Accident or Suicide?

Suicide painting by Edouard Manet

     In 1880, Captain George Mackenzie won the 5th American Chess Congress in New York after winning a two-game playoff against James Grundy, who also tied for 1st place. There was a sequel to the to the tournament that involved buying and selling games which I posted about HERE.
     What's not generally known is that there was also a concurrent minor tournament. It took place from February 3rd to the 10th, also at the Manhattan Ches Club. The prizes for this minor event were $100, $60, $30 and $20. That $100 in 1880 would amount to over $2,600 today...not a bad prize for a minor tournament. The final standings: 

    I posted on David Baird and J.W. Baird back in July. But, of special note was the fourth place finisher Nicolai Gadalia who was born in Denmark on February 13, 1857 and died on November 13, 1880, just a few months after the tournament. 
     He was the youngest son of Baron Gedalia, the Railway King of Denmark and a financier in Denmark. The Baron’s parents were destitute and as a youth he was apprenticed to a saddler in Copenhagen where he worked as a journeyman saddler there for years. He saved enough to open his own saddling firm and later a banking house in Copenhagen. His success was speculator and enabled him to become the agent of the Rothschilds in Denmark. He was bestowed the title of Baron by the Austrian government after he helped them in several financial transactions. He served as the consul general of Portugal in Copenhagen and received the Order of Jesus from the King of Portugal. 
     He encountered financial reverses in 1875 and 1876, finally going bankrupt after unsuccessfully speculating in railroads. He came to the United States in 1877 in the hopes of starting a new career, but when that failed he returned to Denmark the same year where he began a small banking business. His wife, Nicolai and Nicolai’s older brother Charles remained behind in New York.
     Nicolai had been educated in the office of his father in Copenhagen and after arriving in the US had been employed in the financial office of W.W. Hanly when he decided to start in business for himself as a stockbroker. 
     After only eighteen months he had lost money on 200 shares of stock and was unable to make good on the debt. They were sold under the rule of the Mining Board on which he had a seat. His friends, however, came to his aid and a settlement was made with his creditors. This turn of events left him greatly discouraged, but more financial woes were lurking just around the corner. 
     As a result, he decided his best course of action was to sell his seat on the mining board and find employment in a bank or broker’s office. Unfortunately, he found it impossible to sell his seat and became even more depressed, moody and despondent to the point he stayed out of his office for a week. 
     Then one morning his mother and brother sat down to breakfast at about 8 o’clock on Saturday, November 13, 1880 and sent a maid to summon Nicolai. While walking down the hall she heard the report of a pistol. Charles also heard the shot and hurrying into Nicolai’s room found him lying dead on the floor with a bullet wound in his right temple and the pistol still clutched in his right hand.
     His brother maintained the shooting was accidental because Nicolai had bought the pistol to defend against any would be burglars but discovered it was defective. They planned to take the gun to a gunsmith that Saturday, so his brother believed that he may have been examining it when the weapon accidentally discharged. 
     Lasker’s Chess Magazine, May-October, 1905, mentions the passing of long time Manhattan club member Charles de Gadalia, son of Baron de Gadalia of Copenhagen. Gedalia was known to club members as “Mr. Gedalia.”  He had been employed by leading banking firms and according to the article died of “rheumatism of the heart” at the home of his sister, Mrs. Rosalie Dufrenois. Apparently Charles was also a strong player as his name appears in many old magazines in the late 1800s as a participant in the Manhattan CC championships. 
     Sarah’s Chess Journal has written an interesting history of the first 21 years of the Manhattan Chess Club and the Gadalia’s name is mentioned several times.

Manhattan CC west room about 1905

Play Online Chess

[Event "5th US Congress-B section"]
[Site "New York City"]
[Date "1880.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Nicolai Gedalia"]
[Black "Alfred K Ettlinger"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
{C56: Two Knights: 4 d4 exd4 5 0-0 Nxe4} 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d4
exd4 5. O-O Nxe4 6. Re1 d5 7. Bxd5 Qxd5 8. Nc3 Qc4 {The opening ha been quite
modern, but here black would do better to retreat the Q to almost any other
square.} 9. Nxe4 Be6 10. b3 Qd5 11. Bg5 Be7 {Voluntarily positioning his K is
the center is risky. 11...Bb4 is safer.} 12. Bxe7 Kxe7 {Black prefers this
which allow him to keep his extra P.} 13. c4 {Now 13...dxc3 14.Nc3 and white
has regained the P with equality. However, with 14.Qc1 and 15.Qc3 he can keep
his attacking chances alive.} 13... Qd8 14. Neg5 h6 15. Nxe6 fxe6 16. Nh4
{Better was 16.b4 to either decoy the N or drive it away. White can then
follow up by occupying e5 with a N and then Qh5 giving him a promising
attack.} 16... Kd6 {Why develop a R when the K can stroll to it's doom?} 17.
Qg4 {Also quite forceful was 17.Re4.} 17... Qf6 18. Ng6 Rhe8 19. Qg3+ {White
had two better continuations. Either 19.Rad1 or the P offer 19.b4 would have
given him a very strong attack.} 19... e5 {Black has managed to achieve what
appears to be a solid position, but white now begins to chip away at his
center.} 20. f4 e4 21. Rad1 Kc5 {Black seems to have a death wish. After
21...e3 he is quite safe.} 22. f5 {With this move Gedalia lets any advantage
he had slip away. He needed to keep attacking with 22.b4+! followed by
23.Ne5.} 22... Rac8 23. Qf4 {Another poor choice. Black's Ps now become very
dangerous. It still was not too late to go after black's K with 23.b4+}
23... e3 24. Qf3 Rcd8 25. Nf4 {Black's Ps are now a real menace and with
25...Kb6 removing hi K from danger he could have secured the advantage.}
25... Qf7 {The final mistake.} 26. b4+ {Finally!} 26... Nxb4 27. Qxb7 {All of
a sudden black finds his K badly exposed.} 27... Qd7 28. Qxa7+ Kc6 29. Qa4+
Kb7 30. Qxb4+ Kc8 31. Rb1 Qxf5 32. Nd5 Qe5 33. Qb7+ Kd7 34. Qb5+ Kd6 35. Qa6+
c6 36. Rb6 Rc8 37. Nb4 {37.Rb7 leads to a mate in 22} 37... Qc5 38. Nd3 {Now
black's game is beyond salvaging and Gedalia conducts the remainder or the
game with great precision.} 38... Qf5 39. c5+ Kd7 40. Rb7+ Rc7 41. Rxc7+ Kxc7
42. Qa7+ Kd8 43. Rb1 Qd7 44. Rb8+ Ke7 45. Rb7 1-0

Postal Chess, John W. Collins and Other Stuff

Collins

     The first known correspondence games that have survived were played by Friedrich Wilhelm von Mauvillon, a Prussian officer in 1804, when he was stationed in The Hague. The games were against a friend living in Breda in The Netherlands and three of the games were published in von Mauvillon’s book, Anweisung zur Erlernung des Schachspiels (Instruction to Learning the Game of Chess) which was published in 1827. 
     From 1834 to 1836 London and Paris played a city match which began 1.e4 and when Paris played 1...e6 the French Defense, popular in France because it was championed by Saint Amant, was born. We also got the Scotch Game from a correspondence match between London and Edinburgh in 1824. 
     Postal chess didn’t become popular until postal system improved in 1840 when Sir Rowland Hill developed the postage stamp. Prior to that the recipient paid a messenger for delivering the mail. Hill’s new prepaid system revolutionized postal chess! 

