The last post looked at Anastasia's mate. In this one we will take a look at another mate...Blackburne's mate which involves two Bishops and a Knight against a castled King.
It's named after Joseph H. Blackburne, a British player who once demonstrated it in one of his games.
The following game is a modern version that was played in the 1962 New Zealand Championship.
Ortvin Sarapu (1924-1999) was born in Narva, Estonia, learned to play at age 8 and by age 11 he could play four blindfold games simultaneously.
In 1940 he won the Estonian Junior Championship, but then the Second World War disrupted his life.
In 1943 he made his way via Finland to Sweden where he was held in captivity for the rest of the war.
During a tournament at Oldenburg, Germany in 1949 he met New Zealander Robert Wade, which led to his emigration to New Zealand in 1950. Sarapu won or co-won the New Zealand Championship 20 times!
His opponent was Zygmunt Frankel (1921-2001) who was born in Krakow, Poland. He and his Jewish parents escaped the Holocaust by fleeing to the Soviet Union, initially in Siberia and then via the Urals and Soviet Asia.
In 1949 he emigrated to New Zealand and became active in administration in the New Zealand Chess scene. Frankel played in a number of New Zealand Championships and on two different occasions he was the editor of the New Zealand Chess Magazine. He passed away in Wellington after a brief illness.
Ortvin Sarapu–Zygmunt Frankel1–0C44New Zealand Champ, WellingtonWellington NZL1962Stockfish 14.1
Danish Gambit Declined 1.e4 e5 2.f3 c6 3.d4 exd4 4.c3 The Goring
Gambit, a relative of the Danish Gambit. White offers to sacrifice one or two
Ps in return for a lead in development, and typically follows up by putting
pressure on f7 with Bc4, Qb3 and sometimes Ng5, while Nc3-d5 is another common
motif. d5 This move, transposing into the Danish Gambit Declined, equalizes.
Wild play results from accepting the gambit with 4...dxc3 5.exd5 This is
the critical line. xd5 6.cxd4 b4+ A variation of the QGD Chigorin Defense
is reached after 6...Bg4 7.c3 f6 8.e2 0-0 9.0-0 f5 Black's Q is too
exposed here. 9...xc3 This unprovoked exchange. played in Marshall,
F-Morrison,J/New York 1918, turned out to be a poor choice. 10.bxc3 a5 11.b2 g4 12.c4 h5 13.h3 xf3 14.xf3 White is better. 9...a5 10.d2 g4 11.a3 xc3 11...d6 lead to a quick loss in this game: 12.d5 e7 13.b4 xb4 14.axb4 xb4 15.b5 e4 16.a4 g6 17.e5 xe2 18.xg6 1-0 Unger,
T-Calci,F/Germany 1995 12.bxc3 e4 13.h3 h5 14.g4 g6 Forster,R (2320)
-Van der Sterren,P (2510) Winterthur 1996. Now with 15.Bc4 the position would
have been equal. 15.c4 9...d6 10.g5 a6 11.c1 xd4 12.xd4 xd4 13.d1 is about equal. Martorelli,A (2192)-Rajkovic,M (2361)/Djenovici 2018 :
0-1 (24) 10.h3 e8 11.d3 d7 12.a3 f8 13.f4 d8 This is too cramping
Black needed to try and complete his development by getting his c8B into play,
so 13...Qd8 was his best try. 14.d5 An excellent move that gains space and
gives his pieces access to d4. White has already established a won, or nearly
won, position. a6 Black wants to guard against a white piece landing on b5.
14...c6 was not much better. 14...xd5 Of course this is unplayable. 15.xd5 xd5 16.xh7+ 14...c6 15.c2 h6 16.dxc6 bxc6 16...xc6 17.b5
with an overwhelming position. 17.e5 e7 18.fe1 e6 19.ad1 White
follows up with 20.Nd4 with a huge advantage. 15.e5 e7 16.e1 g6 17.d2 c5 18.b4 a7 19.e3 b8 20.d4 White's pieces are getting ready to swarm
all over black's K. c5 21.dxc6 bxc6 Black probably hoped to get some relief
by preparing ...c5, but he is in for an unexpected surprise. 22.xg6 hxg6 23.xf6 xe1+ 24.xe1 e6 25.e4 d5 26.g5 26.b2 was also very good. e6 27.f6+ h8 28.xd5+ g8 29.e7+ xe7 30.h6 h2+ 31.xh2 d6+ 32.g3 xg3+ 33.fxg3 f6 34.xg6+ f8 35.xe6 a5 36.xf6+ g8 37.g7# 26...e6 27.h4 g7 27...g7 was better; it would have at least allowed him to play
on. 28.xg7 xg7 29.f6+ g8 30.c3 Intending Nf6+ xe4 31.xe4 d6 32.c4 White has a won position thanks to his extra material. White scored 5-0
in Shootouts, but the actual point is still some moves away. 28.g5 h5
...watch for it!! 29.xh5 gxh5 30.h7# Blackburne's mate 1–0
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