A Rip Snorting Attack by Santasiere

     First, a little observation by USCF member and article writer Chris Wainscott describing the four classes of adult players. Which are you? 

1) Players who never study or analyze their own games. They just enjoy playing.

2) Players who are not results oriented, but love to study. They don’t really care about their rating, they just love studying and learning. 

3) Players who like to watch high level tournaments and play over games. They don’t play much serious chess any longer. Watching chess is a reminder of a time when they were competing and working to improve. 

4) Improvers. These are adults who actually work to improve their game.. 

 

     Anthony Santasiere (December 9, 1904 - January 13, 1977) was a high school mathematics teacher in the Bronx, New York. His hobbies included writing poetry, oil painting and playing the piano. He retired to Florida. 

     In his heyday he wrote for the American Chess Bulletin and he was the author of several really bad chess books. Among the worst were The Romantic King's Gambit that was published by Chess Digest's Ken Smith. It had 138 totally unorganized games and Statasiere blubbered endless about things that had noting to do with either the game or chess. 

     His Essays on Chess was equally useless. If I can quote renowned chess historian Edward Winter, "This is not an essay on chess, it is the prejudiced rambling of an apparently cultured man who, nevertheless, was gravely deficient in common sense. Once the sub-Fine psychology peters out, our author descends to the usual old chess anecdotes, a minimum effort being made to string them together in any logical order. It is a wretched book." 

     Back in the early 1960s Chess Life columnist Larry Evans had some uncomplimentary things to say about Santasiere. Evans wrote, "His games are characterized by plodding, timidity, and opening repetition. He enters even the romantic debuts such as the Vienna and King's Gambit with reams of prepared analysis, strives constantly to keep the draw in hand and prevent complications from getting away from him over the board. Where are the glorious games which qualify Santasiere as the darling spokesman of romanticism?" 

     Speaking of plodding, have you ever played over any games by Larry Evans? His favorite strategy was to gran a Pawn and then hang on to it for dear life. 

     In an old issue of the American Chess Bulletin in which Santasiere annotated the games from the 1942 Reshevsky vs. Kashdan match he complained bitterly about the boring openings they played and the boring games they lead to.

     Santasiere was always vituperating against the great players for cowardice because they played openings like the Ruy Lopez and Queen’s Gambit. He describes the latter as being "...neither a gambit nor an honor to any Queen. It is like a piece of dead flesh kept overlong on ice." 

     For all his complaining about dead fish openings Santasiere played stuff like the Caro-Kann, the Reti and the English. But, he also sometimes played swashbuckling openings. 

     The problem was, according to Evans, Santasiere played gambits without sacrifices and played like a mouse, always trying to keep the draw in hand. For example, In the 1946 US Championship Santasiere had the better position and Reshevsky had 2-1/2 minutes left for 23 moves. Santasiere offered draw which Reshevsky accepted. Santasiere’s reason was that time was not a factor and you had to respect Reshevsky’s endgame ability, so common sense dictated a draw offer was the correct decision. 

     How much of what Evans had to say is true I can't say, but given a choice between My Best Games by Evans and My Best Games by Santasiere, I'm buying the latter. 

At Philadelphia in the 1936 American Chess Federation (formerly known as the Western Chess Association) Championship, I.A. Horowitz, losing to only to Arthur Dake, snagged the title. Santasiere's +3 -5 =3 was not spectacular, but here is one of those glorious games Evans inquired about. It was pulled off in the preliminary event. 

