Some chess games are remembered for centuries. Here are five of the most famous, described in plain terms. For each one I have stuck to what is well documented, and I have avoided inventing specific moves where the record is not certain.
The Immortal Game, 1851
In London in 1851, during a break in the first great modern chess tournament, Adolf Anderssen played a casual game against Lionel Kieseritzky. Anderssen won by sacrificing a bishop, both rooks, and then his queen, all to build a mating attack with the pieces he had left. Kieseritzky, who had lost, was so impressed that he telegraphed the moves to his chess club in Paris. A journalist named Ernst Falkbeer later called it "the Immortal Game," and the name stuck. It is still used to teach the power of sacrifice.
The Opera Game, 1858
In Paris in 1858, the American master Paul Morphy sat in a box at the opera against the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard, who consulted each other over every move of the black pieces. Morphy developed his pieces quickly and checkmated them in seventeen moves, ending with a queen sacrifice, all while the opera played on. Exactly which opera was on stage is still argued over, but the game itself is among the most taught in chess history, often called "the most famous game of all time."
The Match of the Century, 1972
The 1972 World Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland, matched the American Bobby Fischer against the Soviet champion Boris Spassky. It was one of the most publicized chess events ever, watched as a Cold War drama as much as a game. Fischer, 29, won the title, becoming the first American world champion. So one-sided and famous were parts of the duel that it is still recalled as one of chess's great turning points.
Kasparov versus Deep Blue, 1997
In May 1997 in New York, the world champion Garry Kasparov sat down for a six-game rematch against IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue. Two years earlier, in 1996, Kasparov had won their first match. This time, after three draws, Deep Blue won the final game, and with it the match 3.5-2.5. It was the first time a reigning world champion had lost a match to a computer under standard tournament conditions, and it is often called a turning point in the history of artificial intelligence. The last game lasted only nineteen moves before Kasparov resigned.
Carlsen versus Kramnik, "The Boy Who Would Beat Kings," 2009
At the London Chess Classic in 2009, an 18-year-old Magnus Carlsen beat the former world champion Vladimir Kramnik in a game that observers called one of the best of the year. It was less about a single brilliant move and more about small, patient improvements that slowly built into a winning position, a style that marked Carlsen as the future of the game. Three years later he was world champion. For anyone who wants to see the modern game at its finest, this is a good place to start.
Some of these games you can study move by move, and some you can only appreciate for what they meant. Either way, they are part of why chess keeps drawing players back to the same 64 squares.