A few people have asked me for games I have annotated move by move. I have quite a few such games at chess.com. Here is a link to those games. If the link does not work, you can go to chess.com, search “chessiq”, go to my blog, and then search blog for “annotated” and you should be able to find most of the games.
Thanks for reading, and I hope that was helpful.
In the following game, Fischer plays White against the Sicilian Najdorf. This game was annotated by Fischer.
Four things stood out for me in this game:
1. Fischer knew the game was won by move 20, because he had a “Knight Outpost” on d5. It took another 17 moves to execute his win. As some people say, “winning from here is just a matter of technique”. Recognizing that you have a winning position, is a mark of a good player. Finding and executing a plan to turn the winning position into a win is a what separates the boys from the men.
2. Even Fischer has to make prophylactic (preventive or cautionary) moves… he has a comment when he makes the first such move on move 15. He says, “One never knows when lightning will strike!” A second such move is made on move 31. when he plays 31. a3. I was wondering whether that was prophylactic or a waiting move since Black appears to be in “zugzwang”.
3. I thought the position after Black played 30. ..Qh8 was interesting. The most powerful piece on the board is chased around until it finds solace in the corner! Lesson: watch where you place your pieces. If you play passively, you end up playing forced moves.
Black Queen is a sorry sight! Fischer - Bolbochan 1962 Stockholm Interzonal After 30...Qh8
4. Fischer did not fear exchanging pieces as he tried to convert the advantage into a win. A nice book on such a topic is “Exchanging to win in the end game” -
I hope you enjoy the game. You ideas and comments are welcome.
The following game (Sicilian Najdorf) was annotated by Fischer himself, so I did not add any comments to the actual score/notation. His comments are pretty high-level, one may find it necessary to use a board to see what he means when, for example, he gives advantage to Black or White a various points during the game.
Three main things stood out when going over the game and reading Fischer’s comments.
(1) The need to “book up” and stay current only Chess theory, that way you save yourself thinking time during the game, and also avoid reinventing the wheel.
(2) The need to understand the ideas behind a particular opening, for example, when on move 6, he mentions that “Black’s expectation in this Najdorf Variation is that his control of important central squares, with possibilities of Q-side expansion, will more than compensate for the slight weakness of his backward QP.”
(3) The need for imagination and calculating several moves ahead. When Fischer played 21…Rc8, I suspect that he saw that he could play 26…Rxc3.
I hope you enjoy the game. Your comments and thoughts are welcome.
There is a nice lesson on how to play chess at www.lokasoft.nl. Just in case somebody who does not know how to play Chess visits this blog, he or she could go over there and learn how to play and come back to enjoy the games and other Chess content over here. If the link does not work, you can copy and paste the following: http://www.lokasoft.nl/learn_chess_in_30_minutes.htm
