Everybody has heard of Jacques Mieses (1865-1954), but few appreciate how good he was in his heyday. Chessmetrics assigns him a rating of 2625 in 1921 which ranked him number 9 in the world. He was behind Capablanca, Rubinstein, Bogoljubow, Tartakower, Reti, Kostic, Tarrasch and Maroczy. Paul Johner rounded out the top ten. Jacques Mieses pronounced.
Mieses was born in Leipzig, Germany and at the age of 17 won the Berlin championship. Five years later he finished third at Nuremberg and joint second at Leipzig.
His first international tournament was the famous Hastings tournament of 1895. Mieses finished tied for 20th place out of 22, but he was determined to compete at the highest level.
Over a decade later in 1907 he won the inaugural Leopold Trebitsch Memorial Tournament in Vienna. He also finished third at Ostend the same year. In 1909, Mieses played future World Championship contender Carl Schlechter in a blindfold match and defeated him with two wins and a draw. Mieses organized the San Sebastian tournament in 1911 which introduced the world to Capablanca.
In the 1930s, Mieses fled Germany to escape Nazi persecution and settled in England where he became a naturalized citizen. The opening 1.d3 is named after him.
Carlsbad 1907 was one of four well-known international tournaments held there. The others were 1911, 1923 and 1929.
The 1907 tournament results were:
1) Rubinstein 15.0
2) Maroczy 14.5
3) Leonhardt 13.5
4-5) Nimzovich and Schlechter 12.5
6-8) Vidmar, Teichmann and Duras 11.5
9) Salwe 11.0
10) Wolf 10.5
11-12) Marshall and Dus Chotimirsky 10.0
13) Spielmann 9.5
14) Tartakower 9.0
15) Janowski 8.5
16-18) Berger, Chigorin and Mieses 7.5
19) Olland 6.5
20) Cohn 5.0
21) P. Johner 4.5
I know endings aren’t popular, but remember the advice from NM James Schroeder and SM Marl Buckley in the previous post on Woodpeckering. It wouldn’t hurt to study endgames even if you don’t like them!
In the 3rd edition of his classic How To Reassess Your Chess, Jeremy Silman began the book with a section on endings. He admitted that it had nothing to do with his theme, but he included it because everyone needs to know the basics of endgames, but class players have very little, if any, knowledge of them.
That part of the book has been removed from the revamped 4th edition. I suspect it was not because Silman has changed his mind, but because few readers probably gave it much attention. If they wanted to study endings, they would buy a book on endings. And, by eliminating the material on endings there’s more room for middlegame material.
When we think of endgames we usually think of strategy, but even simple endgames can be surprisingly tactical and in the following game by Mieses we see a tactical continuation in the late middlegame that leads to a very instructive ending in which Mieses gets a passed a-Pawn vs. Wolf’s passed d-Pawn. The game is also a good example of Rook handling in the ending.
[Event "Carlsbad"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1907.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Jacques Mieses"]
[Black "Henrich Wolf"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]
%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
{Scotch Game} 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. c3 {A rarely played
continuation that has brought white some considerable success.} 4... d5 5.
exd5 Qxd5 6. cxd4 Nf6 7. Be2 Bf5 8. Nc3 Bb4 9. O-O Bxc3 10. bxc3 O-O 11. c4
Qe4 12. d5 { This is the correct continuation. In Emma-Chemes, Buenos Aires
1959 white played 12.Bb2 which fofeited his advantage.} 12... Nb4 13. Nd4
Rfe8 14. Be3 {Better was 14.Bf3 gaining time. White need not worry about the
reply 14...Qd3 offering to trade Qs because 15.Nxf5 leads to white's gaining
the advantage.} 14... Nc2 {This does not work out well. Better was 14...Bg4
with about equal chances. } 15. Nxc2 Qxc2 16. Bf3 Qxd1 17. Rfxd1 Bg4 18. c5
Bxf3 19. gxf3 Rad8 20. Rab1 b6 21. d6 {Very instructive. This is a common
method of procuring a passed P. Black can't capture both Ps at once and
white's next move will be either dxc7 or cxb6. Black cannot take 21...bxc5
22.dxc7 Rc8 23.Bf4! which leads to an even quicker defeat.} 21... cxd6 22.
cxb6 {Not 22.Rd6 when white has to tie up his pieces defending the P.} 22...
axb6 23. Bxb6 {Why is this position better for white? 1) He has the distant
passed P which is more valuable than black's d-Pawn. 20 In the battle between
the B and N the distant passed P is even more valuable because it will take
the N more time to reach it. Further, for the moment black cannot ptrevent the
P from marching to a5. Engines will tell you this position is nearly dead
equal, but any GM will tell you that it's better for white because he has all
the winning chances. While it may be true that black could theoretically hold
the ending, all the winning chances are white's.. White has a new passed pawn:
a2. Black has a new passed pawn: d6} 23... Ra8 24. Ra1 { Now black must tend
to the defense of his d-Pawn.} 24... Re6 {When analyzing this game Euwe makes
no comment on this move, but this is probably not the best defense because it
leaves both Rs tied down. It seems that the stunning defense found by
Stockfish might very well save the game. 24...Ra3!! This prevents the advance
of the a-Pawn which is more important than the threat of capturing the f-Pawn.
In fact, at least for the time being black should avoid taking the f-Pawn. The
problem is, it counter intuitive to give up a P in the ending. After 24...Ra3
25.Rd6 h5 white will find it difficult to make progress. } 25. a4 Nd7 {Black
threatens to win material: Nd7xb6} 26. Bc7 {White threatens to win material:
Bc7xd6} 26... Ra6 27. a5 Kf8 {This is roughly the position Mieses had in mind
when he played 21.d6. White has much greater freedom of action because the
defense of his a-Pawn does not cause him any problems and in the meantime both
of black's Rs are tied up. Euwe observed that this is the equivalent of a
material advantage.} 28. Rab1 Ke7 29. Rb7 {A R on the 7th is another endgame
axiom. This is a good square for the R because it attacks the a-Pawn, but the
problem is he can't maintain the R on this square. Hence, he should probably
have tried 29...g5 and only then played the R to e5.} 29... Re5 {From the
position after 29...g5! 7 games in Shootouts at 9-21 plies were all drawn. So,
clearly black missed a good drawign chance by not playing 29...g5} 30. f4 Re4
31. f3 Re2 32. Kf1 {Taking advantage of the fact that black's R can leave the
e-file. Why can't black play 32...Rxh2? Because of 33.Re1+ Kf8 34.Ra7!!
winning (The R can't be taken because 35.Bxd6+ leads to mate). Nor can the K
escape to f6 because 34.Bd8+ wins the N.} 32... Re6 33. Bb6 {White must now
figure out how to advance his passed a-Pawn.} 33... Rf6 34. Re1+ Re6 35. Rc1
Ra8 36. Rcc7 Rd8 37. a6 {White can smell the victory.} 37... Ke8 38. a7 { Not
that it matters, but there was an even quicker win with 38.Rxd7!} 38... Nxb6
39. Rxb6 d5 40. Rxe6+ fxe6 41. Rb7 {Black gave up. He can't stop the P from
queening.} 1-0
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