International postal chess card

     In 1870 the first correspondence chess club was founded in England, the Caissa Correspondence Club and in 1884 the French chess magazine La Strategie organised the first international correspondence tournament. It was a popular magazine and many countries began founding their own postal chess organizations. 
     Then in Berlin in 1928, a handful of German players got together and formed Internationaler Fernschachbund, the first international correspondence league. They began publishing the world’s most popular chess magazine devoted to correspondence play. Then in 1939, a short time before the outbreak of Word War II their activities ceased, but in 1951 their successor, the International Correspondence Chess Association (ICCF), was founded. 
 

Required postal equipment: opening books, foreign magazines and a recorder album

    The first World Championship of Correspondence Chess began in 1950 and ended 1953 and was won by the Australian Cecil Purdy. 

1) CJS Purdy 10.5 
2-3) Harald Malmgren and Mario Napolitan 10.0 
4) Olaf Barda 9.5 
5) Graham Mitchell 8.0 
6) Leopold Watzl 6.5 
7-8) Gabriel Wood and Edmund Adam 6.0 
9) Theo van Scheltinga 5.5 
10) Janos Balogh 5.0 
11-12 Sverre Madsen and John W Collins 4.5 
13) Antonio Cuadrado 3.0 
14) P van't Veer 2.0 
Adolphe Viaud’s games were cancelled after he went 0-6 and withdrew. 

     John (Jack) W. Collins (September 23, 1912 – December 2, 2001, 89 years old) is a well known name especially as having been one of Fischer’s early teachers as well as William Lombardy, Robert Byrne, Donald Byrne, Raymond Weinstein, Salvatore Matera and Lewis Cohen. In fact he wrote a book about them titled My Seven Chess Prodigies. Collins was confined to a wheelchair due to a birth injury and was cared for all his life by his unmarried sister Ethel, a nurse.
     William Lombardy took exception to the claim by stating, “Jack Collins was not in any way capable of teaching me, the Byrne Brothers, Raymond Weinstein, let alone Bobby Fischer.” Lombardy claimed that they had all visited his apartment as friends. . Lombardy stated that during that time all five of them were already stronger than Collins and superior “far past the ability of Collins to impart anything but trivial knowledge...I cannot imagine even today that anyone could consider that Collins had the strength of knowledge to coach the champion that Bobby already was by the time he reached Collins apartment” Lombardy somewhat condescendingly wrote that he didn’t want to say anything in those days because of “my misplaced sympathy.” 
     At some point his sympathy departed and Lombardy wrote that he wanted “to correct and inform.” What happened between Collins and Lombardy I do not know, but in his later years Lombardy had become a bitter and crotchety old man. I’m willing to give Lombardy some slack. By the end of his life he had left the priesthood, was estranged from his wife and son, sick, kicked out of his apartment, broke and living off the generosity of friends. When I met him in the mid-1970s he was a smiling, gregarious fellow always willing to pose for a picture or sign an autograph. That’s the Lombardy I prefer to remember. 
     Collins admitted that he never actually gave Lombardy lessons and never "taught Bobby in the strictest sense" and that Fischer "knew before instructed."
     I read Collins’ My Seven Chess Prodigies when it first came out hoping to find out how he taught his prodigies. They analyzed openings, played over games and played blitz all while being fed cookies, soda and other assorted junk food by Collins’ sister. It seems they were fun gatherings with nobody actually receiving any formal lessons. 
     Collins was born in Newburgh, New York and lived most of his life in New York City. His father was a flutist and piccolo player who was frequently in John Philip Sousa's orchestra. When Collins was in his teens Frederick Huhn, the family's 80-year-old German landlord of their home at 69 Hawthorne Street in Brooklyn, taught Collins how to play chess. Collins started reading chess books, eventually amassing over six hundred. 
     He tried to join the Marshall Chess Club, but the players were too strong and the club too far away for him to travel so he formed the Hawthorne Chess Club in his apartment. Many high-school inter-club matches between his club and the high-school teams were played in his living room. He later moved to 91 Lenox Road where the club gradually changed from a chess league to a casual hang out for chess celebrities. 
     Over the board Collins was a low-rated master and because there were no numerical correspondence ratings in those days it’s hard to say exactly how good he was. The rule of thumb used to be that you could play correspondence chess a class, maybe two, higher than your OTB rating. I think that was probably about right. 
     Here is a nice OTB win against George Baumanis from the 1958 US Open in Rochester, Minnesota. The event was unique in that it was held at the world headquarters of the IBM Corporation and programmers had programmed a computer to do the pairings. 
     The tournament was won by the little-known Cuban Eldis Cobo-Arteaga. He lost to National Master Allen Kaufman in the second round, but after that scored 7 wins and 2 draws to finish a half point ahead of Larry Evans, Robert H. Steinmeyer and Donald Byrne. 
     Collins tied for 16th place with 16 other players with a score of 7.5-4.5. His only loss was to Evans. The following game shows the ease with which a Master can defeat a non-master. 

Play Online Chess

[Event "59th US Open"]
[Site "Rochester, MN USA"]
[Date "1958.8.4"]
[Round "1"]
[White "John W Collins"]
[Black "George Baumanis"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
{D94: Grünfeld: 4 Nf3 Bg7 e3} 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 c6 3. e3 Nf6 4. c4 g6 {
Transposing into the Gruenfeld.} 5. Nc3 Bg7 6. Bd3 O-O 7. Qb3 Na6 {Better was
7...dxc4. In some variations of the Gruenfeld black plays his N to a6 in
order to support ...c5. But, here white eliminates that possibility with his
next move leaving the N on a6 misplaced.} 8. cxd5 cxd5 9. O-O {Black finds his
N is misplaced in this position and here it's no better, but it's already hard
to suggest anything better. Perhaps he should have undeveloped with 9...Nb8
when at least the N can find a better square on c6 or even d7.} 9... Nc7 10.
Bd2 Rb8 11. Rac1 Be6 {What's black to do? The better looking 11...Bg4 is met
by 12. Ne5 and the B has to go back to e6 anyway.} 12. Qa3 a6 13. Na4 Nd7 14.
Rc2 Ne8 15. Rfc1 Nd6 {Black is badly cramped and about all he can do here is
try to defend against a white breakthrough.} 16. Bb4 b5 17. Nc5 Nb6 {This is a
serious error. He had to eliminate the N with 17.Nxc5, but even then white is
much better.} 18. b3 {White prevents any black play by preventing a N from
reaching c4. After 18.Nxe6 fxe6 19.Ng5 Ndc4 white would still be winning, but
why allow black even the smallest satisfaction?} 18... Bc8 19. Ne5 {Collins is
not concerned with simply grabbing the a-Pawn.} 19... Bb7 {Allowing white a
neat little tactical shot, but his position is beyond saving anyway.} 20.
Nxb7 Rxb7 21. Nc6 Qd7 22. Nxe7+ Qxe7 23. Bxd6 Qh4 24. Qxa6 {Now if 24...Rfb8
25.Bxb8 Rxb8 26.Qa7 and 27.Rc7 and it's all over.} 1-0

Duras Gambit aka The Fred

     I have posted on the two players of a bygone era involved in the following game before. Oldrich Duras was a leading Czech player of the early 20th century and Ossip Bernstein was one of the world’s best players in the early 1900s. 
     1.e4 f5 is known bt a number of names: Duras Gambit, the Fred, Reversed From and the Tiers Counter-Gambit. Whatever name you call it, it is a discredited defense. White gets a clear advantage, but that does not necessarily mean he wins the game. 2.f4 transposes into the Bird Opening Swiss Gambit normally reached by 1.f4 f5 2.e4, while 2.d4 transposes into the Dutch Defense Staunton Gambit. 
     Occasionally this defense is discussed on forums with some players even insisting it should be perfectly sound, even 1.e4 f5 2.exf5 Ke7 which is known as the Southern Fred. 