[Event "ACF Congress Prelims, Philadelphia"] [Site "Philadelphia, PA USA"] [Date "1936.08.17"] [Round "?"] [White "Anthony Santasiere"] [Black "Henry M Woods"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "A16"] [Annotator "Stockfish 15.1"] [PlyCount "52"] [EventDate "1936.??.??"] {English Opening} 1. c4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 {Chess Explorer classifies this as the Anglo-Gruenfeld Defense.} 3. cxd5 {This is the most promising reply.} Nxd5 4. e4 {far more popular is 4.g3} Nb6 {Black does not get especially good results with this move, so 4...Nxc3 was a better choice.} 5. d4 Nc6 6. Bb5 {Unbooked, but not bad. Still, 6.d5 looks logical...and promising.} (6. d5 Ne5 7. f4 Bg4 { A gross tactical blunder. Of course the N should retreat to d7.} 8. Qb3 Ned7 9. h3 Nc5 10. Qb5+ Bd7 11. Qxc5 e5 12. Qf2 Be7 13. fxe5 Bh4 14. g3 Be7 15. Be3 h5 16. O-O-O Nc8 17. e6 a6 18. Qxf7# {Kerma,S (2040)-Knapic,A Portoroz 1994}) 6... Bd7 7. Nge2 e6 8. O-O Be7 9. a3 a6 10. Bd3 O-O 11. b4 Na7 {Black's play, while not leading to any immediate serious consequences, is quite passive...not a good idea.} (11... e5 {was more active and if} 12. d5 Nd4 {he has a perfectly satisfactory position.}) 12. Be3 c6 {Better would have been 12...Nb5 at once to eliminate white's N.} 13. Qb3 Nb5 14. f4 Nd6 {The N does not belong here as will become evident. 14.. .Nxc3 was satisfactory.} 15. g4 Rc8 {the R has no future on this square. 15... a5 hoping to get some play was better.} 16. Rf3 { This is a R with a future.} Re8 {Same comment as was made about his previous move.} 17. Raf1 {Over preparing a bit. 17.e5 was a little better because now black can play 17...e5 himself.} Bf8 {Another passive move, but already it's hard to suggest a viable plan for black who is beginning to feel squeezed.} 18. e5 Nb5 19. Rh3 h6 20. Ne4 Nd5 {Black's hopping Ns have not accomplished a single thing nor has he been able to deploy his Rs to useful square owing to his rigid P formation. White has w winning position and now must figure out how to bring it to fruition.} 21. Bd2 {Giving up a P in order to preserve the B is not at all bad, but it wasn't necessary.} (21. g5 {is more deadly.} Nxe3 22. Rxe3 {Black has no reasonable continuation.} c5 (22... hxg5 23. fxg5 Be7 24. Nf6+ gxf6 25. gxf6 Bxf6 26. exf6 {etc.}) 23. gxh6 g6 24. Nf6+ Kh8 25. dxc5 {White has a decisive advantage.}) 21... Re7 (21... Nxd4 {was relatively best, but after} 22. Nxd4 Qb6 23. Nc5 Bxc5 24. bxc5 Qxc5 25. Qb2 {Black's position isn't much better than after the move played.}) 22. g5 hxg5 {This accelerates the finish, but there wasn't anything much better.} 23. fxg5 {[%mdl 32]} Re8 ( 23... Be8 {There is no way to prevent white's next move.} 24. Nf6+ Nxf6 25. gxf6 Rd7 26. Bh7+ Kh8 27. Bb1+ Kg8 28. Rh8+ {The culmination of the R-lift at move 16!} Kxh8 29. Qh3+ Kg8 30. Qh7#) 24. Nf6+ {[%mdl 512] Mates in 8 at the most!} Nxf6 {Capturing with the P yields the same result.} 25. gxf6 g6 26. Bxg6 {[%mdl 512]} (26. Rh8+ {is equally good.} Kxh8 27. Bxg6 {Black can only throw away pieces to delay mate.} Nc3 28. Qxc3 Kg8 29. Qh3 Bh6 30. Qxh6 Qxf6 31. exf6 {mate next move.}) 26... fxg6 {Facing mate in 4, black resigned. A ferocious attack by Santasiere.} (26... Nc3 27. Rh8+) (26... fxg6 27. f7+ Kg7 28. Bh6+ Kh8 29. Bxf8+ Qh4 30. Rxh4#) 1-0