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LCB, Issue #073 --, Turn the Tide with Piece Power Plays July 01, 2021 |
Turn the Tide with Piece Power PlaysLapoc Chess Board, Issue #073 -- GOTM #43 learn and play online chess At times you will find yourself having to fight really hard to maintain parity. It may seem that your opponent gains an edge that perseveres throughout the game. It's important to hang in there in such situations, fighting as hard as you can. If you can prevent your opponent from making his advantage tell for long enough, he may be the one that becomes frustrated. Somewhere in the tense battle as you parry his threats there may come a time when he makes a mistake and gives you a tactical opportunity to change the complexion of the entire game. Something like this happened in a very famous game played in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) in 1912. The game was contested by Stepan Levitsky with the White pieces and Frank Marshall with Black. Turn the Tide with Piece Power PlaysLevitsky, Stepan M - Marshall, Frank J [C10]GotM #43 - Breslau, 1912 [Connaughton, Ken] 1.e4 King's Pawn Opening 1...e6 French Defense 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Paulsen Variation 3...c5 The classic c5-push, the main idea for Black in the French Defense as he sets about undermining White's center. 4.Nf3 Nc6 5.exd5 White decides to take the tension out of the position by neutralizing the center. 5...exd5 6.Be2 Nf6 7.0-0 Be7 8.Bg5 0-0 9.dxc5
And now Black is left with an isolated d-pawn. White will try to build up
the pressure on this pawn and Black will try to hold it. 9...Be6 10.Nd4 Bxc5 11.Nxe6 Taking out the defender but now d5 has a solid base coming from the support of e6. So now Black has hanging pawns to defend. 11...fxe6 e6 is the new target. 12.Bg4 Qd6 13.Bh3 Keeping the Bishop out of the Knight's reach. 13...Rae8 14.Qd2 Bb4 15.Bxf6 The attacking side always does well to exchange pieces. It's harder to defend weaknesses with less pieces. 15...Rxf6 16.Rad1 White begins what he hopes will be the decisive combination. 16...Qc5 17.Qe2
He's hoping the hanging Rook on Black's homerank will
provide the basis for a tactical maneuver. 17...Bxc3 Black exchanges off the threatening Knight and he will also win a pawn and rupture White's Queenside. 18.bxc3 Qxc3 But now White can make use of his tactical opportunities, first winning back the pawn. 19.Rxd5
19...Nd4 Black counters. 20.Qh5 The threat on the Black Rook should preserve the White Rook on d5. But this move is a critical error. He needed to maintain a presence on the e-file. (20.Qe4= would have kept White in good stead.) 20...Ref8 21.Re5 And now White wants to return to targeting e6. 21...Rh6!
And suddenly White realizes he is not the one with the whip hand. His opponent, a renowned tactical wizard, has seen a clever shot that may turn the game on it's head. 22.Qg5 Rxh3 The Rook can't be taken of course as the overworked g2-pawn has a more important task than protecting the Bishop. The Knight has to be kept out of f3. 23.Rc5 White tries to harrass the Queen in order to somehow dig himself out of trouble, but something even more amazing is to come from Black. 23...Qg3!!
This move causes White to
resign. If the Rook was untouchable, the Queen, incredibly, is even moreso. (23...Qg3 # is being threatened with 24...Qh2# on the next move. Remarkably there is no good continuation for White, even though he can take the Queen in three different ways. 24.Qxg3 staves of defeat longer than the other options (24.hxg3 Ne2#; 24.fxg3 Ne2+ 25.Kh1 Rxf1#; 24.Qe5 attempting to cover h2 fails against 24...Nf3+ 25.Kh1 Rxh2#) but after 24...Ne2+ 25.Kh1 Nxg3+ 26.Kg1 (26.fxg3 Rxf1#) 26...Ne2+ 27.Kh1 Rc3-+ White is a Knight down and it's over.) 0-1 Levitsky - Marshall, Breslau (1912) P.S. If you do not have html based email software and you're using a text only system, you may find that the links are only partially highlighted and may not work. If this is the case, simply copy and paste the entire link into the browser and hit Enter. That should get you where you want to go. Comments, ideas, feedback? I'd be stoked to hear from you. Get in touch See you next month. Ken 
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