Attacking Lessons From Bobby Fischer

One of the greatest features of chess is that we can enjoy the games played decades or even hundreds of years ago. This is something very unique to chess. The best tennis rallies or soccer goals are completely lost for us if they happened before television. The best part is that we can learn from the chess giants long after they are gone. Just look at their games and treat each move as a mini lesson.

Today, we are going to study a game of 14-year-old Bobby Fischer and see what we can learn from the teenage genius.

Fischer plays the Sozin attack. As a matter of fact, Fischer's contribution to the theory of this variation is so big that these days it is frequently called the Fischer-Sozin attack. And here we have our first lesson from Fischer:

1) Play an aggressive opening 

It is quite obvious that you have a better chance of attacking the opponent's king if you play the King's Gambit rather than the Exchange Slav. Nevertheless, I've seen some club players who employ fashionable opening lines (like the classical Queen's Gambit), and yet complain that they get boring positions where "nothing is going on." 

2) Learn typical attacking ideas in your opening line

Fischer learned the Russian language and subscribed to Soviet chess magazines to stay on top of the latest opening developments. In the following well-known miniature, he executed a combination that Soviet master Georgy Bastrikov discovered. Can you find it in the position below?

In our main game, Fischer used another idea he found in the Soviet chess magazine:

3) Eliminate the guards (the opponent's best pieces)

Can you find how Fischer did just that in the following position?

4) Point your pieces toward the opponent's king

The more pieces that participate in the attack, the better the chance of delivering a checkmate. Ideally, you want to use all your pieces in the attack. What would you play in the next position?

5) Deliver the decisive combination

White's attack looks simple when you break it into basic elements, but it is a deceptive simplicity. Yet, if you analyze dozens of attacking games, noticing these little details, at some point, you'll become a nightmare for your opponents who are expecting a quiet, positional game. Good luck!