CHESS
Mammoth
Raymond Keene
FOR SOME time the classic collection of chess masterpieces has been 500 Master Games by Tartakower and Du Mont. Despite the excellence of the choice and the general comprehensiveness of the games included, this great work only extends to the period of chess activity that concluded with the second world war. Since that time, games anthologies have tended to be personal (My Best Games by Viswanathan Anand, etc.) or, in more gen- eral cases, such as the well-known Chess Informator, huge compilations with only variations as explanation and no words.
The time had come for a general anthol- ogy, with excellent commentary, picking out the very best of the productions of chess genius, a sort of 'Everything you need to know about creativity in chess'. This task has now been attempted by the team of John Nunn, John Emms and Graham Bur- gess (The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Games of Chess, Robinson, £9.95). It is possible to cavil at their means of selection, even though they have explained it in great depth in their introduction. For example, I would have eliminated corre- spondence games, since they are played under entirely different conditions from the tournament play which characterises most of the examples. In addition, I think the authors would have been better off concentrating on the 20th century (the 100 best games), since they are clearly far more familiar with recent history than with the dim and distant past. No games by Staunton or Morphy and a mere nine from the 19th century as a whole compare with 18 chosen from the last decade. Some- where the balance has gone wrong.
That said, I can thoroughly recommend this book, and I have very few complaints, if any, about their excellent survey of the very best in post-war chess, the eras of Botvinnik, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov.
Perversely, perhaps, to exemplify the quality of their work I am choosing one 19th-century game that absolutely had to be included.
Zukertort–Blackburne: London 1883; Eng- lish Opening.
1 c4 e6 2 e3 Zukertort plays the early part of the game in a very innocuous way indeed, allowing Black to reach a comfortable game with no effort at all. 2 Nf6 3 NC3 b6 4 Bet Bbl 5 0-0 d5 6 d4 Bd6 7 Nc3 0-0 8 b3 Nbd7 9 Bbl Qe7 Here Black forgets one vital factor: in open positions bishops are better than knights. For this reason Black should take one move to preserve his d6- bishop, 9 ... a6. 10 Nb5 Ne4 11 Nxd6 cxd6 12 Nd2 Ndf6 13 0 Nxd2 14 Qxd2 At the moment the position remains reasonably closed, but with- out being really blocked up. In effect it has the potential to become open and it is this situation the bishops are waiting for. 14 ... dxc4 15 Bxc4 d5 16 Bd3 Rfc8 17 Rael It is deep moves like this which often separate good from great play- ers. Many players would have been tempted by 17 Rael, but this would have been an incorrect plan, leading only to a mass exchange of major pieces on the c-file. The presence of rooks is an important factor in White's forthcoming attack. 17 ...Rc7 18 e4 RacS 19 e5 Ne8 20 f4 g6 21 Re3 We can now see that Black's counterplay along the c-file is proving to be more apparent than real. Meanwhile White's attack on the kingside builds up at his leisure behind the impressive pawn centre. 21 ...fS 22 exf6 Nxf6 23 f5 Ne4 24 Bxe4 dxe4 25 fxg6 Rc2 Black bases all his hopes
on this move, which does seem to give him a lot more counterplay than he deserves. In any case, the alternative 25 hxg6 loses swiftly to 26 Rg3 when Black's creaking kingside cannot stand the intense pressure. 26 gxh7+ Kh8 27 d5+ e5 It seems as if Black has dealt with the threats and White is left facing the loss of a piece. 28 d6 looks good but Black can fight on after 28 Qg5. Instead Zukertort has a dazzling queen sacrifice up his sleeve. 28 Qb4!! (Diagram) An
Position after (26411
extraordinary idea against which there is no defence. Accepting the offer with 28 Qxb4 leads to mate after 29 BxeS+ Kxh7 30 Rh3+ Kg6 31 Rg3+ Kh6 32 Rf6+ KM 33 Rf5+ Kh6 34 Bf4+ Kh7 35 Rh5 mate. 28 ...R8c5 29 RIB+! Kxh7 After 29 ... Qxf8 30 BxeS+ Kxh7 31 Qxe4+ Kh6 32 Rh3+ White mates in the usual way. 30 Qxe4+ Kg7 31 BxeS+ What White now plays leads to a thunderous finish. However, modern computer analysis, frequently noted in the book but strangely in this case overlooked, has indicated that White actually has a forced mate in seven moves with 31 Rg8+ Kxg8 32 Qg6+ Qg7 33 Qe8+ Qf8 34 Rg3+ Kh7 35 Qg6+ Kh8 36 BxeS+ Qg7 37 Qxg7. In my view this in no way detracts from Zukertort's perfor- mance. His job, having already produced a mas- terpiece, was to win the game and not risk fur- ther brilliant play which might contain an over- sight. 31 ...Kxf8 32 Bg7+ Kg8 33 Qxe7 Black resigns.
Previous page
