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  • Wednesday, February 15, 2023

    A Rip Snorting Attack by Santasiere

         First, a little observation by USCF member and article writer Chris Wainscott describing the four classes of adult players. Which are you? 

    1) Players who never study or analyze their own games. They just enjoy playing.
    2) Players who are not results oriented, but love to study. They don’t really care about their rating, they just love studying and learning. 
    3) Players who like to watch high level tournaments and play over games. They don’t play much serious chess any longer. Watching chess is a reminder of a time when they were competing and working to improve. 
    4) Improvers. These are adults who actually work to improve their game.. 
     
         Anthony Santasiere (December 9, 1904 - January 13, 1977) was a high school mathematics teacher in the Bronx, New York. His hobbies included writing poetry, oil painting and playing the piano. He retired to Florida. 
         In his heyday he wrote for the American Chess Bulletin and he was the author of several really bad chess books. Among the worst were The Romantic King's Gambit that was published by Chess Digest's Ken Smith. It had 138 totally unorganized games and Statasiere blubbered endless about things that had noting to do with either the game or chess. 
         His Essays on Chess was equally useless. If I can quote renowned chess historian Edward Winter, "This is not an essay on chess, it is the prejudiced rambling of an apparently cultured man who, nevertheless, was gravely deficient in common sense. Once the sub-Fine psychology peters out, our author descends to the usual old chess anecdotes, a minimum effort being made to string them together in any logical order. It is a wretched book." 
         Back in the early 1960s Chess Life columnist Larry Evans had some uncomplimentary things to say about Santasiere. Evans wrote, "His games are characterized by plodding, timidity, and opening repetition. He enters even the romantic debuts such as the Vienna and King's Gambit with reams of prepared analysis, strives constantly to keep the draw in hand and prevent complications from getting away from him over the board. Where are the glorious games which qualify Santasiere as the darling spokesman of romanticism?" 
         Speaking of plodding, have you ever played over any games by Larry Evans? His favorite strategy was to gran a Pawn and then hang on to it for dear life. 
         In an old issue of the American Chess Bulletin in which Santasiere annotated the games from the 1942 Reshevsky vs. Kashdan match he complained bitterly about the boring openings they played and the boring games they lead to.
         Santasiere was always vituperating against the great players for cowardice because they played openings like the Ruy Lopez and Queen’s Gambit. He describes the latter as being "...neither a gambit nor an honor to any Queen. It is like a piece of dead flesh kept overlong on ice." 
         For all his complaining about dead fish openings Santasiere played stuff like the Caro-Kann, the Reti and the English. But, he also sometimes played swashbuckling openings. 
         The problem was, according to Evans, Santasiere played gambits without sacrifices and played like a mouse, always trying to keep the draw in hand. For example, In the 1946 US Championship Santasiere had the better position and Reshevsky had 2-1/2 minutes left for 23 moves. Santasiere offered draw which Reshevsky accepted. Santasiere’s reason was that time was not a factor and you had to respect Reshevsky’s endgame ability, so common sense dictated a draw offer was the correct decision. 
         How much of what Evans had to say is true I can't say, but given a choice between My Best Games by Evans and My Best Games by Santasiere, I'm buying the latter. 

    At Philadelphia in the 1936 American Chess Federation (formerly known as the Western Chess Association) Championship, I.A. Horowitz, losing to only to Arthur Dake, snagged the title. Santasiere's +3 -5 =3 was not spectacular, but here is one of those glorious games Evans inquired about. It was pulled off in the preliminary event. 

    A game that I liked (Fritz 17)

    Anthony SantasiereHenry M Woods1–0A16ACF Congress Prelims, PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia, PA USA17.08.1936Stockfish 15.1
    English Opening 1.c4 f6 2.c3 d5 Chess Explorer classifies this as the Anglo-Gruenfeld Defense. 3.cxd5 This is the most promising reply. xd5 4.e4 far more popular is 4.g3 b6 Black does not get especially good results with this move, so 4...Nxc3 was a better choice. 5.d4 c6 6.b5 Unbooked, but not bad. Still, 6.d5 looks logical...and promising. 6.d5 e5 7.f4 g4 A gross tactical blunder. Of course the N should retreat to d7. 8.b3 ed7 9.h3 c5 10.b5+ d7 11.xc5 e5 12.f2 e7 13.fxe5 h4 14.g3 e7 15.e3 h5 16.0-0-0 c8 17.e6 a6 18.xf7# Kerma,S (2040)-Knapic,A Portoroz 1994 6...d7 7.ge2 e6 8.0-0 e7 9.a3 a6 10.d3 0-0 11.b4 a7 Black's play, while not leading to any immediate serious consequences, is quite passive...not a good idea. 11...e5 was more active and if 12.d5 d4 he has a perfectly satisfactory position. 12.e3 c6 Better would have been 12...Nb5 at once to eliminate white's N. 13.b3 b5 14.f4 d6 The N does not belong here as will become evident. 14.. .Nxc3 was satisfactory. 15.g4 c8 the R has no future on this square. 15... a5 hoping to get some play was better. 16.f3 This is a R with a future. e8 Same comment as was made about his previous move. 17.af1 Over preparing a bit. 17.e5 was a little better because now black can play 17...e5 himself. f8 Another passive move, but already it's hard to suggest a viable plan for black who is beginning to feel squeezed. 18.e5 b5 19.h3 h6 20.e4 d5 Black's hopping Ns have not accomplished a single thing nor has he been able to deploy his Rs to useful square owing to his rigid P formation. White has w winning position and now must figure out how to bring it to fruition. 21.d2 Giving up a P in order to preserve the B is not at all bad, but it wasn't necessary. 21.g5 is more deadly. xe3 22.xe3 Black has no reasonable continuation. c5 22...hxg5 23.fxg5 e7 24.f6+ gxf6 25.gxf6 xf6 26.exf6 etc. 23.gxh6 g6 24.f6+ h8 25.dxc5 White has a decisive advantage. 21...e7 21...xd4 was relatively best, but after 22.xd4 b6 23.c5 xc5 24.bxc5 xc5 25.b2 Black's position isn't much better than after the move played. 22.g5 hxg5 This accelerates the finish, but there wasn't anything much better. 23.fxg5 e8 23...e8 There is no way to prevent white's next move. 24.f6+ xf6 25.gxf6 d7 26.h7+ h8 27.b1+ g8 28.h8+ The culmination of the R-lift at move 16! xh8 29.h3+ g8 30.h7# 24.f6+ Mates in 8 at the most! xf6 Capturing with the P yields the same result. 25.gxf6 g6 26.xg6 26.h8+ is equally good. xh8 27.xg6 Black can only throw away pieces to delay mate. c3 28.xc3 g8 29.h3 h6 30.xh6 xf6 31.exf6 mate next move. 26...fxg6 Facing mate in 4, black resigned. A ferocious attack by Santasiere. 26...c3 27.h8+ 26...fxg6 27.f7+ g7 28.h6+ h8 29.xf8+ h4 30.xh4# 1–0

    1 comment:

    1. As I recall, Edward Winter didn't have a very high opinion of Larry Evans' writing either!

      ReplyDelete