Hi all I'd like to show you the shortest decisive encounter recorded between Robert James Fisher,
Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. Now this is from the 1992 match, which we had a look
recently and a few games and there's still one or two more interesting games I'd like
to present at least. So here Fischer plain white kicked off with e4 and we saw e5 from
Boris and now after N f3, Nc6, the Ruy Lopez, Bb5, Spassky plays a6 and now
a little surprise is played here by Fischer. Bc6 is played. The normal Ba4 dominates this
position. But the exchange Ruy Lopez Okay it gives black the bishop pair, it damages
black structure. So, it creates some imbalances, black takes with a d pawn. Okay in this position
white has put on a kibitzer. White cannot really take on e5 to expect an advantage because
of queen d3 in case some of you don't know this. So, this is a perfectly playable variation.
White castles here usually and that's stops played. Without f6 supporting the e5 pawn
and Fischer immediately plays now d4. After exd4 the most popular move is Nxd4, not Qxd4
and that is what’s played. Nxd4. So, the Queen's are not coming off immediately. But
now in fact black has the option to play c5 and this is the most popular move here to
play c5 and get the Queen's off. The Knight goes back to b3 and now the Queen's come off
and you might think it's a little bit dry isn't this, what can white get in terms of
an advantage here. Well the double pawns are a long-term thing for white maybe in the endgame
to target, to get his majority. If you look at the majority of pawns on this side of the
board, its free here. So, pawn majority in the endgame could be useful. That's one thing.
In the middle game are these pawns actually targets? Let’s say Bg4 is played by Boris.
I think this is actually the most standard move. We just check live book on this position.
Bg4 is the most popular move and second most popular is Bd7, but by far the most popular
move Bg4. So, encouraging either the rook to move or f3. F3 now Be6 and now a slight
deviation here. The most popular move by far is Bishop f4 to target c7 here. Another idea
is Be3 just to target c5. But Fischer chooses a much rarer, I dare I move Nc3. So, it's
keeping the tension where is this Bishop going to be moving either to e3 or f4 keeping Boris
Spassky guessing, guessing. Well Boris stops now Bf4 by playing Bd6 in advance and, so
we see Be3 targeting the c5 pawn. How does black actually react to this without losing
control of the d4 square? If black plays the move c4, this would not be pleasant surely.
White it has for example night c5 actually here to try and get the two bishops from black
and still retain structural advantage. This will be quite pleasant for white. So, the
pawn is actually just protected in this position, maybe Bishop takes b3 again is unappealing
from giving up the bishop pair. So b6. But the downside of b6 is that this pawn chain
can be undermined from its base, base being b6 potentially. Fischer plays now a4. However
perhaps it is actually pliable to play a5. Because this Rooks liberating by d4, on it's
d4 square. Perhaps bars could have considered a5 giving up the b5 square and although this
looks horrible, this Bishop on d6 as a sitting target. If for example castling queenside
Rd2 to build up pressure on d6, Ne7 same, Rad1, this isn't all bad for black. Okay,
there are some problems. I mean if Be5, then actually taking Na7 is end of game winning
the rook on d8. So black would have to be careful. But there's a fantastic resource
here for black in Bd7 just targeting a4 pawn and this should actually be from an engine
point of view at least quite okay, this kind of position here. So, in fact it seems that
the move a5 was potentially a viable response here. Because this pawn is actually fixed
as a target. In fact, there was a game in the 1972 match when Fisher playing black did
target Spassky’s a4 pawn. It was in an eloquent defense game. So, this is interesting that
a5 wasn't played and now in fact we see castling queenside by Boris Spassky, Allen's a5. So,
the problem noted before. This Rook is gaining scope and it's all really frightening to take
in an a6. So, the King comes to defend a6, King b7 and now though this might not be the
most accurate. Let's just check this position. Although it looks very damaging for ab, but
might have time to play Bxb3 here. C takes, and now actually b5 might actually have been
playable as well. So, this would make sure this Rook hasn’t got a scope, he is not
attacking a6. This isn't such an exploitable weakness. C4 is quite difficult to get to
perhaps. Okay it looks about equal. So that was another opportunity here, the very forcing
move Bxb3 and b5 to have being played. But now what we see from Boris is Kb7. Maybe just
expecting ab, but then you know maybe trying to eventually play Ne7 to show the A file.
