There is nothing new under the sun

Just when you think you've created something original, it turns out it's been done before. This happened to me in 2007 at the United States Amateur Team East tournament in Parsippany, NJ. In Round 4, I played the Black side of a King's Indian Defense in which I got a tremendous kingside attack at the cost of a rook and some pawns. The game is given below:

I thought I had played rather brilliantly, and there were those who agreed with me, although it turns out they agreed with me 54 years before I played the game! How? Well, the following game, Taimanov-Najdorf (4th Round),  was awarded the brilliancy prize at the Zurich International Chess Tournament of 1953 (found in Bronstein's classic book of the same name):

I was stunned when I played over that game! Can you believe how many identical moves we made? I still think my game was MORE brilliant in that 1) I sacrificed a whole rook and 2) my bishop saved time with Bg7-h6-f4-e3 rather than Najdorf's Bg7-f8-e7-g5-e3. Perhaps I had played over this game at one point (I do have the book at home) and subconsciously recalled it during the game. Anyway, it just goes to show you that studying master games is not a waste of time and can win games for you. You might even recapitulate a brilliancy!