     The idea is to sacrifice 1 or 2 Ps and castle by hand. Logic says that simply cannot be true! One witty poster observed, “Anyone who would play it should probably be placed on suicide watch.” And, “If stupid were chocolate, this opening would be a Godiva boutique. We only see this defense when someone goes off their medications against medical advice.” 
     One must be aware that these unusual openings often have a hidden trap, but if the opponent avoids them with careful play he will have a superior position. 
     In his course, Unsound Openings and How to Exploit Them, GM Roman Dzindzichashvili shows how to tackle this gambit. His method is about as straightforward as you can get. After 1.e4 f5 2.exf5 Nf6 3.Nf3 d5 he recommend simply defending the P with 4.Nh4. Black gets advantage in development but white quickly catches up. 
     In the following game Bernstein took a different approach to defending the P by playing 4.Bd3. A cursory glance at the position seems to show that white’s pieces were gummed up and Duras had successfully occupied the center. But white’s pieces had a lot of latent energy and were aimed at black’s weakened King. It didn’t help that Duras ignored white’s P on e6. 
     After a seesaw middlegane Bernstein blundered and had to give up his Q leaving him with a R and B against Duras’ Q, yet he somehow managed to draw.
     As with many inferior openings there is no immediate crushing refutation and often the superior side only gets positional compensation. Most club players have little concept of positional niceties and so are often unable to exploit them. Thus, the game hinges on who makes the last blunder. If it’s the gambiteer’s opponent the win is chalked up to the soundness of the gambit. 

Play Online Chess

[Event "Prague Bohemians"]
[Site "Prague Bohemians"]
[Date "1938.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Ossip Bernstein"]
[Black "Oldrich Duras"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
{B00: The Fred} 1. e4 f5 2. exf5 Nf6 {This developing move is best as 2...d5
3. Qh5+ Kd7 has no merit.} 3. Nc3 {Dzindzichashvili's solution is 3.Nf3 d5
4.Nh4.} 3... d5 {White now has several interesting moves. He can try 4.g4?! d4
5.g5 dxc3 6. gxf6 Bxf5, but that leaves his own K-side weakened. He can return
the P immediately with 4.d4 Bxf5 with a positional advantage. Or, he can play
as Bernstein does.} 4. Bd3 c5 5. b3 Nc6 6. Nf3 e5 7. fxe6 Bd6 {Leaving white's
P on e6 is not a good idea and so 7... Bxe6 was better,} 8. O-O O-O 9. Re1
{Now if black goes after the e-Pawn with 9. ..Re8 and if white defends it with
10. Ng5 then 10...Bf5 11.h4. White is better and black's position is none too
promising.} 9... Qc7 {If 9...d4 10. Nb5 Be7 11.Ng5 is good for white.} 10. h3
{ Maybe he should have grabbed the two Bs with 10. Nb5.} 10... a6 11. Bb2
{While black has what appears to be a strong center white's pieces have latent
energy and are aimed at black's K. There's also that pesky P on e6 which black
has been ignoring.} 11... Nd4 {Black would probably have done better with
11...d4 shutting out white's B on b2, capturing the P on e6 and initiating the
exchange of some pieces after 12.Ne4 Bxe6 13. Nxf6+ Rxf6 14. Rxe6! Rxe6 15.Bc4
regains the exchange and black is only a P down.} 12. e7 {White had a two good
choices: 12. Ng5 and 12.Nxd4 were good. Instead Bernstein chooses a tactical
solution that fritters away most of his advantage.} 12... Bxe7 13. Nxd5 Nxd5
14. Nxd4 {Now, by simply playing 14...cxd4 black would be one step closer to
equalizing. Instead we see a curious double blunder!} 14... Nf4 {White should
now play 15.Bc4+ and 16. Nf3 with the advantage.} 15. Ne2 Nxd3 16. cxd3 {Black
has now equalized and is even a little better. But with his next move he
missed an interesting tactical shot in 16...Bxh3! If white plays 17.gxf3 then
17...Rxf2!! The R is immune because if 18.Kxf2 Qh2+ mates in 6 moves. So,
after 16...Bxh3! white has nothing better than refusing to take the B which
leaves black slightly better. Amazing!} 16... Bh4 {White should now play
17.Ng3 so he can meet 17...Bxh3 with either 18.Re3 or 18.Qh5.} 17. Rf1 Bf5
{Not bad, but 17...Bxh3 was also still playable though not so good as it would
have been last move.} 18. Qc2 b5 {18... Bxh3 has lost its sting because of
19.Qc4+} 19. Qc3 Bf6 20. d4 Rae8 21. Qf3 { Forgetting about what has
transpired before, at this point the chances are about equal.} 21... Be4 22.
Qg3 Qc6 23. d5 Qxd5 24. Bxf6 Rxf6 25. Nc3 Qc6 {Now by eliminating black's B
with 26. Nxe4 white remains a P ahead, but it may not be enough to win.} 26.
Rae1 {A horrible oversight.} 26... Rg6 {He could also have played 26...Bxg2}
27. Rxe4 Rxg3 28. Rxe8+ Qxe8 29. fxg3 {Obviously black must eventually win
from this position. Or can he? The answer is yes, black should win as
demonstrated by Stockfish winning five Shootouts at 7-19 plies from this
position. The procedure is to play 29...Qd8 forcing white to give up the
d-Pawn or tie his R up defending it then advance the Q-side Ps.} 29... b4 30.
Na4 Qe5 31. Kh2 h5 32. h4 Qe2 33. Rf5 Qxd2 34. Nxc5 Qxa2 35. Rxh5 {Bernstein
has gotten his pieces into their optimal positions and the win has become
impossible. In Shootouts Stockfish was unable to win a single game when the
endings were reduced to a Q vs R and P ending which according to the six man
Nalimov ending tablebase is a draw.} 35... a5 36. Rg5 Kh7 37. Kh3 a4 38. bxa4
b3 39. Nxb3 Qxb3 40. a5 Qa4 41. g4 Qa3+ 42. Kh2 Kg8 43. Rf5 g6 44. Rg5 Kf7
45. h5 Qd6+ 46. Kh3 gxh5 47. Rxh5 {This position is unwinnable. White simply
abandons all but the P on g2 and places his K on h2 and R on f3 and there is
no way black can win.} 1/2-1/2

The Chess Club Murders

     In this February 23, 1941 radio program of The Shadow characters at the chess club are killed by the villain, who then commits suicide once The Shadow corners him. 
     The Shadow was a collection of serialized dramas, originally in 1930s pulp novels and then in a wide variety of Shadow media. The Shadow has been featured on the radio, in a long-running pulp magazine series, in American comic books, comic strips, television, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles. 
     The program debuted on July 31, 1930, as the mysterious narrator of the radio program Detective Story Hour, which was developed to boost sales of the monthly Detective Story Magazine. 
     The introduction was: "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!", spoken by actor Frank Readick Jr. and accompanied by an ominous laugh and a musical theme. 
     At the end of each episode The Shadow reminded listeners that, "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! Crime does not pay... The Shadow knows!" Though not given the literal ability to become invisible, The Shadow was characterized as having "the power to cloud men's minds so they cannot see him.”

When Amateur Brilliancies Were Possible

     Back in the old days when the USCF had under way 10,000 members, there were less than 50 masters in the whole country and nobody ever dreamed there would be anything like chess engines that made millions of players armchair Grandmasters, a few of us living out in the vast American wilderness played postal chess. The USCF didn’t dabble in that form of the game; it was the domain of the Correspondence Chess League of America and Al Horowitz’ Chess Review, the Postal Chess Magazine. 
     There were books and pamphlets on openings, but almost everybody referred to Modern Chess Openings. Even Chess Life told you the page and column number of the opening when they published a game. 

     Over the board tournaments were scarce. For example, the May 1955 issue of Chess Life listed the following tournaments.  It should be mentioned that in 1955 a dollar was worth about 9-1/2 of them today! 

