Saturday
Oct172015
The Greatest Game Ever Played?
Saturday, October 17, 2015 at 7:50PM
That's the title of my current column on the World Chess website, in which I annotate game 6 of the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match and consider criteria for a game's greatness.
tagged AGON, Bobby Fischer, Boris Spassky
Reader Comments (6)
To me, this Game 6 just seems to be a game played by a strong grandmaster against a weak grandmaster. (I am by no means suggesting that Spassky is anything less than a deserving World Champion, of course. But in this game...)
There are far better candidates for the title "Greatest". I can think of a dozen, but I certainly will not choose!
[DM: I agree that Spassky didn't play well in this game at all. The one thing that can be said in support of game 6 is that it was Fischer's own favorite game from the match.]
If I remember correctly, the game Timman--Geller, 1973 (given in full in D.M.'s column) was designated as the best game of Informant 15. Can anyone verify that ?
[DM: I'm not positive, but I believe it took 5th in the best game voting. I am positive that it (also) took third place in the voting for the best novelty of that volume.]
Congratulations on a nicely-themed column.
Also my condolences on the passing of IM Emory Tate---I think you faced him in the past decade---?
[DM: Tate was from this area, but he moved away before I got here. We played three times in OTB tournaments, each winning once.
Thanks re the column.]
Hi, Dennis. That was a rather interesting article. I'm glad that you took on that subject--it was something that had been on my mind just the other day, wondering what my response would be if one of my students were to ask what the greatest game ever played was. (I have one or two students who like to ask questions like that.)
My take: Rather than a "great" game, this one was instructive or a "textbook game" - indeed I think I first saw it in a textbook (don't remember which one). For didactic purposes, a game shouldn't be too complex, as happens when both sides play well !?
Dennis, did you [snip] notice the game at the time?
[DM: I didn't learn to play until 1974 and only became aware of chess literature in 1975 or 1976. I remember back then that game 6 was a big deal, but mainly because of the shock of Fischer's playing 1.c4 and a Queen's Gambit. Fischer's play was praised, but not as a candidate for the greatest game in history.]
My candidate for greatest game within my chessic lifetime might be Kasparov-Topalov from Wijk aan Zee.
[DM: That's a good choice. I might put Karpov-Kasparov, 1985 (game 16) above that - the 8...d5 game. It's not as spectacular but I think it's conceptually deeper.]
Perhaps this is generational, but I don't know that I have ever seen a game as impressively played by both sides and also as attractive as Kasparov-Topalov, Wijk aan Zee 1999. Presuming that such a game must also be decisive. . .
Game 24 from the Karpov-Kasparov 1985 match could also be considered, and in light of its competitive significance should be. I would cite Anand-Topalov Game 12, but the quality of the game is probably not as high, so the 1985 game is probably the most significant of the set of games which decided matches.