The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played: 62 masterly games of chess strategy

376 Pages·2014·21.526 MB·English

by  Irving Chernev

The Most Instructive Games of Chess
Ever Played
62 Masterpieces of Modern Chess
Strategy
Irving Chernev
Tactical Tricks
Table of Contents
20. The Two Bishops 207
21. Variety of Themes 217
Title 1
22. Systematic
227
Contents 2 Strangulation
1. Rook on the Seventh 23. Good Bishop and Bad
10 241
Rank Bishop
2. The King is a Strong 24. Coup de Grâce 253
21
Piece
25. The Powerful Passed
266
3. Knight Outpost at d5 33 Pawns
4. Aggressive Rook in the 26. Bishop and a Half 274
42
Ending
27. Prophetic Strategy 285
5. The Passed Pawn 57
28. Problem-like Finale 298
6. Weak Pawns, Weak
29. A Pawn is a Pawn is a
308
Squares and Mighty, 65
Pawn
Mighty Knights
30. Board with Excitement 324
7. Finesse in the Ending 74
31. Elegant Simplification 336
8. Phalanx of Pawns 85
32. Four Endings in One 349
9. Passed Pawn’s Lust to
93 33. Bishop and Pawn
Expand 364
Ending Deluxe
10. Rook and Pawn
102 34. Brilliant Career of a
Ending 375
Pawn
11. King in the Center 117
35. Dispatching the King’s
388
12. The Shifting Attack 126
Musketeers
13. Every Move a Threat! 137
36. The Sheltering Pawn 397
14. A Touch of Jujitsu 148
37. The Power of Position
407
15. The King-Side Attack 156 Play
16. Magnificent Outpost 166 38. That Old Black Magic 418
17. The Art of Exchanging 39. The Singular Strategy
175 436
Pieces of Steinitz
18. The Isolated Pawn 186 40. The Odyssey of an
449
19. The See-Saw Check, 199 Isolated Pawn
Zugzwang, and Other 41. Zugzwang, the 459
g g
Invincible Weapon
42. Symphony of
473
Combinations
43. Escorting the Potential
486
Queen
44. The Pillsbury Bind 499
45. The Galloping Knight 514
46. The Roving Rook 524
47. Web of Black Squares 538
48. Endgame Arithmetic 552
49. In the Grand Manner 564
50. March of the Little
578

Pawns
51. Irresistible Pawn-Roller 590
52. Quiet, Like a Tiger 603
53. Cornucopia of Ideas 616