Hoboken, New Jersey. Entry fee $1.00. Prizes: Medal and other valuable prizes.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Entry fee $3.00. Cash and book prizes depending on entries. 
Spokane, Washington. Entry fee $3.00. First prize $25. 
Baltimore, Maryland. Entry fee $3.00 plus $3.00 deposit to be returned upon completion of all games. No prizes announced. 
Beloit, Wisconsin. Entry fee $4.00. No prizes mentioned. 
St. Paul, Minnesota. Entry fee $2.50. Trophy and cash. 
Hutchinson, Kansas. Write TD for details. 
Logansport, Indiana. $3.00 or $5.00 to be determined at players meeting. First place gets half the money. 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Entry fee $10.00 with $5.00 refunded upon completion of all games. First prize of $150.00. 
Phoenix, Arizona. Entry fee $5.00. No prizes announced. 
Dallas, Texas. Entry fee $10.00. First prize $75.00. 
Chicago, Illinois. Write for entry fee and details. $175.00 first prize. 
Davenport, Iowa. Entry fee $7.00. $100.00 first prize. 

     So, for many players postal play was a way to play some serious chess. In fact, Chess Review had a few over the board masters playing and three or four times I played opponents who had actually participated in some of the old U.S. Championships. Naturally I lost, but I got to play them. 
     The great thing about postal chess was that sometimes an unheralded amateur could pull off a real brilliancy. I, myself, pulled off a few of them...at least I thought so until chess engines made their appearance. 
     I especially recall one brilliant game involving a sacrifice on my part that topped my list of brilliancies. Playing over it with an early engine revealed that my move that merited two exclamation marks actually allowed my opponent a mate in one, but he didn’t see it! 

     In the following game Dr. Maxwell Sturm plays some inspired chess. Sturm was a British consul who lived in Trinidad. His opponent was Lee T. Magee (April 11, 1928 – April 20, 2015, 87 years old) who was Nebraska State Champion in 1950, 1951, 1953 and 1955 and Omaha city champion in 1947, 1953, 1955 and 1956. On the 1955 USCF rating list he was rated 2160. While that rating might not seem very impressive today, at the time were were only 41 players in the country that had a Master rating which was then over 2300. A rating of 2100 - 2299 was classified as Expert. 

  The game was played in a Gambit Tournament. I played in a few and they were great fun. Sections were made up of 7 players with two games against each opponent. Players were supplied with the opening moves to 20 or so gambits and white got to choose which one was played in each game. It’s unfortunate that engines have killed off playing chess this way and deprived amateurs of a moment of, if not glory, a great deal of personal satisfaction. 

     Of course even in those days most “real” players (i.e. OTB players) didn’t think much of postal chess. In one, for me, eye opening incident was when I had a game published in Chess Review and annotated by the legendary John W. Collins. Only one person out of about 20 at the chess club in the big city of Toledo, Ohio saw it. All he said was, “Saw your game.” 
     In one incident a TD announced free entry to titled players, so when a titled correspondence player showed up the TD refused him the free entry...correspondence titles didn’t count. In a way the TD was right because they are two different animals. If a titled OTB player wanted to play in a postal tournament they would have had to start at Class A (1800) and work their way up, so I guess it was fair. 

Play Online Chess

[Event "CCLA Gambit Tournament"]
[Site "Correspondence"]
[Date "1950.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Dr. Maxwell Sturm"]
[Black "Lee T. Magee"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 {This is black's most
popular retreat. It gets out of the way of white's center Ps, and pins the
c3-P if white plays 6.d4, but it has the disadvantage of taking the a5-square
away from the N. Black usually has to retreat the B to b6 to allow ...Na5,
which is particularly strong when white opts for the Bc4, Qb3 approach. } 6.
d4 exd4 7. O-O Bb6 {Taking on c3 is not to be recommended because after 8.Qb3
white has strong pressure on f7 and with his B on a5 black can't play ...Na5.
} 8. cxd4 d6 9. Nc3 Na5 10. Bg5 {Black usually replies with 10...f6 which
weakens his K-side, but in practice he often manages to equalize. If black
plays 10...Ne7 white should avoid the temptation to sacrifice on f7 with
11.Bxf7+ because with correct play black can survive. It's never a good idea
to play a bad move and just hope your opponent won't find the best defense.
If black plays 10...Ne7 the best reply is 11.Nd5 which forces black to play
...f6 anyway. } 10... Qd7 {Blocking the B is not exactly bad, but it is
questionable. Sooner or later it's going to cost black another tempo. } 11.
Bb5 c6 12. e5 {I have christened this line the Rubicon Variation, said Dr.
Sturm. The idea is that the B on b5 is sacrificed to open the e-file, create
a passed P and allow white to use his lead in development to launch an attack.
(Sturm) In fact though all it does is lose a piece. Simply 12.Bd3 would have
left white a slight edge. } 12... cxb5 13. exd6 f6 {Dr. Sturm thought this may
be the best move, but adds that it is horribly cramping...it takes away f6
from the N and leaves his R locked in. Black could safely play 13...Nf6
because after 14.Re1+ Kf8 15 and in the long run is still a piece down..Bxf6
gxf6 black;s K-side it wrecked, but analysis will show that white really has
no satisfactory way to take advantage of it } 14. Re1+ Kf7 {14...Kf8 was a
little better...it threatens to take on g5 because white does not have the N
fork on the Q and K with Ne5+ available. White would then have to retreat the
B losing more time. } 15. Qe2 {Black should now play 15...Qe6 as white can
hardly afford to trade Qs. Black would then be able to get his B into play.
} 15... Qd8 16. Qxb5 {Better was 16.Nxb5, but even after this white has now
very nearly equalized. } 16... Nc6 17. Qd5+ {White could have seized the
advantage with 17.Qc4+ with would have allowed him to follow up with 18.d5. }
17... Kf8 18. Bf4 Bd7 19. Nb5 Rc8 {This loses. 19...Nb4 eliminates the
dangerous N after 20.Qc4 Nc2! 21.Qxc2 Bxb5. The chances would then be equal.
} 20. Nc7 g5 {After this move white is going to end up with a Q+2Ps vs R+2Ns+B
which normally should be sufficient compensation, but here his pieces are just
too uncoordinated to allow adequate defense. } 21. Nxg5 {Brilliant! } 21...
fxg5 22. Bxg5 Bxc7 23. Bxd8 {Nothing is more natural than to want to regain
the Q, but in doing so black is given new life. The correct move is 23.Re3
threatening a mating attack with Rf3+ If black prevents this with 23...Bg4
THEN white can play 24.Bxd8 Bxd8 25.d7 Rc7 and 26.Re8+ and black is lost
because he is going to lose material. } 23... Bxd8 {With the black B guarding
e8 the above line is no longer possible and black has sufficient resources to
defend his K. } 24. Re7 {White must throw more fuel on the fire because if
24.Qf3+ then simply 24...Nf3. } 24... Bxe7 25. dxe7+ Kxe7 26. Re1+ Kd8 27.
Qg5+ Nce7 {Wrong N! Now black is in effect playing without his N on g8 and R
on h8. With 27...Nge7 he could have gotten both pieces into play. } 28. d5
Rc5 {Yet another slip. With 28...h5 he could have gotten his R into play via
h7 or h6. White would still have been better but would have his work cut out
in proving he has enough of an advantage to win. } 29. Qe5 {Excellent! In
fact the only move. The tempting 29.Qg7 just won't cut it. After 29...Ng6
30.d5 Rf5 black has defensive resources and the game is up for grabs.} 29...
Ng6 30. Qb8+ Rc8 31. Qxa7 Rc2 {Now white could win a R through a series of
checks beginning with 32.Qa5+ Kc8 33.Qa8+ Kc7 34.d6+ Kxd6 35.Qb8+ Rc7 36.Rd1+
Ke6 37.Qxc7 but it doesn't matter because his next move is both simple and
enough to win. } 32. Qxb7 Nh6 {This allows a mate in 16 moves, but it is a
moot point.} 33. Qb6+ Kc8 34. Rb1 Bb5 35. Qxb5 Kc7 36. Qb6+ Kd7 {White has a
mate in 12 moves. } 37. Qe6+ {Dr. Sturm's concept at move 21 finally proves
justified. } 1-0

Forward Chess

I received an email from a site called Forward Chess describing their product...an interactive Chess e-book reader for mobile (iOS and Android) and desktop (Windows and Mac). You can purchase e-books from leading publishers, play through the moves and try out your own lines as well as analyze moves with Stockfish. There are currently over 300 titles available. They are also on Facebook. I have no financial interest in the site and am publishing this as a public service announcement.

