[Note that Jon Speelman also looks at the content of the article in video format, here embedded at the end of the article.]
A fortnight ago, I showed a game here by a ferocious fourteen-year-old Chinese girl — Lu Miaoyi. Later, when I looked on YouTube, I found a Croatian guy (agadmator) likening her play to that of Rashid Nezhmetdinov, which is the greatest compliment possible for an attacking chess player.
This started me thinking about the best attacking players of all time, and I poddled around for a little while on the net, looking at other people’s lists before I began to think about my own — and wondered which great attacking games to put alongside.
In fact, I don’t have an ordered one myself, just some names which I think should go very close to the top, which I scribbled down on the back of an envelope (or rather a newspaper). And I thought I’d invite readers to send in their own top tens — or if it’s easier, fives — which could perhaps go into the comments. Please also suggest any great attacking games, which you’d like to see in future column(s)...
From the 19th century there definitely have to be Adolf Anderssen and Paul Morphy, and from the early-ish 20th-century, Alexander Alekhine. Paul Keres was an easy choice, as were Nezhmetdinov himself and, of course, Misha Tal (whom Nezhmetdinov famously had a plus score against, partly because he had more Whites than Blacks, which certainly counted between these two).
Paul Keres monument in Narva, Estonia
Later in the 20th century there is of course Garry Kasparov, and Viswanathan Anand has played some superb attacking games, though I wouldn’t put him in the same category as the absolute hackers at the top of this list. Vladimir Kramnik also has a very heavy fist when he gets going. While going back, Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky were superb attackers, though I think of Fischer as more of a power player than a pure attacker, and Spassky as a universal player.
Of course there are lots of other possibles: Leonid Stein, Alexei Shirov, Hikaru Nakamura, and of the more recent crop of players, Nodirbek Abdussatorov, Alireza Firouzja and the frequently ridiculously “hackety” Parham Maghsoodloo come to mind as does Wei Yi — especially in the brilliant game below.
In any case, my criterion is that at least on occasion, these players will more or less utterly disregard material in the heat of battle, relying totally on the power of energy. There are so many examples I could choose, and I’ve gone for three of my favourites in “The charge of the ‘old’ chestnuts”.
Select an entry from the list to switch between games
