Geza Maroczy's Wild Side

     Hungarian GM Geza Maroczy (1870 - 1951) was one of the leading players in the world in the early 1900s. Few realize it, but besides Siegbert Tarrasch, the World Champion Emanuel Lasker considered Maroczy worthy of a match for the world championship and Capablanca also held Maroczy in high esteem. 

     Maroczy had a number of brilliant tournament successes in the early 1900s and in February of 1906, he visited the United States where he went on a simultaneous tour and, also, met with Lasker in New York in April to negotiate the conditions for a match, but they were not able to reach an agreement. 

     After 1908, Maroczy retired from chess to devote more time to his profession as a clerk. He worked as an auditor at the Center of Trade Unions and Social Insurance. 

     When the Communists came briefly to power in 1919 after World War I he was a chief auditor at the Education Ministry. After the Communist government was overthrown he couldn't get another job and so returned to chess with some modest success. 

     Maroczy also played correspondence chess and today's game is one of them. And, what a game it was! 

     Maroczy's style of play was sound, but very defensive (i.e. boring) in nature. He was also famous for his handling of Queen endgames. Nonetheless, like all great players his style was a matter of preference, not ability; he could also play spectacular attacking chess such as in he following correspondence game in which he unleashed a wild attack. The game ended when he was two Rooks and a Bishop down, but had a forced mate. 

     An account of the game is given in Maroczy's autobiography. Karoly Zambelly served as a correspondence sparring partner at the time. After one game, so the story goes, Zambelly was mated on e5 and he vowed that it wouldn't happen again. This was their next correspondence game, but, again, Zambelly was mated on e5.

[Event "Correspondence"] [Site "?"] [Date "1897.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Karoly Zambelly"] [Black "Geza Maroczy"] [Result "0-1"] [Annotator "Stockfish 15"] [PlyCount "52"] [EventDate "2022.05.14"] {Elephant Gambit} 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5 {The Elephant Gambit is considered unsound by everybody; white can capture either P with the advantage. That said, Stockfish 15 puts white's advantage at 1.25 Ps after 3.exd5 and slighlty lessd than a P after 3.Nxe5. It first appeared in Cochrane-Staunton back in 1842. Paulsen and Lasker tried it a few times, but it never gained popularity.} 3. exd5 Bd6 4. Nc3 (4. d4 {is more aggressive and stronger. After} e4 5. Ne5 { white has a nice initiative.}) 4... Nf6 5. Bb5+ (5. d4 {as in Tate,E (2380) -Rajlich,V (2350) USA 1996 is also a good alternative. After} e4 6. Ne5 O-O 7. Bg5 Re8 8. Qd2 Bxe5 9. dxe5 Rxe5 10. O-O-O {white has the superior position.}) 5... c6 {Other moves that have been tried here are 5...Bd7 and 5...Nbd7, but Maroczy's move is probably the best.} 6. Ba4 {White makes a typical mistake when playing against a gambit...he plays passively and as a result black seizes the initiative.} (6. dxc6 {is the correct move.} Nxc6 7. d4 e4 8. Ne5 O-O (8... Bxe5 {runs into} 9. dxe5 Qxd1+ 10. Kxd1 Bg4+ 11. Ke1 Nd7 12. Nxe4 Ndxe5 13. f3 {with the advantage.}) 9. Bxc6 bxc6 10. Bg5 {White has an excellent game.} (10. Nxc6 {This allows black to equalize after} Qb6 11. d5 Ba6 )) 6... e4 7. dxc6 O-O 8. Nd4 {Stockfish thinks 8.cxb7 is slightly better, but opening up the long diagonal for black's B would likely be disesteemed by most human players.} bxc6 9. Nxc6 {After this white's game goes downhill very quickly.} (9. d3 {keeps the balance.} Qb6 10. Nde2 Ba6 11. Be3 { with equal chances.}) 9... Qb6 (9... Nxc6 {was an excellent, if complicated, alternative.} 10. Bxc6 Bg4 11. f3 exf3 12. Bxf3 Re8+ 13. Kf1 Qd7 {Black has plenty of compensation for his material deficit.}) 10. Nxb8 Rxb8 11. Bb5 { It would have been far better to challenge black in the center with 11.d3. After this black has a free hand.} Rd8 {Black is two Ps down, but he has a huge lead in development and open lines. The text move is his last move in preparation of a smashing attack involving more sacrifices. That said, it's highly unlikely that Maroczy calculated the part this R is to play in a few moves.} (11... Ng4 {Leave it to Stockfish to point out that this move has better winning chances.} 12. Qe2 Bc5 13. h3 Bxf2+ 14. Kf1 Qh6 {and black is winning.}) 12. O-O {There's a technical term for moves like this... castling into it.} (12. h3 {This puts a damper on black's attack and his advantage is no longer nearly as great as it would have been had he played 11.. .Ng4} a6 13. Bc4 e3 14. fxe3 Bg3+ 15. Kf1 Bb7 16. Be2 Ne4 17. Nxe4 Bxe4 18. Bf3 {Black is considerably better even though he is down three Ps. In Shootouts white only scored +0 -4 =1}) 12... Bxh2+ {More sacrifices are to come.} 13. Kxh2 Ng4+ 14. Kg3 {Heading for the wide open spaces rather than being confined after 14.Kg1, but it makes no difference.} Qc7+ 15. f4 exf3+ 16. Kxf3 Rd4 {The point of 11...Rd8 shows up with this move...the threat is ... Rf4+ and ...Qe5+ with mate to follow.} (16... Bb7+ {Again, Stockfish puts a much higher evaluation on this than the text, but the text is also quite sufficient.} 17. Kxg4 Qh2 18. d4 h5+ 19. Kf5 Qh4 20. Bg5 g6+ 21. Kf6 Rd6+ 22. Ke7 Re6+ 23. Kd7 Qxg5 24. Rxf7 Bc8+ 25. Kc7 Qg3+ 26. Rf4 Qxf4+ 27. Kd8 Bb7+ 28. Kd7 Qd6#) 17. d3 Bb7+ 18. Ne4 Bxe4+ 19. Kxg4 Qh2 20. dxe4 {Offering up the Q won't allow him to survive the attack as black has a mate in 6. However, there was no hope of saving the game because any other move results in an even quicker mate.} Qxg2+ 21. Kh4 Rxb5 {Rather than win the Q black takes the mating path.} 22. Qxd4 Rh5+ {[%mdl 512]} 23. Kxh5 {Black has an enormous material deficit and is himself threatened with mate. Amazingly, he has a mate in 4 moves.} Qh3+ 24. Kg5 h6+ 25. Kf4 g5+ 26. Ke5 Qe6# 0-1