Petrosian v Spassky, 1966, game 10: two exchange sacrifices

Tigran Petrosian, the world champion, played this game against Boris Spassky in game 10 of their 1966 world championship match in Moscow. He won games 7 and 10 with rare sacrificial attacks; Spassky remarked that Petrosian's opponents never knew when he would suddenly play like Tal. Petrosian kept his title, 12½–11½.

White to move after 23...Nxf4. Petrosian's next move gives up a second exchange.

The whole game

Petrosian v Spassky, World Championship 1966, game 10. Step through all 30 moves; Black resigned.

The opening is a King's Indian Defence with White's bishop fianchettoed on g2.

What Stockfish makes of it

We had Stockfish check every move.

19...f4 and 20.gxf4: a slip each

Black to move after 19.Be2. 19...f4 gives up control of e5.

The grandmaster Vassilios Kotronias called 19...f4 a serious mistake, because it gave up control of e5, and Stockfish agrees: about a third of a pawn worse for Black with 19...Qf6, against nearly one and a half after 19...f4. Kotronias also wrote that 20.gxf4 was the only Petrosian move in the game that deserves criticism, and that 20.Rxf4 would have won easily. Stockfish agrees again: 20.Rxf4 keeps White about one and a half pawns better, 20.gxf4 only about a third.

21.Ne3 and 24.Rxf4: the exchange sacrifices

21.Ne3 Bxf1 22.Rxf1 Ng6 23.Bg4 Nxf4 24.Rxf4! Rxf4 25.Be6+ Rf7: White is two exchanges down.

21.Ne3 leaves the rook on f1 to be taken; White had no real alternative, since 21.Rf2 loses to ...Rxf4. Stockfish rates the position about level after it, and 22.Rxf1 was the only good recapture. Spassky's 23...Nxf4 was the real mistake: 23...Qf6 would have kept Black only about a pawn worse, and after 23...Nxf4 White is three and a half pawns better. Petrosian gave up the second exchange with 24.Rxf4. Stockfish slightly prefers 24.Ne4 first, but both win.

30.Qh8+!: the queen sacrifice

24...Rxf4 25.Be6+ Rf7 26.Ne4 Qh4 27.Nxd6 Qg5+ 28.Kh1 Ra7 29.Bxf7+ Rxf7 30.Qh8+!: Black resigned.

After the second sacrifice Black is two exchanges up but helpless. 25.Be6+, 27.Nxd6 and 30.Qh8+ were each the only move that kept White's winning advantage. White wins back one exchange on move 29, and 30.Qh8+ wins the other rook: after 30...Kxh8 31.Nxf7+ the knight forks king and queen. Spassky resigned.

How we checked

The moves are from Wikipedia's page on Tigran Petrosian and chessgames.info, which agree; a 1984 column in The Spectator and Wikipedia's page on the exchange) agree on the parts they print. 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 Wikipedia, The Spectator and Kotronias's comments as reported by British Chess News.

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