Stockfish 10 Contempt Settings

     I am not an engine guru, but after using Stockfish 10 for a while I have noticed some strange behavior in its evaluation function that has to do with its contempt setting. 
    The contempt setting controls how readily the engine will play for a draw. The higher the value the stronger the effect on the engine and the more it will try to avoid a draw even if it means playing something other than the optimal move. If the engine has high contempt setting it might exhibit a more attacking style. 
     The default contempt setting for Stockfish 8 was zero, Stockfish 9 was 20 and for Stockfish 10 it is 24. Programmers did this because in some computer tournaments Stockfish was playing too many draws and by raising the contempt setting, the engine was able to score more points against weaker engines without losing too much objective strength against the stronger engines. This idea may sometimes be seen in games between human players when a player tries to keep the tension in a position which creates more scope for his weaker opponent to make a mistake. 
     But, what if you are playing in engine assisted tournaments against other Stockfish users? Might not the higher settings result in losing more games by trying to avoid the draw because the engine is not recommending the absolute best move? 
     If you are looking for the absolute best move in a given position, it might not be the engine's first choice. According to Russell Sherwood of the Welsh Chess Federation, "General opinion for CC has been that contempt settings should be set to zero to get a more accurate assessment of the position, however, there are different views on this." Mr. Sherwood has written some interesting articles on correspondence chess and the use of engines on the Welsh website. 
     I am not exactly sure how the contempt setting works. On one site I read that when the engine starts analyzing from a position it gives a “bonus” in the form of the contempt setting to whichever side is on the move. The result that the evaluation keeps bouncing back and forth and, according to the poster, the transposition table is filled with conflicting evaluation scores. 
     Another person wrote that was incorrect. According to him, the engine searches and returns its best move and the expected reply (known as the ponder move) so the engine is always searching from the same side to move.
     Whatever is going on, when analyzing with Stockfish 10 I have noticed what one person called “a strange yo-yo-effect especially at the beginning of the game” (also referred to as the “roller coaster effect”) that results in wild fluctuations in the evaluation every time a move is actually made on the board. His explanation was, like previously mentioned, it is because the contempt factor is switched back and forth to whichever side has the move. 
     I don’t know who is correct, but take the following position. 

I used two cores with the hash table at 1168 and gave Stockfish 10 five minutes to evaluate the position. 
Contempt setting: 24 Evaluation: -1.71 
Contempt setting: 20 Evaluation: -1.42 
Contempt setting: 0 Evaluation: -1.27 

     Clearly the contempt setting changes the evaluation, the difference in this case by as much as almost a half a Pawn. For anybody that’s interested, there is an interesting discussion at Talkchess,com.

Alexander McDonnell, Slavery Apologist

     In the days before Steinitz became the first official world champion there were a number of unofficial world champions and the Irish player Alexander McDonnell (1798–1835) was one of the briefest. 
     The son of a surgeon, McDonnell was born in Belfast, trained as a merchant and worked for some time in the West Indies. In 1820 he settled in London, where he became the secretary of the Committee of West Indian Merchants, a lucrative post that made him a wealthy man and left him with plenty of time to indulge his passion for chess. 
     Politically McDonnell was a committed Whig. The Whigs were a political party in the parliaments of England, Scotland, Great Britain, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and 1850s, they contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs opposed an absolute monarchy. They supported the Exclusion Bill which set out to disinherit James, Duke of York, who eventually became James II of England and VII of Scotland. 
     The Tories emerged in 1678 and between 1783 and 1830 and they established a hold on the government. They were conservative supporters of Charles II, who endorsed a strong monarchy as a counterbalance to the power of Parliament. 
     McDonnell’s father, also named Alexander, was a noted surgeon in Belfast. It was said that he attended the execution of Henry J. McCracken (August 1767 – July 1798) who was an Irish Republican and industrialist from Belfast and a founding member of the Society of the United Irishmen which made him a target of the authorities. The SUI was a radical or liberal political organization that evolved into a revolutionary organization that launched the Irish Rebellion of 1798 with the objective of ending British rule over Ireland and founding a sovereign, independent Irish republic. McCracken was hanged in Belfast at the age of 30 on July 17, 1798. 
     McDonnell’s uncle, Dr. James McDonnell, was the founder of the Belfast Fever Hospital, which exists today as the Royal Victoria Hospital. 
     McDonnell trained and worked as a merchant in the West Indies in the early part of the 19th Century. He supposedly arrived in the West Indies at the age of 17 and ended up in the colony of Demerara-Essequibo, now part of modern day Guyana where he dealt mainly with the export of sugar and coffee. 
     The year 1820 saw him returning to London to act on the behalf of the coffee and sugar merchants as secretary of the Committee of West Indian Merchants. In this role he represented the interests of the British colonists in the West Indies and liaised with persons of importance and members of Parliament.
     For those with a financial interest in the West Indies it was a crucial time because there was a growing abolitionist movement in Britain and the West Indies plantations were almost totally operated by slave labor. 
     In 1807 the British had outlawed slave trading and although the capture of slaves in West Africa had ceased, slavery itself remained legal. Those slaves and children born into slavery that were already in the possession of plantation owners remained their chattels. 
     In 1823 the Anti-slavery Society, which sought to abolish slavery completely, was founded in Britain and it was also the year Demerara became the focus of international attention after a slave revolt was ruthlessly put down by the local colonists. 
     Initially public sentiment favored the plantation owners, but when details of the conditions of the slaves was discovered, mostly due to an abolitionist preacher named John Smith, public sentiment began to shift. Charged with promoting discontent and dissatisfaction among the plantation slaves, Smith was convicted and sentenced to death but died of consumption (pulmonary tuberculosis) before they could hang him. 
     Smith’s death caused uproar in Britain that lead to over 200 petitions being delivered to Parliament. As a result of the furor, in Demerara over 20 slaves who had been part of the mostly peaceful uprising were executed and their bodies strung up a warning to the other slaves. 
     What did all this have to do with Alexander McDonnell? He strongly advocated the continuation of slavery and wrote a book entitled “Considerations on Negro Slavery with authentic reports illustrative of the actual conditions of the Negroes in Demerara.” 

