"The Uruguayan Immortal" - Best Of The 40s - Molinari vs. Roux Cabral, 1943
It's the dream of every chess amateur—establishing your name in the chess firmament by winning an "Immortal Game." In this way, chess is a meritocracy; a beautiful game is a beautiful game, and you don't need to be a world chess champion to play one.
The following game was played in the 1943 Uruguayan National Championship and has been deemed the "Uruguayan Immortal." It's unlikely that you will be familiar with the players in the game, but I hope you will forever after remember Luis Roux Cabral's scintillating attack in this game, a model example of a perfectly calculated kingside assault.
Top 10 Games of the 1940s
- #1: Molinari vs. Roux Cabral
- #2: Gusev vs. Aurebach
- #3: Tartakower vs. Euwe, 1948
- #4: Ravinsky vs. Panov, 1943
- #5: Wood vs. Wallis, 1945
- #6: Reshevsky vs. Vasconcelos, 1948
- #7: Euwe vs. Keres, 1940
- #8: Liublinsky vs. Botvinnik, 1943
- #9: Zita vs. Bronstein, 1946
- #10: Siff vs. Kashdan, 1948
- See also: Top 10 of the 1950s, Top 10 of the 1960s, Top 10 of the 1970s, Top 10 of the 1980s, Top 10 of the 1990s, Top 10 of the 2000s, and Top 10 of the 2010s
The game opens with a Meran Semi-Slav, an opening given to strong bishop pairs raking the board if White is not careful. After some mutual inaccuracies in the opening, White proves the least cautious player in the game and plays. 20.Nbd6? Black doesn't need to be asked twice to offer an incredibly tempting exchange sacrifice and take on g2. Thenceforth, Black displays relentless tactical ingenuity with 24...Rxc4!!, 29...Nxf2!!, and 32...Bg1+!!, collapsing the white defenses and winning beautifully.
My annotations are below. I hope you enjoy the patterns as much as I 
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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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