54. Endgame Duel –
627
Knight against Rook
55. Perennial Favorite 641
56. Command of the
655
Board
57. The King Takes a Walk 665
58. Surprise! Surprise! 678
59. Bolt from the Blue 688
60. Lured into Zugzwang 698
61. The Flash of a Mighty
711
Surprise
62. Symphony of
723
Heavenly Length
Index of Openings 744
Index of Players 748
Copyright 750
Contents
Reshevsky – Najdorf, Dallas 1957
13. Every Move a Threat!
Porges – Lasker, Nuremberg 1896
14. A Touch of Jujitsu
Table of Contents
Petrosian – Korchnoi, Leningrad 1946
15. The King-Side Attack
Tarrasch – von Scheve, Leipzig 1894
1. Rook on the Seventh Rank
16. Magnificent Outpost
Capablanca – Tartakover, New York
Smyslov – Rudakovsky, Moscow 1945
1924
17. The Art of Exchanging Pieces
2. The King Is a Strong Piece
Menchik – Capablanca, Hastings 1931
Tal – Lissitzin, Leningrad 1956
18. The Isolated Pawn
3. Knight Outpost at d5
Lasker – Tarrasch, St. Petersburg 1914
Boleslavsky – Lissitzin, Moscow 1956
19. The See-Saw Check, Zugzwang, and
4. Aggressive Rook in the Ending
Other Tactical Tricks
Tarrasch – Thorold, Manchester 1890
Kupferstich – Andreassen, Denmark
5. The Passed Pawn
1953
Rubinstein – Duras, Vienna 1908
20. The Two Bishops
6. Weak Pawns, Weak Squares and
Rosenthal – Steinitz, Vienna 1873
Mighty, Mighty Knights
21. Variety of Themes
Mattison – Nimzovich, Carlsbad 1929
Tartakover – Domenech, Sitges 1934
7. Finesse in the Ending
22. Systematic Strangulation
Domenech – Flohr, Rosas 1935
Tarrasch – Showalter, Vienna 1898
8. Phalanx of Pawns
23. Good Bishop and Bad Bishop
Petrosian – Kozali, Montevideo 1954
Barden – Rossolimo, Hastings 1950
9. Passed Pawn’s Lust to Expand
24. Coup de Grâce
Fischer – Berliner, New York 1960
Alekhine – Yates, London 1922
10. Rook and Pawn Ending
25. The Powerful Passed Pawns
Smyslov – Reshevsky, Moscow 1948
Aganalian – Petrosian, Tiflis 1945
11. King in the Center
26. Bishop and a Half
Tartakover – Frentz, Paris 1933
Bondarevsky – Smyslov, Moscow 1946
12. The Shifting Attack
27. Prophetic Strategy
2 3
Contents
Tarrasch, Schottlander, von Bardeleben, 42. Symphony of Combinations
von Scheve – Mieses, Paulsen, Riemann,
Eliskases – Grunfeld, Mahrisch-Ostrau
von Gottschall, Leipzig 1888
1933
28. Problem-like Finale
43. Escorting the Potential Queen
Foltys – Golombek, London 1947
Schlechter – Mason, Monte Carlo 1903
29. A Pawn Is a Pawn Is a Pawn
44. The Pillsbury Bind
Kashdan – Steiner, Pasadena 1932
Chekhover – Rudakovsky, Moscow 1945
30. Board with Excitement
45. The Galloping Knight
Keres – Tarnowski, Helsinki 1952
Tarrasch – Vogel, Nuremberg 1910
31. Elegant Simplification
46. The Roving Rook
Botvinnik – Boleslavsky, Moscow 1941
Pillsbury – Showalter, Brooklyn 1897
32. Four Endings in One
47. Web of Black Squares
Blackburne – Weiss, New York 1889
Schlechter – John, Barmen 1905
33. Bishop and Pawn Ending Deluxe
48. Endgame Arithmetic
Weiss – Blackburne, New York 1889
Mieses – Reshevsky, Margate 1935
34. Brilliant Career of a Pawn
49. In the Grand Manner
Panov – Taimanov, Moscow 1952
Janowsky – Capablanca, New York 1916
35. Dispatching the King’s Musketeers
50. March of the Little Pawns
Petrosian – Smyslov, Moscow 1961
Pillsbury – Gunsberg, Hastings 1895
36. The Sheltering Pawn
51. Irresistible Pawn-Roller
Schlage – Réti, Berlin 1928
Marshall – Capablanca, New York 1909
37. The Power of Position Play
52. Quiet, Like a Tiger
Capablanca – Germann, Miller,
Botvinnik – Kann, Moscow 1931
Skillicorn, London 1920
53. Cornucopia of Ideas
38. That Old Black Magic
Zagoryansky – Romanovsky, Moscow
Bernstein – Mieses, Coburg 1904
1943
39. The Singular Strategy of Steinitz
54. Endgame Duel – Knight against
Steinitz – Sellman, Baltimore 1885 Rook
40. The Odyssey of an Isolated Pawn Botvinnik – Vidmar, Groningen 1946
Burn – Znosko-Borovsky, Ostend 1906 55. Perennial Favorite
41. Zugzwang, the Invincible Weapon Bogolyubov – Réti, Mahrisch-Ostrau
1923
Marshall – Lasker, New York 1907
4 5
56. Command of the Board
Rubinstein – Schlechter, San Sebastian
1912
57. The King Takes a Walk
Introduction
Botvinnik – Kann, Sverdlovsk 1943
58. Surprise! Surprise!
Petrosian – Pachman, Bled 1961
Chess masters play to win. In doing
59. Bolt from the Blue
so they would like to create master
Andric – Daja, Belgrade 1949
pieces. They would like to conjure up
60. Lured into Zugzwang
brilliant combinations that leave
Marshall – Capablanca, New York 1918 everybody gasping with wonder and
admiration – but first and foremost, they
61. The Flash of a Mighty Surprise
play to win, and win quickly and easily.
