, even at his zenith, Fischer's strength lay in clear, sharp positions, rather than murkier attacking lines such as the Velimirovic.

It is most revealing that Tal, that great master of horrific complexity, sussed out the way soon after Fischer had failed vs Geller in '67.

Feb-03-20  Petrosianic: Mednis makes the same point. Fischer was good in clear positions, and better at complex clear positions that others couldn't see through as easily. Not as good in speculative lines.
Jun-25-20  Howard: Yes, Kasparov made a similar point in MGP. One example is Fischer-Geller Skopje 1967—very complex game, and not exactly compatible with Fischer’s style.
Jun-25-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  harrylime: Yasser Seirawan reckons Karpov had this game sorted into an endgame from move 3 .
Jun-26-20  Howard: Ya sure ya mean KARPOV
Mar-23-21  thelegendisback: I've no idea what was Fischer doing in this game.
Sep-06-21  Justin796: Knight d6 pinned the knight but when black moved h6 Fischer should have put his queen on a safe square like d2, and definitely not line up with white's bishop. Downhill from there. A good game from Larsen, not a brilliant one.
Sep-06-21  RookFile: Larsen went +9 -2 in this tournament..... beat Fischer, and wait for it.... finished 3.5 points (!) behind Fischer for 2nd place. In the days that followed, there were a lot of great players, but I haven't seen anybody who consistently had such a huge gap between himself and the #2 guy as Fischer did.
Sep-06-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  MissScarlett: Impressive of Fischer to score 12.5 points from 11 games.
Sep-12-21  RookFile: I omitted the draws, of course.
Sep-13-21  N.O.F. NAJDORF: Compare

Stein vs Najdorf, 1965

Jan-08-22  N.O.F. NAJDORF: <beatgiant: <N.O.F. NAJDORF> While on 26...Qc4 27. Rxd6, Black can reply <27...b3> 28. c3 Rxa4. It looks like White will lose the knight with a worse position than in the game.>

Wouldn't that allow white to draw by

27. Rxd6 b3 28. c3 Rxa4 29. Qxg7+ Rxg7 30. Rxg7+ Kh8 31. Rgxd7 Ra8 32. Nd8 Ra6 33. Nf7+ Kg8 34. Nxh6+ Kf8 35. Rd8+ Ke7/g7 36. Nf5+ etc?

Isn't the real reason Fischer rejected 27. Rxd6 that black could reply 27... Re8 ?

27. Rxd6 Re8 28. Qxg7+ Rxg7 29. Rxg7+ Kh8 30. Rgxd7 Rxe6 31. Rd8+ Kg7 32. R6d7+ Kf6 33. Rf8+ Kg5 34. Rg7+ Kh4 35. Rg4+ Kh3 and white runs out of checks.

Jan-08-22  ocpman: After 31.Rgxd7 in your first line above, I think Black can mate starting with 31...Qf1+
Mar-05-24  FM David H. Levin: I quite like Black's play in this game and was reminded of it by <ZonszeinP> at the Bent Larsen thread, so I thought I'd give it a "bump."
Feb-08-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  Fusilli: I don't remember having played through this game before, so I went ahead and did that now, and stopped at that crucial move 26. Then I read the exchange between <NOF Najdorf> and <beatgiant> below and it made me nostalgic for those days when we discussed variations without checking with an engine.

I resent the easy availability of engines because they have made me lazy (yeah yeah, I suppose I could use discipline and my own head, whatever) but also because it deprived us from that community activity: analyzing together and going back and forth with our own lines. It is not fun to invest my brainpower to come up with a line, post it, and then someone refutes it with the engine. So, I just check the engine now.

Feb-09-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  Sally Simpson: <Hi Fusilli>

Look at the conversation between myself and Plang regarding computers in this thread.

Fischer vs B Larsen, 1970 (kibitz #110)

I loved sitting in the analysis room at a tournament joining in on the analysis. These days the players split up and sit alone in the cafe going over the game with mobile running a computer app. Modern tournaments no longer have an analysis room.

I think back on the wonderful days (yes days) a whole crowd of us going over opening ideas or looking at critical positions in the club. Today a press of a button would have guided us within seconds.

And yet is that not akin to going from say Edinburgh to Inverness by coach in 10 seconds instead of taking 3 hours. In the 10 second trip, 'Whoosh!' and you miss all the wonderful scenery.

Spending three hours on a position with a group of players all contributing ideas and variations leaves you chock full of ideas and inspiration.
The 10 second trip gets you from A to B quicker as does a cold computer busting a variation within seconds but we miss so much and what have we learned, we have not sought the answer, we have looked at the answer.

Feb-09-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  Fusilli: <Sally Simpson> All that is true. One <can learn> from the engine, but it kills one's own imagination. I am also mourning the community spirit of it all. The engines produce isolation. Now we run the post-mortem alone at the cafe, on our phones, as you put it.

I made friends, real friends, at the chess club as a teenager. Some of them I still keep today, after 30 years since I left Argentina. I want to believe that kids growing up playing chess now also make those friendships, but I wonder.

Feb-09-25
Premium Chessgames Member
  Sally Simpson: <Hi Fusilli>

I'm not sure I've leaned anything from a computer, though I probably have.

One thing I did try was beefing up my Rook endgames by playing against one from book positions to see if the winning method sunk in.

Hopeless. The thing could see the mate coming so instead of playing 'the best' move which required you to think and work out the win, it would play stupid moves that got mated in the least amount of moves. It appeared to be sulking.

I've been impressed with some computer games. This one. Stockfish vs AllieStein, 2019 It makes you wonder what moves they are not showing because somewhere in the 40 ply analysis a variation deviates by a fraction of an evaluation point.

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