Sicilian Najdorf 6.Bg5 with 10.Bd3 and 12...b4

The main line Sicilian Najdorf is the variation that first got me interested in chess journalism. In December of 1972, the year that I joined the United States Chess Federation, grandmaster Robert Byrne analyzed in Chess Life & Review a critical position from game 15 of the Spassky-Fischer match, after the opening moves 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7 8.Qf3 Qc7 9.O-O-O Nbd7 10.Bd3 b5 11.Rhe1 Bb7 12.Qg3 b4 (instead of Fischer's 12...O-O-O) 13.Nd5 exd5 14.exd5 Kd8 15.Nf5 Bf8 16.Qe3.

Here Byrne considered only 16...Kc8 which leads to slaughter after 17.Qe8+! Qd8 18.Qxf7 Bxd5 19.Qxd5 Nxd5 20.Bxd8 Kxd8 21.Be4 N5b6 22.Bxa8 Nxa8 23.Nxd6.

But what is wrong with 16...Qc5!, I wondered. Being only a Class C player at the time, I lacked the confidence to mail my suggestion to any chess periodicals. Some years later, in the September 1976 issue of Chess Life & Review, grandmaster Leonid Shamkovich included in his column the game Blumenfeld-DeFirmian, Lone Pine 1976 which proceeded 16...Qc5! 17.Qd2 Rc8 18.Kb1 Kc7 and "White's attack dried up."

It was right then and there that I made up my mind to become a chess master and a chess journalist!

{This article originally appeared in the Fall 2000 issue of Empire Chess}