     In the book he defend the conditions and practices of the planters. His book was mainly based on reports he received from plantation managers when they replied to a series of letters he had sent. 
     While he criticized the slave trade and the cruelty of kidnapping slaves from Africa, he defended the present conditions of slavery that existed in Demerara.
     He argued that the West Indian colonies were financially extremely important to the British Empire and this worth was based on slave labor. Therefore, if slavery was abolished it would drain the Empire financially. 
     He also argued that plantation owners had a right to their property and should not be denied a living and the end of slavery would lead to their loss of income. 
     It was also his contention that the slaves in Demerara could not be freed because they weren’t civilized and would slip into complete idleness. To help prove this point he compared the motivation that lead the diligent, hard working English farmers and merchants who were always striving for greater security and wealth to the irresponsible farmers of West Ireland who he claimed were lacking in initiative and strength of character. 
     McDonnell suffered from Bright's disease which is now known as acute or chronic nephritis. Symptoms included inflammation of serous membranes, hemorrhages, apoplexy, convulsions, blindness and coma. Bright's disease was treated with warm baths, blood-letting, squill (a coastal Mediterranean plant of the lily family), digitalis, mercury compounds, opium, diuretics, laxatives and dietary therapy, including abstinence from alcoholic drinks, cheese and red meat. 
     Some other famous people who reportedly died of Bright’s disease include legendary Old West lawman Bass Reeves, famed gunfighter Luke Short. Rowland H. Macy Sr. founder of the Macy department store chain, Richard W. Sears founder of Sears, Roebuck and Company, Alice Roosevelt first wife of Theodore Roosevelt, poet Emily Dickinson, Chester A. Arthur 21st President of the United States, Union Civil War General Francis Barlow, James S. Sherman Vice President of the United States, Booker T. Washington founder of Tuskegee University and Charles H. Spurgeon, legendary English preacher. 

Edward Winter has published a featured article on McDonnell HERE

The Man Behind The Turk

     Every chess player knows about Wolfgang von Kempelen’s (1734 - 1804) chess playing automaton hoax, The Turk, but he was famous for a lot more than that. 
     Von Kempelen was born in Pressburg, part of the Kingdom of Hungary within the Habsburg Empire. He studied law and philosophy in Pressburg and attended the Academy in Gyor, Vienna and Rome, but it was mathematics and physics also interested him. He spoke Hungarian, German, Latin, French, Italian some English and Romanian. 
     He held a number of government positions and constructed steam-engines, water pumps, a pontoon bridge, patented a steam turbine for mills and a typewriter for the blind Viennese pianist Maria Theresia von Paradis. He built a theater house in Buda (now Budapest) and the famous fountains at Schoenbrunn in Vienna. He was also a talented artist and etcher, wrote poems and epigrams and composed a German light opera, Andromeda and Perseus, performed in Vienna. 
     He married twice, first in 1757 and after his wife died suddenly in 1758 of an abdominal obstruction he married again in 1762. His second wife bore five children, two survived into adulthood. 
     Though he had a long and successful career as a civil servant, von Kempelen was most famous for his construction of The Turk, a chess-playing automaton presented to Maria Theresa of Austria in 1769. 


    von Kempelen also created a manually operated speaking machine. Although his machine received considerable publicity, it was not taken as seriously because of his deception involving The Turk. 
     His speaking machine was a legitimate device that used a bellows to supply air to a reed which excited a resonator which could be manipulated to produce voice-like sounds. 
     An improved version was built from von Kempelen's description by Sir Charles Wheatstone who is credited in Britain with the invention of the telegraph. 
     von Kempelen's manually operated speech synthesizer began development in 1769, the same year that he completed The Turk, but while The Turk only took him six months to complete, the speaking machine occupied the next twenty years of his life. 
     His first experiment with speech synthesis involved only rudimentary elements of the vocal tract necessary to produce speech-like sounds. A kitchen bellows, used to stoke fires in wood-burning stoves, was used as a set of lungs to supply the airflow and a reed from a bagpipe was used for the glottis (part of the larynx consisting of the vocal cords and the opening between them). The bell of a clarinet was used for the mouth. His model was able to produce simple vowel sounds only, though some additional articulation was possible by positioning one's hand at the bell opening to obstruct airflow. 
     Sounds made by consonants are classed as nasals, plosives and fricatives and his machine couldn’t make those sounds. The hardware for constructing the nasals, plosives and fricatives that most consonants require resulted in his abandoning the single-reed design for a multiple-reed approach in his second design. 
     The second design involved a console, similar to that of a musical organ of the period, in which the operator manned a set of keys, one for each letter. The bellows that fed air through various pipes with the appropriate shapes and obstructions needed to produce that letter. Although not all letters were represented, von Kempelen was able to produce most vowels and several consonants and was able to begin forming syllables and short words. There was a flaw in that the sounds were very uncharacteristic of human speech. That lead to a third approach. 
     It consisted of a bellows, a reed and a simulated mouth (this time made of India rubber, for better creation of vowel sounds via manipulation by hand) and included a throat to which a nasal cavity was attached complete with two nostrils. These improvements helped with making n, m, s and sh sounds. At one point there was an alternate mouth assembly consisting of a wooden box with a pair of hinged shutters that acted as lips. 
     Inside the box was a hinged, wooden, string operated flap that acted as a tongue. This was supposed to make b and d sounds, but he later removed them because without a proper tongue, the machine would never be able to produce sounds for t, k, d and g. 
     He later discovered that even with the mispronunciations he believed that people were more forgiving of the errors due to the frequency of the reed and vocal tract resonant length. 
     This third design, unlike those before it, was capable of speaking complete phrases in French, Italian and English. It could also speak in German, but required a greater skill level by the operator due to the more frequent use of consonants in the German language.
     The biggest limitation was the bellows. Even though they were six times the capacity of human lungs they ran out of air much faster than human lungs.
     This machine spoke in monotone, a problem he was never able to resolve. Shortly after the completion and exhibition of his Speaking Machine, in 1804, von Kempelen died, though not before publishing an extremely comprehensive journal of the past twenty years of his research in phonetics. 
     In 1837, Sir Charles Wheatstone created an improved replica of von Kempelen’s Speaking Machine and was able to further analyze and synthesize components of acoustic speech, giving rise to the second wave of scientific interest in phonetics. After viewing Wheatstone's version Alexander Graham Bell set out to construct his own speaking machine and his experiments and research ultimately led to the invention of the telephone in 1876. 
     At the time of his death in 1804, von Kempelenowned a country estate in Gomba near Pozsony, but died in his apartment in Alser, a suburb of Vienna.

