Karpov v Spassky, 1974, game 9: the knight goes back to b1

Anatoly Karpov played this game against Boris Spassky on 3 May 1974, in game 9 of their Candidates semi-final match in Leningrad. It is often called the finest game of the match. Karpov led 3–1 after it and won the match 7–4, and went on to the final against Viktor Korchnoi.

White to move after 23...Rfd8. Karpov's next move sends his knight back to b1.

The whole game

Karpov v Spassky, Candidates semi-final 1974, game 9. Step through all 35 moves; Black resigned.

Spassky chose the Scheveningen Variation of the Sicilian. Karpov's play is quiet: no sacrifices, just piece moves to better squares, until Black runs out of good moves.

What Stockfish makes of it

We had Stockfish check every move. It rates White better from the middlegame on, and the advantage grows slowly, which is how this game is usually described.

19.Bg4 and 24.Nb1

24.Nb1! Qb7 25.Kh2 Kg7 26.c3 Na6 27.Re2: the knight heads for d2 and f3.

Raymond Keene called 24.Nb1 one of the most memorable moves in chess history. White's knight on c3 was doing nothing, blocked by the pawn on e4 with b5 and d5 covered by Black's c-pawn, so Karpov sent it back to b1, on its way to d2 and f3, and made room for c3. Mikhail Tal reported that Karpov's second, Semyon Furman, predicted 19.Bg4, 20.Bxd7 and 24.Nb1 in the press room before they were played. Stockfish rates 19.Bg4 and 24.Nb1 as the best moves, and White about one and a half pawns better after 24.Nb1.

29...f6

Black to move after 29.Nf3. 29...Bf6 was Black's best defence.

Spassky's 29...f6 weakened e6, and Karpov's queen went there two moves later. Stockfish prefers 29...Bf6, about three pawns worse for Black, against four after 29...f6.

The finish

33.Rd1 Nb8 34.Bc5 Rh8 35.Rxd8: Black resigned.

33.Rd1 and 34.Bc5 were each the only move that kept White's full advantage. Keene noted that 33.Nxe5 also wins but is more complicated. After 35.Rxd8 Rxd8 36.Be7, Black's position collapses, and Spassky resigned.

How we checked

The moves are from Raymond Keene's chess column in The Spectator (one of several printings), with notes based on Sam Collins's book; moves 24 to 35 also appear, identically, in Tatev Abrahamyan's article in Chess Life (February 2025). Moves 1 to 23 rest on Keene's column alone. We replayed every move with python-chess: all are legal.
The engine: Stockfish 16.1 checked every move at depth 22, and the key moments again at depth 26. "A pawn better" is Stockfish's measure of the position, not a count of material.
The history and the named opinions are from Keene, Chess Life, Douglas Griffin's article on the match (Tal's report of Furman's prediction) and Wikipedia's page on Anatoly Karpov.

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