But there's quite an unexpected move and a very powerful move from Fischer played in
this position. I wonder if you can guess or you might want to pause the video here, if
I give you 10 seconds starting now what would you play with the white pieces? Okay Fischer
plays the very energetic e5. It's actually a square vacating move. Vacating the e4 square
for the Knight. Of course, there's Bishop pins now because of that King leaving a weakness
and loss, this is a loose piece on d8. So, the bishop can't take care without losing
the Rook. But the bishop Drops back. Now in the game the bishop drops
back, but let's have a quick look if fxe for example, the idea is something like this.
A take and with c5 as a target taking back seems one of the better ideas. Ne4 though
attacks the bishop and this is a difficult position for black indeed with this threat
of Nxd6, very difficult position here. If Bc7, we see that one of the recurring ideas
is Nexc5 exploiting loose bishop on e6 upon the Forking the King and the loose bishop
on e6. So, this is pretty nasty stuff. So that's the principle kind of Fork idea. But
what else come back? I've tried in this position if he had gone for fxe. There isn't too much
else. If Kc7, it looks bad for either Rxa6 or there might even be a stronger move Bg5
here and this is very very difficult for black, this kind of position. So that kind of unpleasantness
you know is showing the power of this vacating like sacrifice to vacate the e4 square. But
instead Spassky plays one of the best moves, Be7. Keeping things intact for the moment
and now if white does try Bxc5 this just doesn't work here. Black, well is protecting c5 adequately
in any case. It's not working at all in fact. So, things out danger for the moment. But
Rxd8 was played and now black takes with Bishop. Ne4 now is threatening Nxe5. There's enough
pieces on c5 for that to be a threat. But it's here that Spassky apparently went into
deep calculation of a very long variation apparently with Bd5 in this position. So,
he was looking at Bd5. I think it's very important to try and get some empathy. So,
this is one of the things he said about this game and he couldn't find an advantage for
white, but switched at the last minute to a different move. I think cut off, Alexander
cut off the great writer or think like Grandmaster mentioned this is a recurring issue for some
players where they are analyzing variations in last minute. They ditch their variations
and choose a completely different move that they didn't really check at all. I think it's
one characteristic trait of the different move they didn't analyze, a toy is often weakness
of the last move and instead of playing okay let's have a quick look though, if Bd5 had
been played maybe this is the kind of variation which would need to be calculated. A take,
c takes allowing Nd6 is scary. Because now there's a potential for Nf7 if the bishop
wasn't covering it. So, we have to analyze things like c4 here. But there's also the
dangerous Nxc5 first. If Bishop takes and if Bb6 there's Nc8++. So kb8 and now c4. So,
all of this I guess has to be analyzed. Bishop can't step away from f7 here without allowing
Nf7 and this kind of addition is actually quite scary for black. Even though blacks
a piece up the engines actually like white quite bit here, a very dangerous position
for example like this. It's some way down, but maybe it's giving some empathy for the
kind of stuff which needed to be calculated here. So, there's quite dangerous frets like
Bd6. Bxc4++ and this is unpleasant winning the bishop there. If Kb7, then coordination
gets a mate in two quite horrific. So, it's quite dangerous for blacks King and this stuff
needs to be calculated from Bishop for Bishop d5 to be proven. But at the last minute in
fact you know Bd5 perhaps was Spassky changed his mind and played this move, adventurous
King, Kc6. These kind of King moves often helped Tigran Petrosian defend very tricky
positions and confuse opponents playing very unexpected king moves. King walking around
the board. But here this is not so convincing, because now Fischer just plays axb6 and there's
