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Famous Fischer game · 1971

Fischer vs. Petrosian, Buenos Aires 1971, Game 7

The seventh game of the 1971 Candidates final: from a queenless middlegame Fischer turned a small positional edge into a win, including the exchange 22.Nxd7+, and went 4½–2½ ahead.

White
Bobby Fischer
Black
Tigran Petrosian
Result
1–0
Date
Event
1971 Candidates final (Fischer vs. Petrosian match)
Place
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Round
7
Opening
Sicilian Defence, Kan Variation (B42)
Moves
34

Position after 12.Qa4+

  1. 1.
  2. 2.
  3. 3.
  4. 4.
  5. 5.
  6. 6.
  7. 7.
  8. 8.
  9. 9.
  10. 10.
  11. 11.
  12. 12.
  13. 13.
  14. 14.
  15. 15.
  16. 16.
  17. 17.
  18. 18.
  19. 19.
  20. 20.
  21. 21.
  22. 22.
  23. 23.
  24. 24.
  25. 25.
  26. 26.
  27. 27.
  28. 28.
  29. 29.
  30. 30.
  31. 31.
  32. 32.
  33. 33.
  34. 34.

Background

The Candidates final in Buenos Aires began on 30 September 1971 and was scheduled for twelve games; the first player to reach 6½ points would challenge the world champion, Boris Spassky. Petrosian, a former world champion, won the second game and so ended Fischer's long winning streak; after five games the score was 2½–2½. Fischer won the sixth game after an adjournment, so he led 3½–2½ when the seventh game was played on 19 October.[1][2][3][4][5]

The opening led to an early exchange of queens, and Black's isolated d-pawn and White's queenside pawn majority shaped the rest of the game. According to his second Yuri Averbakh, Petrosian believed that nobody could beat him from the position reached after the opening. Polugaevsky, annotating the game for the Soviet weekly 64, saw it differently: in his view Black faced difficult problems early on. Fischer converted the small advantage with well-judged exchanges and active rooks.[6][5]

Contemporary reports saw this game as the decisive moment of the final. Sports Illustrated called it the turning point of the match, and Chess Life & Review described it as a pure example of how to exploit a minimal positional advantage. Afterwards Petrosian would have needed four points from the remaining five games. Fischer also won the eighth and ninth games, took the match 6½–2½ and so became Spassky's challenger for 1972.[3][6][1]

Key moments

  1. Polugaevsky called this check, harmless at first sight, surprisingly venomous. After 12…Qd7 13.Re1 Qxa4 14.Nxa4 the queens are gone, and the resulting position – White's queenside majority against Black's isolated d-pawn – proved very difficult for Black.[5]

    Engine check: The DeepSquare engine (depth 22) rates 12.Qa4+ practically as strong as its first choice 12.Be3; evaluation afterwards: +0.3 from White’s point of view.

  2. Fischer gives up his strong knight on c5 for Black's bishop, which Polugaevsky called a generally bad piece. After 22…Rxd7 it is bishop against knight, and White's bishop was expected to dominate. Polugaevsky saw the move as typical of Fischer's readiness to turn one kind of advantage into another.[5]

    Engine check: The DeepSquare engine (depth 22) rates 22.Nxd7+ practically as strong as its first choice 22.a4; evaluation afterwards: +1.4 from White’s point of view.

  3. One rook is already on c7, the other comes to e2. Polugaevsky saw Black in a kind of zugzwang here: 25…a5 would be met by 26.b5, and 25…Nb6 would let the second white rook onto the seventh rank. Petrosian played 25…g6.[5]

    Engine check: The DeepSquare engine (depth 22) also chooses 25.Re2 here; evaluation afterwards: +1.1 from White’s point of view.

  4. Both white rooks now stand on Black's second rank. Sports Illustrated's report called this the decisive rook move, which confined the black king to the back rank. Petrosian made three more moves and resigned after 34.Bc4.[3][5]

    Engine check: The DeepSquare engine (depth 22) also chooses 31.Ree7 here; evaluation afterwards: +1.9 from White’s point of view.

PGN

[Event "1971 Candidates final (Fischer vs. Petrosian match)"]
[Site "Buenos Aires, Argentina"]
[Date "1971.10.19"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Fischer, Robert James"]
[Black "Petrosian, Tigran V"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B42"]
[PlyCount "67"]
[Source "Chess Database by Ana L. Schaigorodsky, DOI 10.6084/m9.figshare.4276523, CC BY 4.0"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Bd3 Nc6 6. Nxc6 bxc6 7. O-O d5 8.
c4 Nf6 9. cxd5 cxd5 10. exd5 exd5 11. Nc3 Be7 12. Qa4+ Qd7 13. Re1 Qxa4 14.
Nxa4 Be6 15. Be3 O-O 16. Bc5 Rfe8 17. Bxe7 Rxe7 18. b4 Kf8 19. Nc5 Bc8 20. f3
Rea7 21. Re5 Bd7 22. Nxd7+ Rxd7 23. Rc1 Rd6 24. Rc7 Nd7 25. Re2 g6 26. Kf2 h5
27. f4 h4 28. Kf3 f5 29. Ke3 d4+ 30. Kd2 Nb6 31. Ree7 Nd5 32. Rf7+ Ke8 33. Rb7
Nxb4 34. Bc4 1-0

About the score: The archive and Polugaevsky’s notes in 64 give 33…Nxb4; Chess Life & Review (December 1971) and Sports Illustrated give 33…Nxf4. The final move 34.Bc4 and the result agree in every source.[5][6][3]

Download PGNOpen in the game archive →

Sources

  1. Candidates' final, Buenos Aires 1971 · OlimpBase · n.d.; accessed 2026-09-14
  2. The Fischer-Petrosian Candidates’ Final (Buenos Aires, 1971) with annotations by Korchnoi, Furman, Kholmov & Polugaevsky · Douglas Griffin / Soviet Chess History · 2019-06-10
  3. Bobby Clears The Board For The Title · Robert Cantwell / Sports Illustrated (Internet Archive copy) · 1971-11-08
  4. Candidates' final, Buenos Aires 1971: PGN game file (wc1972-candf.pgn) · OlimpBase · n.d.; accessed 2026-09-25
  5. Fischer–Petrosian, seventh match-game, Candidates' final, Buenos Aires 1971: contemporary annotations · Lev Polugaevsky, 64 no.43 (1971); translated by Douglas Griffin · 1971; translation published 2019
  6. Chess Life & Review, December 1971: report on the Fischer–Petrosian match with the scores of games 7–9 · Burt Hochberg / Chess Life & Review, United States Chess Federation · 1971-12

Game data: Chess Database by Ana L. Schaigorodsky, DOI 10.6084/m9.figshare.4276523, licensed under CC BY 4.0; selected and converted to PGN for BobbyChess.