IdeA Analysis With Aquarium

     Complex positions are the only way to play for a win is a quote from ICCF SIM Kostas Oreopoulos of Greece who is rated 2490. There is a site called LIPEAD, a non-profit Peruvian association affiliated with ICCF that represents ICCF in Latin America, that has a two part series by Oreopoulos in which he describes how to prepare and maintain an opening repertoire for correspondence chess using the Aquarium program. 
     The articles warn that it is an involved and difficult task and it assumes you have a fair working knowledge of Aquarium because it uses the program’s IdeA feature. PART 1  PART 2  ChessPub also an old discussion on using IdeA. 
     With Interactive Deep Analysis you start with a position called a root node and the program will keep exploring possibilities and build a tree from that position for as long as you want it to run. You can mark moves as good, bad, dubious, interesting, etc. The program won’t analyze the ones marked bad and will spend extra time on those marked as good or interesting. 
     According to the description of IdeA, instead of analyzing the same position forever, it behaves like a strong chess player analyzing a position. If you ever studied Kotov’s Think Like a Grandmaster, you no doubt remember his well known advice to identify candidate moves and methodically examine them to build an “analysis tree.” That’s how IDeA works. 
     I will throw this in about Kotov’ book. According to the late James R. Schroeder, this book, which caused a sensation when first published in the US by Kenneth Smith, was written because Kotov was weak with Ns, but he wasn’t aware of it and so created an artificial system which he hoped would avoid blunders. Schroeder claimed that because Kotov was weak when it came to playing with Ns he sometimes misjudged a position. 
     The purpose of IDeA is to dig deeply into a position and return as much information about it as possible. IDeA keeps its analysis in a tree structure which is unlimited in size and the user can browse at will, even while the analysis is in progress. And, you can stop the analysis and go back later and it will pick up where it left off. You can do neither of those things with the Infinite Analysis feature in other programs. 
     As I have mentioned in previous posts, I find Aquarium difficult to use and somewhat confusing; one has to read page after page in the manuals just to learn how to perform basic stuff. So, for me, I have done nothing more than tinker with IdeA because most of my correspondence chess has been played on LSS in rapid tournaments and line most players I don’t spend a lot of time selecting moves. Most people play whatever move the engine suggests after only a few minutes of analysis, but I do like to experiment a little bit. Because everybody is playing pretty fast and a lot of opponents have a ton of games going, you can experiment with unusual openings. 
     One such opening has been the Urusov Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d4) and my current score with it is +6 -0 =5 (including one opponent who lost twice against it)! The Urusov might be a good IdeA project, but if you read the articles you’ll see why I am reluctant to bother with doing it! Back in October, I published an article titled Is Opening Theory Wrong About the Urusov? I relied heavily on analysis by Michael Goeller found on his site HERE. 
     It’s interesting that in Victor Bologan's Black Weapons in the Open Games: How to Play for a Win if White Avoids the Ruy Lopez, he thinks it’s too dangerous for black to accept the gambit! In all 11 of my engine assisted games nobody declined it, so it would seem Bologan is correct. 
     According to my modified version of the opening book that came with Fritz, in OTB play black accepted the gambit with 3...exd4 over 75 percent of the time and the percentage results for white are +39 -33 =28. Accepting the gambit with 3...Nxe4 is even worse: white scored +69 -16 =15. 
     If black declines the gambit with 3...Nc6 white does even better, scoring percentage-wise +63 -18 =19. The Fritz opening book has zero lines in which black has a plus score. Of course, those statistics are no doubt skewed because the Urusov isn’t played by titled players so the results are not always related to the choice of opening. But, what the stats do show is that unless you’re playing titled players, the Urusov has a lot going for it! 
     Declining the gambit with 3...Nc6 is interesting because it leads to a line also discussed by Michael Goeller called the Perreux Variation of the Two Knights Defense. For a fascinating discussion of this line visit HERE and HERE.  I have also seen this opening classified as the Bishop’s Opening, Ponziaini Gambit. 
     After toying with Aquarium’s IdeA on the Urusov it appears that theoretically the best move for black is to accept the gambit, but accepting it, based on Bologan’s advice and my results in quick games, black might do better with the Perreux Variation despite the horrible results shown in the Fritz opening book. 
     I let Fritz do a deep position analysis on the Perreux Variation using both Stockfish 10 and Komodo 10. The deep position analysis feature in Fritz is good for getting deep and detailed analysis of a critical position, and is especially interesting for correspondence players. 
     DPA generates a detailed analysis tree for a given position and you can determine how deep and broad the tree should be and what moves should be included or excluded from the analysis. It’ similar to IdeA, but, as mentioned, once you stop the analysis, that’s it; you can go back and pick up where you left off. 
     The move most chosen by humans after 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 Nc6 is 4.Nf3 which according to the DPA with Komodo and Stockfish results in equality. Instead, they both prefer 4.d5. 
     Here is an interesting game by a couple of masters using the Bishop’s Opening Perreux Variation where white played 4.d5. In the game white managed to establish a winning position. But, as often happens, even with masters, white did not follow up correctly and lost. At move 23 he missed a chance to win a piece and soon reached a position where there was only one move that wins...26.Rxe4. 
     Had white’s tactical antenna been out he might have seen a signpost or two that there may be a winning tactic available. At move 23 black’s B had limited mobility. And, at move 26 the alignment of black’s N, B and Q coupled with the pin on the N was suggestive.  Refer to my post Tactics, the Pornography of Chess

Play Online Chess

[Event "EU-Cup 21st"]
[Site "Saint Vincent"]
[Date "2005.9.24"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Rocius, Marijonas"]
[Black "Hammer, Jon Ludvig"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 Nf6 3. d4 {If black takes either P it's the Urusov Gambit.}
3... Nc6 {Theoretically not the best, but it's the safest. } 4. d5 {4.Nf3 exd4
is the Two Knights Defense.} 4... Ne7 5. Nc3 Ng6 {White has several promising
choices:6.Bg5, 6.Nf3, 6.Nfe2 and if he is feeling especially aggressive 6.h4,
which is preferred by Stockfish. } 6. Be3 Bb4 7. f3 d6 8. Nge2 Nh5 {The
alternative plan is 8...Nd7 and 9...O-O hoping to play ...Nc5 and ...f5, but
it does not work out well for black} 9. Qd2 h6 10. O-O-O {White is
considerably better because of the awkward positioning of black's pieces. }
10... Qf6 {Castling was better.} 11. Bb5+ Ke7 12. Rhf1 a6 13. Bd3 b6 14. g3
Bc5 15. Kb1 {Even better was f4 although there is nothing wrong with this
waiting move.} 15... Nf8 {Black does not realize his Q is in danger. Better
was 15...Kf8 allowing the Q to retreat. In any case black's position is
unenviable. } 16. f4 Bg4 {Now white can play 17.fxe5 and then after 17...Qxe5
18.Bxf4 gxf4 he will be able to rip apart black's position with e5.} 17. Rf2
exf4 {This only helps white. For better or worse he had to try the defensive
17...Nd7. } 18. gxf4 Ng6 {This does not prevent the breakthough advance of
white's e-Pawn, but there was nothing for black to do. } 19. e5 {Of course
black can now win a P with 19...dxe5 20.fxe5 Qxe5 but if he does his K is left
wide open to attack. } 19... Qh4 20. Rdf1 f5 21. Bxc5 bxc5 22. exd6+ cxd6 23.
Nc1 {This turns out to be a mistake that allows black to equalize. White
could have taken advantage of the huddle of black pieces on the K-side to win
a piece beginning with 23.Ng1 and 24.h3. If black prevents 24.h3 trapping his
B with 23...Bxh3 then white draws the Q away with 24.Nxh3 followed by 25.Qe1+
and Qe6. } 23... Kf7 {Black slips up here. With 23...Bh3 he could have
rendered h3 toothless and his Q can retreat to f6 helping with the defense.
White should now play 24.h3 although it is not as effective as before because
after 24...Bxh3 25.Rh2 Qg3 black has managed to avoid the worst. } 24. Re1
{After this white's initiative has slipped away and black is able to take
advantage of it to gain the advantage. } 24... Nhxf4 25. Ne4 fxe4 {He should
have played 25...Rhd8. This move is suicide because it exposes his K. The
hint that there might be a tactical shot for white is in the pin on the N and
the alignment of three black pieces on the 4th rank. With 26.Rxe4 Nxf4
27.Qxf4+ Kg8 28.Rxe4 white wins easily as both the B and d-Pawn are
threatened. } 26. Bxe4 {There is only one road to victory here and that's
26.Rxe4! Both this and 26.Rxf4+ lead down the road to defeat. } 26... Kg8 27.
Ref1 Re8 28. Rxf4 Nxf4 29. Qxf4 Qf6 {Well played. With this black takes
advantage of the position of white' B and at the same time forces the exchange
of Qs leaving him the exchange and a P ahead.} 30. Qxf6 gxf6 31. Bg6 Rd8 32.
Nd3 Be2 33. Rxf6 {He may have held out longer with 33.Rf2. } 33... Kg7 34.
Re6 Bg4 35. Re4 h5 36. Nf4 Rdf8 {White has managed to trap his own B and after
the smoke clears he will be a piece and a couple of Ps down} 0-1

The Link Between Strategy And Tactics

     One of my favorite books is The Search for Chess Perfection by C.J.S. Purdy. To quote Jeremy Silman, “this book offers more key advice and instructional punch than a dozen other books sitting on a bookstore's shelf.” And, to quote myself, “Purdy had the unique ability to communicate chess in words without using reams of analysis .” 

