Kasparov's Flawless Attack - Kasparov vs. Andersson, 1981
Garry Kasparov shows his classical attacking chops against Ulf Andersson.

Kasparov's Flawless Attack - Kasparov vs. Andersson, 1981

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World Champion Garry Kasparov won many amazing attacking games including possibly the greatest game of all time (Kasparov vs. Topalov, 1999), but my favorite "teaching game" by the great Kasparov is his smooth win against positional genius, Ulf Andersson.

In this game, Andersson (already in a difficult spot) embarks on a slow knight maneuver with 12.Na7?!. Kasparov, ever attuned to dynamic opportunities in chess, offers an excellent positional pawn sacrifice with 14.d5! which frees his bishop and leads to a later opening of the e-file.

Once the attack gets going, Kasparov plays many patient and instructive attacking moves (e.g. 16.0-0, 17.Re1, and 23.Rad1) before finishing things with an excellent sacrifice to breakthrough against Andersson's overworked and sidelined forces.

For those who prefer to replay the game at their own speed, here are my annotations which include a few extra notes I couldn't squeeze into the video.

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SamCopeland
NM Sam Copeland

I'm the Head of Community for Chess.com. I earned the National Master title in 2012, and in 2014, I returned to my home state of South Carolina to start Strategery: Chess and Games. In late 2015, I began working for Chess.com and haven't looked back since.

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