R.Byrne - Fischer, U.S. Championship 1963

Just like the previous game (see Fischer - Benko, U.S. Championship 1963) in this series titled 18 Memorable Games, Fischer beats a top American GM (*) in 21 moves. Here he does it with the Black pieces. The game is no.48 in Fischer's 60 Memorable Games and no.71 in Kasparov's Predecessors IV. Once again, the PGN is given here with the punctuation of both Fischer and Kasparov.

[Event "US Championship"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1963.??.??"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Byrne, R."]
[Black "Fischer, R."]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "D71"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.g3 c6 4.Bg2 d5 5.cxd5 cxd5 6.Nc3 Bg7 7.e3 O-O 8.Nge2 Nc6 9.O-O b6 10.b3 Ba6 11.Ba3 Re8 12.Qd2 e5 {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!'} 13.dxe5 Nxe5 14.Rfd1 {FIS: '?'; KAS: '?'} 14...Nd3 {FIS: '!'; ; KAS: '!'} 15.Qc2 {KAS: '?'} 15...Nxf2 {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!'} 16.Kxf2 Ng4+ 17.Kg1 Nxe3 18.Qd2 Nxg2 {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!!'} 19.Kxg2 d4 {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!'} 20.Nxd4 Bb7+ 21.Kf1 Qd7 {FIS: '!'; KAS: '!'} 0-1

Except for a '?' on White's 15th move and an extra '!' on Black's 18th, Kasparov has reused Fischer's punctuation. For my next post in the series I'll look at 15.Qc2 {KAS: '?'}, which Kasparov says was the losing move, rather than 14.Rfd1, given by almost all other commentators, Fischer included. To play through the complete game, see...

Robert Eugene Byrne vs Robert James Fischer; US Ch. 1963
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008419

...on Chessgames.com.

***

(*) Did Benko ever take American nationality? If so, what year?