The recent successful revival of the musical Chess, by Sir Tim Rice and the men of Abba, featured some genuine extracts from play in the staged re-enactments of decisive games. One of the most impressive — and most easy to identify even from a distance without opera glasses — was Bobby Fischer’s infamous and very loud rook swoop against grandmaster Pal Benko, who has just celebrated his 90th birthday.
Fischer-Benko; US Championship, New York 1963 (diagram 1) White has a powerful attack but his problem is that the natural 19 e5 is met comfortably by 19 … f5, when Black has no problems. Fischer’s solution is startling. 19 Rf6! Fischer famously described this as ‘rolling a boulder in front of the f-pawn’. 19 … Bxf6 20 e5 forces mate as the … f5 defence has been removed. 19 … Kg8 20 e5 h6 21 Ne2 Black resigns Black’s major problem is that if the knight on d6 moves then Qf5 in reply will force mate.
Curiously, I had fallen victim to a similarly violent ploy, even before the Fischer thunderbolt.
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