Harry Borochow

Harry Borochow

     Yesterday, June 1st, at about 6:00pm the weather became nightmarish. All of a sudden it got very dark and there was hurricane force winds (70 miles per hour), driving rain with marble-sized hail so thick I could not see across the street! Fortunately it only lasted 10-15 minutes, but when I checked a nearby amateur weather station the rain had been coming down at the rate of 7 inches per hour. Had it lasted much longer everything would have flooded. VIEW

     The temperature dropped from 90 degrees to 70 in a matter of minutes and trees and power lines were down all around town and our cable TV was out for several hours. 

     Today let's take a look at National Master Harry Borochow. He was born in what is now the Ukraine on June 15, 1898 and passed away at the age of 95 on October 20, 1993 in San Luis Obispo, California. 

     The Borochow family immigrated to the US in 1903, when Harry was five years old. He was the youngest brother of Ber Borochov, a Marxist Zionist leader and one of the founders of the Labor Zionist movement. Ber was also a pioneer in the study of the Yiddish language. Harry visited Israel several times and was in a continuous touch with David Borochov, Ber's son.

     Borochow had a long chess career, but I could find little on his life. He started playing at the age of eight, but did not get beyond the being an average player until 1917 when he won the Central College of New York Championship, scoring 15.5 out of 16 games and the New York City Chess Club Championship with a score of 7-1. 

     From 1930 to 1932, he won the California State Championship. He directed the First Piatigorsky Cup (1963) and Second Piatigorsky Cup (1966) tournament. In 1928, he won the Correspondence Chess League of America's North American Championship which was actually concluded in 1930. 

     You can read an interesting letter Borochow wrote in 1961 to Walter Fried, President of the American Chess Foundation in which he discussed the circumstances surrounded the infamous aborted Reshevsky-Fischer match. He ended the letter with the statement that unless Fischer changed his behavior, the Steiner Chess Club would do nothing in the future to support any of his chess activities.  READ

     Borochow had wins over a number of very strong players, but, oddly, the game he thought his best ever was a postal game he played against the obscure A. H. Palmi from Jackson, Michigan. Palmi's wife tied for first in the 1933 Western Open women's championship with Mrs. P. H. Sagerdorph, also of Jackson. In that game Borochow's opponent resigned in a drawn position! 

     The game we will be looking at today was the game he thought was the second best he ever played. His opponent was A. H. Bierwirth. I was unable to uncover any information on Bierwirth other than in 1911-1912 he was playing for the Manhattan and Brooklyn Chess Clubs. Then between 1927-1931 he played in three California Championships. 

     The game was played in the 1925 Los Angeles Championship. The 1920s were a prosperous time for Los Angeles. That was the era when the name Hollywood became synonymous with the film industry and plentiful job openings attracted a lot of immigration, especially from the rural Midwest and Mexico. 

     The city's population more than doubled in size from 577,000 to over 1.2 million. Extensive modernization took place with a dramatic increase in automobile traffic, suburban sprawl and the formation of western business and financial centers. 

     In 1925, professional boxing was very popular which was under the new 10 round boxing rules. After the Olympic Auditorium, constructed for the 1932 Summer Olympic Games was opened in January of 1925, the first heavyweight fight was also held between Jimmy McLarnin and Fidel LaBarba. In the movees, the Hollywood film Ben Hur premiered in December 1925 at the Million Dollar Theater and it ran for six months. The occasion was a grand affair with a grand orchestra and stage show.

