This is a list of notable chess games sorted chronologically.
Pre-1800
1475: Francesc de Castellví vs Narcís de Vinyoles, Valencia 1475. The first documented chess game played with the modern queen and bishop moves; the moves were described in the poem Scachs d'amor. 1623: Gioachino Greco vs NN, London 1623. Greco mates on the eighth move with a queen sacrifice. 1788: Thomas Bowdler vs Henry Seymour Conway, London. Bowdler offers the first example of a famous double rook sacrifice. 1790: Andrew Smith vs François-André Danican Philidor, London. Philidor, who was quoted as saying "Pawns are the soul of chess", demonstrates the power of a superior pawn formation.
1800s
1834: Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais vs Alexander McDonnell, Match 4, Round 4, London. Reuben Fine in The World's Great Chess Games described it as the first great immortal game of chess. McDonnell sacrifices his queen for two minor pieces. 1834: McDonnell vs La Bourdonnais, Match 4, Game 16, London. Perhaps the most famous win of their matches (considered an unofficial world championship), La Bourdonnais shows how a rolling pawn mass can overwhelm all of his opponent's major pieces. 1843: Pierre de Saint Amant vs Howard Staunton, 5th Match Game, Paris. Saint-Amant resigns in this unofficial world championship match game with Staunton, in which Staunton remarked, "The latter portion of this game is conducted with remarkable skill by both parties." 1844: Alexander Hoffmann vs Alexander Petrov, Warsaw. Petrov wins with a queen sacrifice and a king hunt, in a game known as "Petrov's Immortal". 1851: Adolf Anderssen vs Lionel Kieseritzky, London. Known as the "Immortal Game". Kieseritzky neglects his development and Anderssen sacrifices his light-squared bishop, both rooks, and finally his queen for a win. 1852: Adolf Anderssen vs Jean Dufresne, Berlin. Known as the "Evergreen Game". Anderssen mates with what Savielly Tartakower termed "[a] combination second to none in the literature of the game." 1857: Louis Paulsen vs Paul Morphy, New York. Morphy gains an advantage in development and transforms it into a powerful kingside attack with a queen sacrifice. 1857: John William Schulten vs Paul Morphy, New York. In a casual game played after the conclusion of the first American Chess Congress, Morphy pins down Schulten's king in the middle and proceeds to checkmate it with forceful play. 1858: Paul Morphy vs Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard, Paris. Known as the "Opera Game". Morphy shows the virtue of quick development and wins by sacrificing much material, mating on the 17th move with his last two pieces. 1862: Wilhelm Steinitz vs Augustus Mongredien, London. Steinitz won the tournament's brilliancy prize for this game. 1872: Carl Hamppe vs Philipp Meitner, Vienna. Known as the "Immortal Draw" between Hamppe and Meitner, involving a queen sacrifice. 1874: Viktor Knorre vs Mikhail Chigorin, St. Petersburg. Knorre's premature castling on the kingside combined with an ineffective pin allows Chigorin to strike back with a violent counterattack culminating in a brilliant queen sacrifice and subsequent checkmate. 1883: Johannes Zukertort vs Joseph Henry Blackburne, London. Known as "Zukertort's Immortal", Zukertort leaves his queen open to capture where it cannot be taken except by allowing checkmate. 1889: Emanuel Lasker vs Johann Hermann Bauer, Amsterdam. This game between Lasker and Bauer was the first famous example of the double bishop sacrifice. 1895: Harry Nelson Pillsbury vs Siegbert Tarrasch, Hastings. Pillsbury's kingside attack breaks through by a single tempo against the strong Tarrasch's queenside play. 1895: Wilhelm Steinitz vs von Bardeleben, Hastings. This game is famous for its ten-move mating combination in the final position, which Steinitz demonstrated after the game. The peculiar circumstances of the conclusion of this game have been the subject of scrutiny. 1895: Harry Nelson Pillsbury vs Isidor Gunsberg, Hastings. In the final round of this prestigious tournament, Pillsbury secures overall victory by triumphing in an instructive endgame. 1896: Harry Nelson Pillsbury vs Emanuel Lasker, Saint Petersburg. Lasker won the brilliancy prize for this game by exposing Pillsbury's king with the sacrifice of both rooks on the same square.
