A Little Known Najdorf Classic

     Miguel Najdorf (April 15, 1910 – July 4, 1997) was a leading world player in the 1940s and 1950s. His best successes were achieved from 1939 to 1947 when he ranked among the world's top players. 
     According to Chessmetrics, he was ranked second in the world from mid 1947 to mid 1949 and he was assigned a high rating of 2797 in 1948. There's little doubt that he should have been invited to participate in the 1948 World Championship tournament that consisted of Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres, Reshevsky an Euwe, but he wasn't. In a 1947 interview Najdorf stated, “I believe that I am inferior to none of the players who are to participate in the next world championship...None of these have a better record than I. I have played much less than they have, admittedly, but I am satisfied with my results.” 
     A flamboyant player with a sparkling style, Najdorf won 52 international tournaments, the Argentine championship eight times and repeatedly headed the Argentine national team. As far as I know there's only one book in English on Najdorf's best games and that is Najdorf X Najdorf by his daughter Liliana and translated from Spanish by Taylor Kingston. One caveat by Jeremy Siman is that Najdorf loved telling stories but was not always careful with the facts. 
     According to Arnold Denker, Najdorf “had a knack for mowing down the bottom half of mixed tournaments and this facility earned him a reputation as a risk taking tactician rather than a positional player." Denker claimed that assessment was flatly wrong, pointing out that he won deep positional victories over Botvinnik, Spassky and many others. Denker observed that Najdorf played for “easy simplicity” that resulted from the skilled application of strategic principles.
     One such masterpiece is a lesser known Najdorf brilliancy over Paul Keres in the first Piatigorsky Cup in 1963. In that tournament Keres and Petrosian tied for first and Najdorf and Olafsson were a point behind. They were followed by Reshevsky, Gligoric and then sharing the last two places were Benko and Panno. 
     Aside from the following loss to Najdorf, Keres lost both of his games against Reshevsky. Najdorf lost two games, to Olafsson and Benko. In this game which was highly praised by none other than Bobby Fischer, Najdorf's own comments on his play are quite revealing.