The Game of the Century

Thirteen-year-old Bobby Fischer sat across from reigning US Open co-champion Donald Byrne at the Marshall Chess Club and produced the game every beginner is eventually shown as proof that piece activity can outweigh material. By move 17 Fischer had a choice between retreating his attacked queen and continuing to develop, and he chose development: 17...Be6! let Byrne win the queen for a bishop while Fischer's rooks, knight and remaining bishop swarmed forward.

For the next twenty moves Byrne's extra queen never found a job to do. Fischer's minor pieces coordinated so precisely that White's king was hunted the length of the board, picking up material along the way until the balance actually favoured Black. The annotator Hans Kmoch, usually credited with the game's nickname, called it a fantastic display for a player of any age, let alone one barely a teenager.

The finish is a quiet, exact point rather than a crash: 41...Rc2 is checkmate, rook and knight combining to leave Byrne's king with no square to move to. It remains one of the most reproduced games in chess instruction, not for any unrepeatable brilliance but because nearly every move on both sides still teaches something.