Chess 455
PHILIDOR
R. G. Thomson (1st Prize, BCPS Meredith Tourney, 1941). White to play and mate in three moves; solution next week.
Solution to no. 454 (Hassbcrg): Kt (Q 4) - Kt 5, threat R - Q 4. 1 K x R; 2 Q Q 4. 1 . . . P x R; 2 Q - B 4. 1 . . . R x R; 2 Q - K 6. 1 ... Kt x R; 2 B - B 6. To get the full point of the problem, and to see why it was a first prize winner, find out why the seven other possible moves of the Kt on Q 4 fail also to solve it.
Chess as drama
Chess contains a strong theatrical - not to say operatic - element in being in some ways larger than life. Because of the possibility of studying the style and opening habits of one's opponents, players make long-range plans plotting each other's overthrow which may involve waiting years for an opportunity; scenarios are enacted which can be melodramas, farce - or even have an element of real drama or tragedy in them.
The best-known example is the Capablanca/ Marshall game in the New York Tournament of 1918. Marshall, who had been heavily defeated some years earlier by the young Capablanca in a match, specially prepared a new defence to the Ruy Lopez for this encounter. When he allowed Capa to play the Lopez at all, the latter knew he must be up against a prepared line; on the eighth move - the now famous 'Marshall Attack' Black offered a pawn for a dangerous attack. With remarkable courage and confidence in his own powers Capa took the pawn and faced the attack, defying the midnight oil; he survived and won now, fifty years later, we still don't know whether the attack is sound. A touch of melodrama, the hero surviving incredible dangers and all the villain's deep laid plans coming to naught.
Farce is seen in the triple bill at Goteborg, 1955. In this event there were three Argentinians playing - Najdorf, Panno and Pilnik - and three Russians - Kcres, Geller and Spassky - and they were paired together Keres v Najdorf, Geller v Panno and Spassky v Pilnik on the same day. The Argentinians had discovered a new wrinkle in the old Sicilian which would give Black a fine game - so they all played the same variation, the Russians obligingly falling in, and all the Argen- tinians played the new move. About move 10, they could be seen strolling around the tourna- ment hall each taking the credit for the great innovation and all the Russians were sunk in thought. But alas on move 13 each of the Russians found the way to explode the new line; in 23, 25 and 31 moves respectively Najdorf, Panno and Pilnik had resigned and the tournament was made hideous with the noise of recriminations.
Real drama can be seen in the Pillsburg-Lasker games. In the St Petersburg 1896 tournament Lasker won one of his most brilliant victories, against the twenty-three-year-old American Harry Nelson Pillsburg. Immediately after he had played his seventh move, Pillsburg felt that it was wrong; after many hours of examination starting the night after his defeat - he found the move he should have made. Although he had many opportunities subsequently against other players, he never played the new line - he waited for Lasker. Eight years later, Pillsburg - already, although only thirty-one, fatally ill - met Lasker at Cambridge Springs in the us. At last he revealed the new move and with it won one of the finest games of his career - and one of the last; a year later he was dead. Next week I will give this game.
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