Olafsson – Fischer, Portoroz 1958
62. Symphony of Heavenly Length The chess master knows which
Evans – Opsahl, Dubrovnik 1950 positions are favorable, and tries to
bring these positions about. He knows
Index of Openings
that his pieces must be placed where
Index of Players
they exert the utmost influence, and
where they prevent the opponent’s
pieces from moving about freely. He
knows that Rooks must seize the open
files, with a view to gaining control of the
seventh rank. He knows that Bishops
must either command long diagonals, or
else pin down and paralyze the
opponent’s Knights. He knows the
squares on which his Knights must be
posted to get a powerful grip on the
position. He realizes the essential truth
in Tartakover’s epigram, “Seize the
outpost e5 with your Knight, and you
can go to sleep. Checkmate will come by
itself.” The chess master knows how to
obtain a slight advantage, and then
exploit it to the fullest. In short, he
knows the strategy of winning.
6 7
The games in this book are to my  
mind the most instructive examples in
the whole literature of the game, of
position play – the strategy of winning
chess. Who, for example, will doubt the To My Dear Wife
tremendous power exerted by a Rook
posted on the seventh rank, after seeing
Capablanca’s delightfully clear-cut
demonstration in Game No. 1 against Chess, like love, is infectious
Tartakover? And who will not learn a at any age – Salo Flohr
great deal about the art of handling Rook
and Pawn endings (the most important
endings in chess) after playing through
Tarrasch’s game against Thorold? And
can there be a more convincing
illustration of the paralyzing effect on
the opponent’s position that comes from
control of the black squares, than in the
Bernstein – Mieses game? Or are there
more enlightening and entertaining
Bishop and Pawn endings than feature
the two games between Blackburne and
Weiss?
These games, as well as all the others,
are masterly demonstrations of the basic
strategy of winning. So much so that I
thought an appropriate title for a book of
these games should be The Most
Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played.
But I might just as well have called
this collection The Most Beautiful
Games of Chess Ever Played.
Paris 1965
New York 1965 – Irving Chernev
8 9
1. Rook on the Seventh Rank
4 ♗g5 ♗e7
5 ♘c3 0–0
♖ GAME ONE ♜
6 e3 b6
Rook on the Seventh
7 ♗d3 ♗b7
Rank
8 0–0 ♕e8
J. R. Capablanca – S. Tartakover
Black evidently intends to attack on
New York 1924, DUTCH DEFENSE the King side by 9 … ♕h5 and 10 … ♘g4
– customary strategy in the Dutch
Defense.
Capablanca’s play in the game that
follows provides us with a magic formula
9 ♕e2!
for conducting Rook and Pawn endings:
seize the seventh rank with your Rook,
This move makes Tartakover change
and advance your King to the sixth!
his mind, since 9 … ♕h5 is met by 10 e4,
and White’s center is imposing.
Capablanca gives up a couple of
valuable Pawns to get his King and Rook
9 … ♘e4
onto the key squares. Once there, they
keep the adverse King busy warding off
10 ♗xe7 ♘xc3
threats of mate, and leave him no time to
defend his Pawns. Four of these pawns
11 bxc3 ♕xe7
fall victims in half-a-dozen moves, after
which resistance is of course hopeless.
Capa’s clear-cut, methodical play is so
easy to understand that the whole
ending is a marvellous piece of
instruction, and a thing of beauty as
well.
1 d4 e6
2 ♘f3 f5
3 c4 ♘f6
10 11
1. Rook on the Seventh Rank
The exchanges have left White with a
18 ♖e1
doubled c-Pawn. In compensation for
this weakness, the b-file has been
Having done its work on the b-file,
opened and is available to his Rooks.
the Rook moves to the center, to support
a break by 19 e4.
12 a4!
A clever preventive move! It stops an 18 … ♕d7
unwelcome intrusion by 12 … ♕a3, and
also prepares to meet 12 … ♘c6 with 13
♖fb1, and if then 13 … ♘a5 14 c5
undoubles the Pawns by force, since the
continuation 14 … bxc5 15 ♖b5 is to
White’s advantage.
12 … ♗xf3
13 ♕xf3 ♘c6
14 ♖fb1 ♖ae8
19 e4!
15 ♕h3
White opens up the position to give
Another preventive move. Black
his pieces more scope.
cannot free himself by 15 … e5 as 16
♗xf5 would follow. The Queen’s move
19 … fxe4
also makes it possible for White to play
16 f4, giving him a grip on the square e5.
20 ♕xe4 g6
15 … ♖f6
21 g3
16 f4! ♘a5
White stabilizes his position with this
move and the next, before start ing an
17 ♕f3
attack on the King side by h4 and h5.
The Queen returns to f3, to dominate
21 … ♔f8
the long diagonal.
22 ♔g2 ♖f7
17 … d6
12 13