First, this is the 100th reply – so hooray for hitting that milestone! I’ll try to make it an interesting post.
Side note here: I’m reminded of French and “un match” is a game, but in the USA, it’s generally a best-of-5 match or whatever. False cognates are tricky…
Thanks everyone for the notes on Fischer-Myagmarsuren. I still have a bit to fix. But thinking of how Myagmarsuren is best known for that loss to Fischer, for better or worse, I recalled two more games.
First, Tal versus Miller. After this game, Miller was all smiles even though he lost. Why? Because he knew he was on the other end of a very special Tal combination! Tal’s play wasn’t perfect, and in fact a small mistake let Miller back in the game, but so what? (Perhaps Tal sort of let Miller back in the game to make it exciting!)
The Greatest Simul Game Of All Time? Tal vs. Miller, 1988 - Chess.com has a full analysis of the game. But here is the position at 21. Black’s …Qe5 has a nasty threat! But White has a move I wouldn’t have guessed. The follow-up left me scratching my head at first, too.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d4 d6 5.dxe5 Nxe4 6.Bxf7+ Kxf7
7.Qd5+ Be6 8.Qxe4 Be7 9.O-O d5 10.Qd3 Qd7 11.Re1 Raf8 12.Nc3
Ke8 13.Ng5 Bc5 14.Nxe6 Bxf2+ 15.Kh1 Bxe1 16.Nxf8 Rxf8 17.Bg5 Nb4 18.Qe2 Nxc2
19.e6 Qd6 20.Nb5 Qe5 21.h4 Qg3 22.Rd1 Rf2 23.Qxf2 Bxf2 24.Rxd5 Qxh4+
25.Bxh4 Bxh4 26.Nxc7+ Kf8 27.Rf5+ Bf6 28.Rd5 a5 29.Rd7 Nb4 30.Rf7+ Kg8
31.Rxf6 Nc6 32.Rf7 g6 33.e7 1-0
The other game is Gudmundsson versus Fischer. As a kid I remember this from Fischer’s 60 most memorable games. The end is amusing–Gudmundsson probably thought, gee, 16. e4 looks good, and I don’t see why not! So let’s try it. And Fischer showed a really clever plan. See if you can find the win after Rb1.
1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e3 g6 4. c4 Bg7 5. Nc3 O-O 6. Qb3 e6
7. Be2 Nc6 8. Qc2 dxc4 9. Bxc4 e5 10. dxe5 Ng4 11. O-O Ncxe5 12. Nxe5 Nxe5
13. Be2 c6 14. f4 Ng4 15. h3 Bf5 16. e4 Qd4+ 17. Kh1 Nf2+ 18. Rxf2 Qxf2
19. exf5 Bxc3 20. bxc3 Rae8 21. Bd3 Re1+ 22. Kh2 Qg1+ 23. Kg3 Rfe8 24. Rb1 gxf5
25. Bd2 Rxb1 26. Qxb1 Qxb1 27. Bxb1 Re2 0-1
Computers give 24. Kh4 as the only way to survive, which sort of boggles my mind. Fischer’s bind after …Qxd4! is very instructive. Computers take a while to see it does not give white an edge.
But the thing that most touches me about this game is the comments here: Gudmundsson himself made an appearance, years later: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044002
I went looking for a picture of him and Arinbjorn Gudmundsson turned up nothing conclusive. It wasn’t until I went with the Icelandic version that it did. Even then it was a picture of him with Fridrik Olafsson, over a picture of Olafsson, so I used logical deduction!