Thanks to everyone who entered the Endgame contest, sponsored by Crown Publishing. The grand prize winner is Andrew Peng, who wins a
paperback copy of Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Rise and Fall (Crown Publishing, 2011) by Dr. Frank Brady. He also takes home a DVD of Bobby Fischer Against the World. Four other winners also receive a copy of Endgame: Curt Overman, Andrew Zirger, David Lawrence Smith, and Mark Fraser. One condition of the contest was that each entrant send in their favorite Fischer game. The most popular favorite by a landslide was the "Game of the Century", Bobby Fischer's 1956 win over Donald Byrne at the Rosenwald Memorial. Fischer was just 13 years old at the time.
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Also popular was Fischer's win over World Champion Mikhail Tal in Bled 1961.
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Another entrant, Kristin Garau, also picked Tal-Fischer but his pick was not from a tournament. "My favorite game(s) for Bobby weren't at a tournament. They were when he visited Tal at the hospital and played. Here you have two of the greatest minds in chess, hunkered down over a small board in a hospital. You have this war of the minds, but also a sense of grace and compassion demonstrated by Bobby for his peer."
Over a dozen entrants selected games from the Fischer-Spassky 1972 Championship match, ranging from the final game to a twitter reply @USChess that his favorite was the second round forfeit. The two most popular picks were games #3 and #6.
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Several picked Fischer's win over Benko in the 1963 US Chess Championship, featuring a famous blockade tactic.
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Evan Rabin picked another Fischer-Benko game:
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Sleeper picks
Robert Bernard chose a Fischer loss, in a simul game from 1971.
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One of our raffle winners, Andrew Zirger selected Fischer's win vs. Myagmarsuren in the Sousse Interzonal
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Tom Braunlich, author of the popular CLO article, "Keep the Draw- Fix the Flaw" , was the only one to pick Fischer-Taimanov from the 1971 Candidates Match, game four.
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Author Frisco de Rosario chose a win by Fischer over Arpad Elo:
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IM Eric Tangborn likes the following Fischer win over Vasily Smyslov because "I learned the importance of development from this game."
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Finally, we had a 10-year-old entrant, World Youth silver medallist Ruifeng Li, who was recently awarded a 2012 Schein-Friedman scholarship. His favorite Fischer Game is this win over another World Champion, Max Euwe.
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Didn't win? Pick up the book, now in paperback, at USCF Sales.