One of the books in my collection is 107 Great Chess Battles, 1939-1945 by Alekhine. The games, almost all of them played by others, were selected and annotated by him. Because Alekhine selected the games you know they have to be good.
The games are organized by openings, open, semi-open and closed. In my opinion the book is something of a potboiler with not very deep annotations and they are lacking instructional content, but then it’s games themselves that are interesting.
The winner, Paul Michel (1905-1977) of Germany, was awarded the IM title in 1956. He was 2nd= in the German Championships of 1935 and 1938 and was a member of the German Olympiad team of 1939. He remained in Argentina after the Second World War.
His opponent was Swedish player Erik Lundin (1904-1088). One of the country;s top players, he was warded the International Master title in 1950, and the Honorary Grandmaster title in 1983.
He continued to participate in chess tournaments in his 80's and over the course of his career he defeated many of the world;s best players. Chess metrics estimates his highest ever rating to have been w771 and his best world ranking to have been #18 on December 1946 and January 1947.
Erik Lundin (Sweden)–Paul Michel (Germany)0–1C48Buenos Aires Olympiad fin-A14Buenos Aires ARG16.09.1939Stockfish 16/Alekhine
C48: Four Knights Game, Rubinstein Mariation 1.e4 e5 2.f3 c6 3.c3 f6 4.b5 d4 The solid Rubinstein Variation. At the time this game was played
the German team would have been satisfied with a draw. 5.xe5 Lundin wants
to avoid the drawish 5.Nxf4 and so Iplayed this rather dubious line. He would
have done better playing the standard 5.Ba4. Note that the text does not win a
P. e7 6.f4 xb5 7.xb5 d6 8.f3 xe4+ 9.f2 The position of white's K
has been disturbed in this line and this move is better that 9.Qe2 Qxe2+ 10.
Kxe2 because now at least white threatens 10.Re1 g4+ 9...xf4 would be a
horrible mistake. 10.d3 f5 11.xc7+ 10.g3 Alekhinme wrote that this K
excursion is artificial and appears erroneous and he added that one could not
understand what it was that lead white to play such a risky move. Possibly
Lundin wanted to avois shutting his R in with 10.Kg1 although that move would
have been preferrable. g6 Threatening 11...Ne3+. 11.h4 h5 11...f6
is also good. 12.h3 g5 13.e2+ e5 14.d4 gxf4+ 15.h2 xh4 16.dxe5 g3+ 17.g1 Popov,I (2613)-Svidler,P (2730) Aix-les-Bains FRA 2011. Now after 17..
.Kd8 black would have had the advantage. 12.h3 Best; this was known at the
time. 12.xc7+ leaves black with the advantage after d8 13.h3 13.xa8 g5 14.fxg5 xg5 15.f3 g7 The threat of ...Ne3+ cannot be met in any
satisfactory way. 16.e2 e3+ 17.f2 xg2+ 18.xe3 h6+ 19.d3 f5+ 20.c3 xe2 13...f6 14.xa8 xh4+ 15.xh4 e4 16.h5 e7+ 17.g5 xg5+ 12...xb5 It was Alekhine's opinion that this simple move forces a series of
moves which are dangerous for White's position. 12...f6 This move was
known at the time the game was played and it was the move recompensed by
theory. It still is. 13.xc7+ Trading Qs would have kept black's advantage
at a minimum. d8 14.xa8 Kadric,D (2561)-Gelbenegger,P (2260) Austria AUT
2022. Black is better, but only if he finds the correct continuation which is..
. xh4+ 15.xh4 e4 16.g4 e7+ 17.g5 xg5+ 18.fxg5 h6 19.g6 fxg6 20.f1 Black is clearly better, but white has a fighting chance. 13.hxg4
This is no good because it exposes his K. 13.a4 and white has equalized
but the position has a lot of complications! d5 14.hxg4 g6 15.e2+ e6 16.f5 gxf5 17.gxf5 g8+ 18.h3 e7 19.fxe6 xh4 20.exf7+ xf7 with a slight
advantage. 13.a4 e3 This also leads to complications. 14.dxe3 c6 15.e4 e7 16.e1 0-0 17.f3 f6 13...g5 After this white's game begins to
deteriorate. 14.fxg5 e5+ 15.f2 d4+ 16.g3 e5+ 17.h3 Michel refutes
this swiftly and in masterly fashion. 17.f2 would have made black's task
much more difficult. xg5 18.d3 xg4 19.e1+ e7 20.xg4 xg4 21.g5 e6 22.xe7 xe7 with on;y sa modest advantage. 17...xg5 Threatens to win
with ...Rg8. 18.d4 h5 This fine move emphasizes the disadvantageous
position of the K. 19.g3 19.g3 is met by g8 20.g5 xd1 21.xd1 h6 22.f3 e7 23.e1 hxg5 24.c4 24.xg5 f6 24...f5 and black can expect to
squeeze out the win. 19...g8 20.h2 xg4 After achieving a material
advantage the win is a matter of technique, but, as Alekhine pointed out, the
speed of the method used produces a very favorable impression. 21.e1+ e7 22.d2 d7 23.h6 d5 Black avoids tthe exchange of Qs inorder to exploit
the frail position of white's K. 24.e3 ae8 25.f2 g5 Giving back the
extra P to force the opening of the h-file with the plan of a diret attack on
the K - Alekhhine 26.xh7 h8 27.d3 eg8 28.c4 f3 Now simplification
assists black's victory since the Q is the only piece protecting white's
position. 29.xf3 xf3 30.g1 Forced owing th the threat of ...Bxh4 f5
31.a4 h7 32.a3 e4 33.aa1 f4 34.h3 fxg3 White resigned.
Very precise play by Michel according to Stockfish. 0–1
No comments:
Post a Comment