If he was 11 why post it.

retreating to e6 loses the Queen! by knight to c7 and if he captures the white queen first then black goes for the knight check! ke7,then knight goes back to d5 check again after which he will capture the queen hence wining a free knight!! do you get it now?

The beauty of this game is that the huge blunder is not glaringly obvious, well at least it wasn't for me. This would make a good Tactics Trainer puzzle :)

Mad_dog_96 had it right (even though he was ridiculously hard to understand):

If Black replies

12.  ...   Qxf3

13. Nxf6+ Ke7

14. Nd5+ Kd7 (or whatever)

15. gxf3

And White is up a full piece. In a grandmaster game, heck even in a normal game, this is GAME OVER!

If Black replies

12.  ...   Nxd5??

13. Qxg4

And Black has no Queen!

why, what do you think of Korchnoi,,,he is one of the strongest player in the world,who never become world champion,,this is not upset,,,if you are the player who beat Spassky then it is called upset,,,you bet

The best move for black would be to sacrifice I guess, but he could of still be only a pawn or so down. I wouldn't resign.

As has been mentioned twice already in this column black does not lose a piece after 12...Kd8. If 13.Nxf6 Qh4+ recovers the knight.

"I don't get it, when its all done  black queen x white, pawn x black queen, white moves rook to prevent fork and the game is tied"

White doesn't have to recapture the queen immediately, if the black queen takes the white queen then black will just take the knight, checking blacks king. If the black king moves to e7 to attack the knight all the knight has to do is retreat to it's original square, checking the king again. Now the king can't attack the knight anymore and white will then pick up the queen leaving him a piece up. Of course it would be stupid for black to take the knight straight away because white will just pick up the black queen. Most people would play on but in a game against grandmasters, being a piece down so early on means that there's little point in continuing.

I don't get it, when its all done  black queen x white, pawn x black queen, white moves rook to prevent fork and the game is tied

sweet :)

Dear rockettorque,

Queen to e6 leads to Kingt to C7!  Ouch black loses queen.

If it were me, on move 8 I would not exchange with Bxd7+, but instead play Qd3 developing a piece.  Black can later exchange on d7 whenever he wants and it'll be the exact same purpose for trading, he'll just get alot more options and give black more problems and room for error.

Denton just did.  Here, I'll make a variation board.  In every variation white loses material.  The move Nd5 is counter-intuitive and very, very strong. 

This analysis comes from denton.  I'm just adding notes to moves and putting them in a variation board, and or extending them out a little bit.

Please click "move list" to be able to see each variation. The variations start at the end of the game.

Only 11 years old??!! Why even post this... Not that he was not good, but come on!

y not...

QxF3?

he checks the king and u move closer to the knight. lets say he took knxF6 check? (srry bout the notation) u move back with your queen to take it.

and he moved to fork your rook and king? move your king closer. he either has to take the rook and let your queen off scotch free or let the king take him. or... queen to f3 to take the other queen... then he takes yours w/ pawn. u take his knight w/ urs. he takes ur knight. even trade?

Everyone seems to think that spassky would be forced to exchange queens. I personally think that Spassky resigned too early. He could have retreated his queen to e6 protecting the knight on f6. I know it leads to f5 black can counter with gxf5. After that black prepares to castle queenside.

Twenty years ago Anand lost to Zapata in six moves. If he had continued, just to prolong the game, he would have been a piece down. It is easy to lose a chess game.

i think you are missing the point when saying

'yeah i know spassky was only 11, but still, did you lose in 12 moves when you were 11? or ever?'

why? well, actually you don't loose the game until you resign are get checkmated. now, if spassky hadn't resigned, he would have lost his knight. that, off course, when playing against korchnoi, is enough to loose the game, we all agree, but not in 12 moves. he maybe could have pulled it out for another 10 moves are so? then he would have really resigned. so my point is that lots of us had actually already lost the game on move 12, but didn't resign. you loose when making a fatal error, but if you don't resign and continu the game, maybe the other one makes a fatal one too( that's a scenario which i encounter again and again here on chess.com). so i have lost a lot of times at move 12, but maybe won on move 50 ...

i seriously don't see what's the upset here. At the time of the game, Korchnoi was 17, Spassky was 11. Even though Boris Spassky later became world champion, at 11-years old he can still lose games quickly, especially when the other player is 6 years older and also a future GM (Besides, there aren't many grandmasters who HAVEN'T lost a short game). I'm willing to bet that Korchnoi was much better back in 1948. 

benws - "did you lose in 12 moves when you were 11? or ever?"

Well, yes, and seeing as the winning side was Korchnoi, it wasn't that hard to imagine an 11-year old losing that quickly, even if it was Boris Spassky.

Very interesting short game, but we have to inderstand that anyone can win or lose a chess game. This is an example of miscalculation changing. Thanx.

I am great fan of Korchnoi. I would say he is the best player that hasn't become world champion.