1900–1924
1904: Emanuel Lasker vs William Ewart Napier, Cambridge Springs. Both players show great ingenuity. After a complicated web of tactics, Lasker simplifies into a winning endgame. 1907: Gersz Rotlewi vs Akiba Rubinstein, Lodz. Rubinstein defeats Rotlewi with one of the most famous combinations ever played. 1909: Akiba Rubinstein vs Emanuel Lasker, Saint Petersburg. Rubinstein's brilliant play culminates in 18.Qc1!!, subsequently forcing Lasker to enter a rook endgame down a pawn that Rubinstein wins in masterly fashion. 1912: Stepan Levitsky vs Frank Marshall, Breslau. Marshall's final move against Levitsky places his queen en prise in three different ways. The spectators are said to have showered the board with gold coins. 1912: Edward Lasker vs Sir George Thomas, London. With a queen sacrifice, Edward Lasker (third cousin twice removed of the more well-known Emanuel Lasker) exposes Thomas' king and with a series of checks drives it all the way to the other side of the board before checkmating with an advance of his king. 1914: Emanuel Lasker vs José Raúl Capablanca, St Petersburg. Lasker defeats Capablanca in a positional game where his winning strategy seemed to flow right from the opening to the end. Capablanca, himself renowned as a master of simple positions, was sufficiently rattled to lose in the next round as well, handing the tournament victory to Lasker. 1918: Akiba Rubinstein vs Milan Vidmar, Berlin. Vidmar surprises Rubinstein by playing the Budapest Gambit, leading to a brilliant victory. 1918: José Raúl Capablanca vs Frank Marshall, New York. In the main line of the Ruy Lopez, Marshall surprises Capablanca with a bold pawn sacrifice. Capablanca accepts the challenge, fully aware of the fierce attack he is about to face. 1920: Edwin Ziegler Adams vs Carlos Torre Repetto, New Orleans. Likely composed by Torre as a tribute to his benefactor E. Z. Adams, this game features the most famous back-rank mate combination in chess literature, involving six consecutive offers of the queen. 1922: Alexander Alekhine vs Efim Bogoljubow, Pistyan. This game between Alekhine and Bogoljubow is referred to in the famous novella The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig. In the story, the position after 38.d6 is reproduced in a game between the fictional world chess champion as White and a group of outmatched amateur players who are on the verge of promoting their c-pawn as Black, when an unknown spectator frantically intervenes and explains how White will beat them in 9−10 moves after 38...c1=Q 39.Bxc1 Nxc1 40.d7. He instead proposes 38...Kh7, correctly predicting that 39.h4 will follow, and after 39...Rc4 he manoeuvres the game for 7−8 more moves until the world champion settles for a draw. 1922: Efim Bogoljubow vs Alexander Alekhine, Hastings. Irving Chernev called this the greatest game of chess ever played, adding: "Alekhine's subtle strategy involves manoeuvres which encompass the entire chessboard as a battlefield. There are exciting plots and counterplots. There are fascinating combinations and brilliant sacrifices of Queens and Rooks. There are two remarkable promotions of Pawns and a third in the offing, before White decides to capitulate." 1923: Friedrich Sämisch vs Aron Nimzowitsch, Copenhagen. Known as the "Immortal Zugzwang Game", Nimzowitsch ties his opponent down as Sämisch steadily finds himself with fewer and fewer moves left to make. 1924: Richard Réti vs José Raúl Capablanca, New York. The game that ended Capablanca's eight-year run without a single loss in tournament play. 1924: José Raúl Capablanca vs Savielly Tartakower, New York. One of the most famous and instructive endgames ever played, Capablanca sacrifices two pawns with check to support his passed pawn.
1925–1949
1925: Richard Réti vs Alexander Alekhine, Baden-Baden. Alekhine initiates a stunning combination and foresees the final position resulting more than 15 moves later. 1930: Glucksberg vs Miguel Najdorf, Warsaw. Known as the "Polish Immortal". Black sacrifices all four minor pieces for victory. 1932: Salo Flohr vs Max Euwe. The first game of a match held in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam). A textbook example of a minority attack. : Albert Einstein vs Oppenheimer. A recorded game in playbooks, said to have been played between physicists Albert Einstein (or his son Hans Albert Einstein) and J. Robert Oppenheimer. No conclusive evidence supports the historical accuracy of this game. 1934: Esteban Canal vs NN, Budapest. Known as the "Peruvian Immortal". Peruvian master Canal demolishes his amateur opponent with the sacrifice of two rooks and a queen. 1935: Max Euwe vs Alexander Alekhine, 26th Match Game, Zandvoort. This decisive game from the 1935 match for the world championship was dubbed 'The Pearl of Zandvoort' by Tartakower. 1938: Mikhail Botvinnik vs José Raúl Capablanca, Rotterdam. In this game from the AVRO 1938 tournament, future world champion Botvinnik obtains a strong initiative against Capablanca and brings the victory home with a long combination. 1938: Frank Parr vs George Wheatcroft, London. Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld described this as "one of the greatest combinative games on record". 1943: B Molinari vs Luis Roux Cabral, Montevideo. Known as the "Uruguayan Immortal". This game from the 1943 Uruguayan Chess Championship sees Cabral sacrifice the exchange twice, followed by sacrifices of two minor pieces. After 33 moves, all three of his remaining pieces are en prise, but his opponent cannot stop checkmate. 1946: Yuri Gusev vs E Auerbach, Chelyabinsk. Known as "Gusev's Immortal". This game was contested between relatively obscure players Gusev and Auerbach (not to be confused with late centenarian grandmaster and theoretician Yuri Averbakh) in an equally obscure minor tournament. National Master Sam Copeland ranked it the second-best game of the 1940s. Grandmaster Simon Williams called the queen sacrifice in this game one of the most beautiful ideas he had ever seen.
1950s
1953: Efim Geller vs Max Euwe, Zurich. Geller's attack seems to be sweeping Euwe off the board, but the former World Champion has everything under control, uncorking an amazing sacrifice on move 22 to begin a counterattack that wins the game in only four more moves. 1954: Mikhail Botvinnik vs Vasily Smyslov, 14th Match Game, Moscow. Smyslov sacrifices his queen for three minor pieces and coordinates them superbly to force Botvinnik's capitulation. 1956: Donald Byrne vs Bobby Fischer, New York. Known as the "Game of the Century". Byrne makes a seemingly minor mistake on move 11, losing a tempo by moving the same piece twice. Future world champion Fischer uses accurate sacrificial play, culminating in a queen sacrifice, to achieve a winning material advantage—a rook and two bishops for a queen—and coordinates them to force checkmate. Fischer was 13 years old; his opponent was 26. 1957: Bogdan Śliwa vs David Bronstein, Gotha. Known as the "Immortal Losing Game". Bronstein has a lost game, but sets some elegant traps in attempting to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. 1958: Lev Polugaevsky vs Rashid Nezhmetdinov, Sochi. In one of the most celebrated games of all time, Nezhmetdinov sacrifices his queen on move 24 and goes on to win the game with a king hunt. 1959: Mikhail Tal vs Vasily Smyslov, Bled. Tal initiates complications early and obtains a strong attack. Smyslov defends well, but eventually stumbles with one erroneous move, and Tal delivers the winning tactical blow.