     Besides being a collection of Purdy magazine articles the book also contains a biography and a collection of Purdy’ games. The games themselves aren’t of the high standard you would find in world championship caliber play, but they show how he applied his principles in his games, mistakes and all.

     According to Chessmetrics, Purdy’s highest ever assigned rating is a “mere” 2346 which ranked him way down at number 804 in the world. Purdy’s 139 over-the-board tournaments, 43 telegraphic matches and 14 other matches were mostly against players in his part of the world which is a long way from Europe. But, in telegraphic matches he had draws against Golombek and Tartakower. And, in the first World Correspondence Championship he scored wins over such notable correspondence players as John W. Collins, Olaf Barda, Gabriel Wood and Mario Napolitano. 

     One of the Purdy games in the book has some insights on the link between strategy and tactics buried in the annotations. That was his game against Bela Berger that was played in the 1964 New South Wales Championship. 

     Bela Berger (August, 1931 - December 2005) was a Hungarian-Australian master. After the failure of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Berger emigrated from to Australia. He won the New South Wales state title in 1957 and 1961 and second second in the 1959 Australian Championship behind Lajos Steiner. 

     Berger was one of Australia's representatives at the 1963 Pacific Zone 10 Championship in Jakarta. National champion John Purdy was chosen first, and a quadrangular tournament was held for the second spot. Berger and Karlis Ozols tied for first; then the selectors voted in favour of Berger 3-0. The Jakarta result was Berger's best of his career. He tied for first on 5.5/8, and then won the playoff against Indonesia's Arovah Bachtiar. (He won the playoff 2-1 after 3 games; a fourth game was won by Bachtiar, but it had no bearing on the outcome, as the tiebreak system used favored Berger). The win gave him the title of International Master, and qualified him for the Interzonal of the 1964-66 World Championship cycle. At the Interzonal he finished 23rd out of 24. 

     The following game is especially instructive because it demonstrates the link between strategy and tactics. In a nutshell, Purdy explained strategy as “choosing aims,” meaning an attempt at reaching a particular type of position. Purdy was always quick to point out that strategy is a reliable course of action to be undertaken only after tactics can be ruled out. 

     A Purdyism: All good players must be good tactically. All masters must be good both tactically and strategically. Someone who is good strategically and not tactically may understand the play of masters up to a point, but cannot possibly play well himself. 

     Purdy’s comments on the following game are representative of the type of instruction his annotations contained. When Berger played 6.O-O it was criticized by Purdy because while it gives white the option of building up the center with either d4 or playing the quieter Steinitz setup of d3, the move d4 is the only way white can hope to gain an advantage against black’s setup in this game, the Steinitz Defense Deferred. 

     At move 10 Purdy observed that the Ruy Lopez is worthless to white unless played with great precision, but if it is, it it perhaps the best of all openings. 

     He noted at move 13 that in practical play the question of how big or how small a theoretical advantage one side has is not important. If one side’s moves are easy and the other’s hard, that’s important. To have an easy game means to have a clearly good aim or strategy and no difficult tactical problem to solve in achieving it. 

     Black’s 20th move illustrates an interesting clash between strategy and tactics. A plan is only something to follow if nothing better turns up. Positionally it would have been better to have a N or R on f4 than a P, but because of the tactical point that the threat of ...fxe3 forces the N to move, black had the opportunity to break up white’s castled position and that was better than the mere superiority of piece placement. 

     Regarding 21...f3 he pointed out that to a master the reply 22.g3 would not work because however obscure, the knockout must be there. When Purdy played 25...Re6 it represented an important strategical decision. Should black try and attack the King which would be very speculative? White’s K was exposed and was going to stay that way, but on the other hand, there was only one open file. In order to guarantee the win, black must get control of it. 

     Both sides were walking a fine line, but Purdy’s position always seemed just a bit better and in the end he managed to squeeze out a win in this instructive game.

[Event "New South Wales Championship"] [Site "?"] [Date "1964.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Bela Berger"] [Black "C.J.S. Purdy"] [Result "0-1"] [PlyCount "37"] [EventDate "1964.??.??"] {Ruy Lopez} 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 d6 5. c3 Bd7 6. O-O Nge7 { According to
Purdy, after this the only good move for white is 7.d4. Berger is playing the
Steinitz attack against the Steinitz defense, but it is a poor choice as long
as black has the move ...f5 available.} 7. d3 Ng6 8. Re1 Be7 9. Nbd2 O-O {
} 10. Nf1 f5 {If white plays 11.Ne3 exf4 12. dxe4 Kh8 Purdy says black should have
good play. I assume he means black has equailzed. And, as often happens,
winning the b-Pawn with 11.Qb3+ is not a good idea. Purdy left it to his
readers to figure out why. I will do the same.} 11. exf5 Bxf5 12. Ne3 {Bd7
Nd5 Now it may look like pinning the N with 13...Bg4 is plausible, but
it's quite bad. After 14. Qb3! Kh8 (if 14...Bxf3 then 15.Nxe7+ and Nxg6+ and
17.gxf3 wins a piece.) 15.Qxb7 Bxf 16.gxf3 white's K-side is wrecked but white
wins a couple of Ps and black's pieces are too disorganized to launch any kind
of K-side attack.} Kh8 {Nxe7 Ncxe7} 13. Ng5 {Good. Berger wants to
place his N on e4 and at the same time this threatens the attacking Qh5.
Bxa4 Sacrificing a piece with16.Qh6 is met by 16...h6 and there is no
way to continue the attack. Qxa4 At this point the position is quite
even, but within a couple of moves Berger's position is critical. So where
does he go wrong?!} Qc8 {Be3 h6} 14. Ne4 {Nd5 Purdy obviously wants
to put a N on f5 and white cannot prevent this with g3. Here is where things
turn sour for white. Bad is 19.g3 Ndf4! (anyway) 20.gxf4 Qg4+ followed by
... exf4 and ...f3. It seems that his best move was 19.Qd1 as withdrawing the
Q to help defend his K-side. Ng3 Ndf4 Bxf4 He still should have
tried 20.Qd1. exf4 Nf1 f3 Can white defend with 22.g3? If he does
then if 22... Qh6 23.Ne3 and it's hard to see how black can continue his
attack. However, after 22.g3 Nf4! then 23...Nxd3 wins a P and white is still
badly tied up so black must eventually win. Qe4 fxg2 This allows
exchanges to a drawish position. Black could have kept up the pressure with
22...Rf6 and ...Nf5, but Purdy was relying on another trump ...he will gain
control of the e-file. Qxg6 gxf1=Q+ Rxf1 The material is equal and
with just heavy piece on the board it's hard to imagine that black can win.
} Rf6 {Qe4 Re6 Purdy pursues his strategy of controlling the e-file.
If the white Q stays on the long diagonal, black will offer a P or two as
bait. For example, now if 26.Qf3 Qe8! and white dare not play 27.Qxb7 because
after 27...Rb8 black invades on the second rank with decisive results.
} 15. Qg4 Qe8 16. Kh1 {Qc6+ f3 Rae8 Rf2 Qd5 d4 R8e7 Purdy was suffering
from time pressure here and was playing fast but reckoned he was winning and
all he had to do was hold out until the time control was reached. b3} b5 {/>} 17. Rg1 {Re3 Qf4} Qf7 {Qxf7 Rxf7 Rc1 Rfxf3 Rxf3 Rxf3} 18. c4 b4 {/> It's hard to calculate, but better was 38.Re1 Rf2 39. Re7. At least white has
an active R. However, careful calculation shows that black can, with correct
play, win the R and P ending.} 19. c5 { A few more moves were played until adjournment. Black has an easy win because he picks up a second P and white has no counterplay. 0-1} 0-1