a big snag, which is revealed in relation to this a6 pawn again is temporarily this
loose piece here. This is a big problem, this position. We've got a loose piece on e6. If
black doesn't want to consider the automatic recapture, but rather Bxb3, then white is
not obliged here to do the automatic cxb, but in fact can do what seems to be a very
promising move threatening to Queen here b7 of King takes to win another pawn Nxc5 and
this looks quite bad indeed for black. Winning lots of a tool like this. So, it looks as
though Bxb3 is completely ruled out after this axb6. Which leaves cxb and now we see
the tactic Nbxc5. So, we have this tactical idea to win the e6 Bishop and you might not
be convinced about that. Well let's have a look, bxc5 which wasn't played. Let’s have
a look at this. Rxa6, now if Kd5, this is a very dangerous here two moves offer a big
advantage for white. A simple one is just check and Rxd8 pinning the knight and blacks
in real big trouble here. There's two connected passed pawns horrendous congestion and pin
there of that Knight. So, this isn't very nice at all. Also, another move for white
is Bf4 here. Which it might even be stronger technically threatening kind of mating combination
with Nc3. For example, if black tried natural move to get out check, well this is just horrendous
even if it's not mating. So basically, black has to give up well not take this pawn and
Boris actually plays Bc8. It's a pretty bad position. Now he loses the a6 pawn to the
Knight. Now fxe5 was played, it's a very bad position. Nb4++, the King's been kicked around,
and all of these pieces look how aggressive they are and look how passive black's pieces
are. In this position white is, okay just one pawn up. But Spassky before his position
was so bad he resigned. So, let's investigate why in this final position. Well let's see,
Kd7 for example we can play check, Kc7, we can play Rd6 here ganging up on the poor b6
pawn. What does black actually do here? So, say Nf6, Bishop takes, Kb8, this is not very
nice just losing a piece, horrendous. So, this Nb4, what does black actually want to
do? If Kc7, then Ra7++ is a nasty check and in fact after Bb7 there's a horrendous tactic
available to white here exploiting in fact that the rook hasn't learned the Knight is
still there. What would you play if I gave you 10 seconds in this position to wipe out
black tactically? Okay white has a tactic exploiting blacks lag development. So, take
on b7 and then play Nd6++ and then Nf7 winning that Rook. So winning material being a piece
up. So, if we go back to Nb4, we're running out of alternatives here. Let's try Kb5, here
this actually runs in to believe it or not acute mate in three, whatever black does mate
in three. I wonder if you can visualize the mate in three. Well there's different ways
of doing the mate in three. I'll start you off actually. Nd6++. How many options for black?
Not many. The King's being sucked down the board and now can you see a move which would
finish the mating that ready for the mating move. So, you're preparing a simple mating
move here. There is a beautifully elegant move here to finish black off for a force
mate in two. I wonder if you can spot it, if I will give you 10 seconds starting from
now. Okay white would have Ra3 with a horrible threat of c3 mating and you know the King
just cannot go anywhere, all of it squares are cutoff. C3, the rook covers b3. So c4
it's just going to be mate all the squares. Including that b3 after Ra3. This is just
forcing mate. So, you see that in this final position all of these King moves seem fairly
hopeless. We've had to look at Kc7, I think Kd7, Kb5. Have we looked at Kb7? Let's have
a look at Kb7. There's simply check and here we can just play Nf7 winning the rook. So,
ok the game had just one or two blunders really from Spassky. But that was enough to really
crush, get a crushing position. So, it was from an exchange Ruy Lopez - quite an
interesting weapon of choice to use against Boris Spassky in this game nine of this 1992
match. I hope you enjoyed that, so here I mean here black had resigned. Comments or
questions on YouTube, thanks very much.
[Captions By Wonder_Designer @fiverr]