[Event "Los Angeles City Championship"] [Site "?"] [Date "1925.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "A. H. Bierwirth"] [Black "Harry Borochow"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "A48"] [Annotator "Stockfish 15"] [PlyCount "56"] [EventDate "1925.??.??"] {London System} 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 {British player James Mason was the first well-known proponent of the London System which came to prominence in an international tournament held in London in 1922. It was a way of countering the Orthodox Queen's Gambit Declined and the hypermodern setups that began rising in popularity during the 1920's. It gives white a solid position and sometimes it can lead to sharp attacks.} d6 3. e3 Nbd7 4. Nf3 g6 {It's my belief that the fianchetto is the most solid way of meeting the London and Colle.} 5. Bd3 Bg7 6. h3 {This move was favored by Janowski in order to preserve the B on f4, but Borochow questioned why it was necessary to lose a tempo when black is not compelled to eliminate the B. Still, because white has an extra move, 6.h3 cannot be considered bad.} O-O 7. g4 {This is injudicious as white, whose development is nowhere near complete, is not yet in a position to launch an attack.} (7. Bh2 Qe8 8. O-O e5 9. dxe5 dxe5 10. e4 {with equal chances. Senger,R-Vogel,R (2245) Germany 1982}) 7... Re8 (7... e5 {at once is also quite strong.} 8. dxe5 dxe5 9. Nxe5 {Correct was 9.Bg5, but black still has a considerable advantage.} Nxe5 10. Bxe5 Qd5 {Black is winning. Canicio Navarro,S (1895)-Prol Nogueira,I (2183) Cartagena 2007}) (7... Qe8 {was played in Stadelmeier,M-Bracker,A (1905) Berlin 2005} 8. g5 Nd5 9. Bc4 Nxf4 10. exf4 e5 {Black is much better.}) 8. e4 {Threatened with the advance of black's e-Pawn, ...e5. ...e4, white loses another tempo.} e5 9. dxe5 Nxe5 10. Nxe5 Nxe4 {Borochow mistakenly thought this sacrifice was warranted by the fact that white has lost three tempi, thus exposing his K on the open e-file and the square b2 will be under attack. Also, if he played any other move the center would be blocked which would be to white's advantage.} (10... dxe5 {was the best move and after} 11. Bg5 Be6 12. f3 h6 13. Be3 Qe7 14. Nc3 Nd7 15. h4 { and the chances are equal.}) 11. Bxe4 Bxe5 12. Bxe5 Rxe5 13. Nc3 {White better. } f5 {This is best although it should not have yielded black any advantage.} ( 13... Qe7 {is met by} 14. Qd4 f5 15. f4 Rxe4+ 16. Nxe4 Qxe4+ 17. Qxe4 fxe4 18. Kf2 {which is to white's advantage. In Shootouts white scored 5-0.}) 14. f4 { Borochow (again incorrectly) state that this is the beginning of a tactical sequence in which he had seen further that his opponent. In his opinion white should have played on with a P down, but with some compensation for black's positional weakness. It is, in fact, white's best move and Stockfish give white a one P advantage here.} Re8 15. O-O fxe4 16. Nxe4 {[%mdl 8192] This move is where white went astray and lost the game.} (16. Qd4 Qh4 17. Nxe4 Qxh3 18. Nf6+ Kf8 19. Nxe8 Qg3+ {draws.}) (16. Qd4 c5 {is possible if black wants to avoid the draw, but after} 17. Qe3 d5 18. Qxc5 Qh4 19. Rf2 e3 20. Rg2 Be6 21. Nxd5 Rac8 22. Qd4 Red8 23. c4 Qxh3 24. f5 Bxd5 25. cxd5 Qf3 26. Rf1 Qxd5 27. Qxe3 {the game is still drawish.}) 16... Rxe4 {A well played sacrifice. Borochow points out, this time correctly, that failure to play this would lead to white establishing a post for his N on f6 and, after preparation, the advance of the g-Pawn leading to a winning position.} 17. Qd5+ Re6 18. f5 gxf5 19. gxf5 Qg5+ 20. Kh1 Kh8 21. Rg1 Qh5 {[%cal Rh5h3]} 22. Qg2 Rg6 {[%mdl 512] The only move that does not lose. White finally picks up the R which was the aim of his 14th move, but it doesn't matter because his position is lost.} 23. fxg6 Bxh3 24. Qg3 (24. g7+ {This leads nowhere.} Kg8 25. Qf2 Bf1+ 26. Qh2 Qf3+ 27. Rg2 Re8 {Against Re1} 28. Rxf1 Qxf1+ 29. Qg1 Qf3 30. Qf2 Qxf2 31. Rxf2 Kxg7 {with a won ending.}) 24... Bf1+ 25. Qh2 Qf3+ 26. Rg2 Qxg2+ 27. Qxg2 Bxg2+ 28. Kxg2 hxg6 {The ending is lost so white resigned. All-in-all a nice game by Borochow. Even if the initial concept was flawed, his finish was flawless.} 0-1