Shirov v Judit Polgár, Buenos Aires 1994: pawns for the knights

Judit Polgár played this game against Alexei Shirov in round 8 of an eight-player tournament in Buenos Aires in October 1994, held in honour of Lev Polugaevsky. Black had to play the Sicilian Defence in every game. Polgár won in 29 moves, using only 48 minutes, and the game won the prize for the best opening novelty. She later named one move from it, 10...g5, as the move she was proudest of.

The whole game

What Stockfish makes of it

We had Stockfish check every move.

10...g5: the move she was proudest of

White's pawns were advancing on the kingside. 10...g5 gives up a pawn to break them up and win the e5 square for the knight. Stockfish rates it Black's best move, keeping the game about level.

13...h5 and 14.gxh5

13...h5 offered another pawn, and Stockfish rates the game still level after it. Shirov took it with 14.gxh5, usually marked as a mistake, and Stockfish agrees: 14.O-O-O would have kept the balance, and after 14.gxh5 Black is more than a pawn better. 14...Nf5, 15...Qxg5 and 16...Ne3 were each the only move that kept Black's advantage, while White's 15.Bf2 and 16.Na5 each made things worse; Stockfish prefers 15.exf5 and 16.h4. After 16...Ne3 the queen can't take on g5: 17.Qxg5 allows 17...Nf3#.

The end

The queens came off and Black's knight took the rook on a1. Stockfish finds 17...Nxc2+ first a little stronger, but Black was winning either way, about three and a half pawns ahead. Shirov resigned after 29...Nc6.

How we checked

• The moves are from The Chess Drum, the Exeter Chess Club and chessworld.net, which agree. No Wikipedia or ChessBase page we found prints the full score. 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: Wikipedia's pages on Judit Polgár and Lev Polugaevsky, and The Chess Drum. Polgár's remark about 10...g5, from her book Judit Polgar Teaches Chess 2, reached us second-hand.

More famous games

• The Immortal Game
• The Evergreen Game
• The Opera Game
• Zukertort v Blackburne, London 1883
• Lasker v Bauer, Amsterdam 1889
• Steinitz v von Bardeleben, Hastings 1895
• Rotlewi v Rubinstein, Łódź 1907
• Levitsky v Marshall, Breslau 1912
• Edward Lasker v Thomas, London 1912
• Lasker v Capablanca, St Petersburg 1914
• Capablanca v Marshall, New York 1918
• Adams v Torre, 1920
• The Immortal Zugzwang Game
• Réti v Alekhine, Baden-Baden 1925
• Euwe v Alekhine, 1935, game 26
• Botvinnik v Capablanca, AVRO 1938
• The Game of the Century
• Polugaevsky v Nezhmetdinov, Sochi 1958
• Tal v Smyslov, Candidates 1959
• Spassky v Bronstein, 1960
• Tal v Botvinnik, 1960, game 1
• Robert Byrne v Fischer, 1963
• Petrosian v Spassky, 1966, game 10
• Spassky v Petrosian, 1969, game 19
• Larsen v Spassky, Belgrade 1970
• Fischer v Spassky, 1972, game 6
• Karpov v Spassky, 1974, game 9
• Liu Wenzhe v Donner, 1978
• Karpov v Kasparov, 1985, game 16
• Kasparov v Karpov, Seville 1987, game 24
• Topalov v Shirov, Linares 1998
• Kasparov's Immortal
• Kasparov v Kramnik, 2000, game 3
• Kramnik v Leko, Brissago 2004, game 14
• Anand's Immortal
• Anand v Carlsen, Chennai 2013, game 9
• Wei Yi v Bruzón, Danzhou 2015
• Carlsen v Karjakin, 2016, tiebreak game 4
• Carlsen v Nepomniachtchi, 2021, game 6

Ways to train

• Chess tactics trainer
• Chess blunder trainer
• Chess pawn structures
• Chess endgame trainer
• Positional chess training
• Analyse your chess games
• Master moves