Fischer - Tal, Bled 1961

After Gligoric - Fischer, Bled 1961, where the last post was Using Computers to Call into Question, the next game in my series on 18 Memorable Games is Fischer - Tal, Bled 1961. It is no.32 in Fischer's 60 Memorable Games and no.65 in Kasparov's Predecessors IV. Here is the PGN with the punctuation given by Fischer and Kasparov.

[Event "Bled"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1961.??.??"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Fischer, R."]
[Black "Tal, M."]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B47"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.g3 Nf6 {FIS: '?'; KAS: '?!'} 7.Ndb5 {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!'} 7...Qb8 8.Bf4 Ne5 {KAS: '?'} 9.Be2 {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!'} 9...Bc5 {KAS: '?'} 10.Bxe5 {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!'} 10...Qxe5 11.f4 Qb8 12.e5 a6 13.exf6 axb5 14.fxg7 Rg8 15.Ne4 Be7 16.Qd4 Ra4 17.Nf6+ Bxf6 18.Qxf6 Qc7 19.O-O-O {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!'} 19...Rxa2 20.Kb1 Ra6 21.Bxb5 Rb6 22.Bd3 e5 23.fxe5 {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!'} 23...Rxf6 24.exf6 Qc5 25.Bxh7 Qg5 26.Bxg8 Qxf6 27.Rhf1 Qxg7 28.Bxf7+ Kd8 29.Be6 Qh6 30.Bxd7 Bxd7 31.Rf7 Qxh2 32.Rdxd7+ Ke8 33.Rde7+ Kd8 34.Rd7+ Kc8 35.Rc7+ Kd8 36.Rfd7+ Ke8 37.Rd1 b5 38.Rb7 Qh5 39.g4 Qh3 40.g5 Qf3 41.Re1+ Kf8 42.Rxb5 Kg7 43.Rb6 Qg3 44.Rd1 Qc7 45.Rdd6 Qc8 46.b3 Kf7 47.Ra6 1-0

After Tal bungled the opening with 6...Nf6, the only point of disagreement between the 11th and 13th World Champions is whether Black could have improved on the next few moves. I'll look at this in the next, and probably only, post on this game. To play through the complete game, see...

Robert James Fischer vs Mikhail Tal, Bled 1961
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008404

...on Chessgames.com.