Fischer vs Gligoric ⎸The “Sack, Sack, Mate” method ⎸1959 Candidates

A very instructive game for players who wish to learn how to fight the Sicilian Defense. Bobby Fischer’s method – “Sack, Sack, Mate”, worked almost every time. He would place all his pieces to optimal squares for a kingside blitzkrieg and crush his opponents.

Robert James Fischer vs Svetozar Gligorić, Sicilian Defense, Classical B57
Bled-Zagreb-Belgrade Candidates Tournament, 1959, Round 4

Bobby Fischer was just 16 in 1959., and he qualified for the biggest tournament in the chess calendar (apart from the world championship match), the candidates tournament. It was held in former Yugoslavia, which meant that he had to travel to a whole other continent alone (his mother had already moved away from their flat in NY). This had to be stressful for him, no matter how experienced he already was.

Bobby was the youngest of all the candidates (and the least experienced). He only scored 12.5/28 in the end, but even that is a great result for someone his age, who’d been playing top level chess for only a year or two, while all the other players have been superstars for decades even. Mikhail Tal won in the end, and he was the one who challenged Mikhail Botvinnik for the world championship title (he won 12.5-8.5).

Here are the final standings of the 1959 Bled-Zagreb-Belgrade Candidates Tournament:

Mikhail Tal 20/28
Paul Keres 18.5/28
Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian 15.5/28
Vasily Smyslov 15/28
Robert James Fischer 12.5/28
Svetozar Gligoric 12.5/28
Fridrik Olafsson 10/28
Pal Benko 8/28

In round 4, Bobby Fischer faced the best Yugoslav player of the 20th century – Svetozar Gligorić. Gligorić was an expert on the Sicilian, among other things, and he was by no means an easy opponent for young Bobby. The opened with the classical Sicilian, but it soon transposed into a dragon position, and Fischer went for the Sozin attack (also known as Fischer-Sozin now), which is similar to the Yugoslav attack; f3, Be3, Qd2, plan of Bh6 and h4, h5. The position is very double-edged and every tempo matters. White is attacking on the kingside and black is doing the same on the queenside. Who ever manages to open up their opponent’s position first usually wins.

In this game Fischer was much faster. He played a very precise series of 15 moves which led Gligorić to a passive, defensive position in which his attack was too slow and too weak. Fischer opened up the king by sacrificing an exchange on h5, exchanging the dark squared bishop and simply being faster than his opponent. This game is one of the most instructive examples of how white should fight the Sicilian Defense, especially the dragon variation.

Game Moves:
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Bc4
Bd7 7. Bb3 g6 8. f3 Na5 9. Bg5 Bg7 10. Qd2 h6 11. Be3 Rc8
12. O-O-O Nc4 13. Qe2 Nxe3 14. Qxe3 O-O 15. g4 Qa5 16. h4 e6
17. Nde2 Rc6 18. g5 hxg5 19. hxg5 Nh5 20. f4 Rfc8 21. Kb1 Qb6
22. Qf3 Rc5 23. Qd3 Bxc3 24. Nxc3 Nxf4 25. Qf3 Nh5 26. Rxh5
gxh5 27. Qxh5 Be8 28. Qh6 Rxc3 29. bxc3 Rxc3 30. g6 fxg6
31. Rh1 Qd4 32. Qh7+ 1-0

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