Lessons in Chess Lessons in Life

Lessons in Chess, Lessons in Life
Application of the Psychology of the Game in Real Life
By
Jose A. Fadul
Lesson in Chess, Lessons in Life
Copyright © 2008 by Lulu Press and

Jose A. Fadul
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

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Layout and Cover Design by the author himself
ii
Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 - History of Chess 3

in the History of Life
Chapter 2 – Learning and Playing Chess 13

Develop Character and
Sharpen the Mind
Chapter 3 – Tactics in Chess, 17

Tactics in Life
Chapter 4 – Selected Chess Games 51

for Great Lessons in Life
References 129
Index 131
iii
Picture Credits
Cover page: “Immortal Loser”. Photo manipulation by the author using Adobe Photoshop.
All chessboard game images were created using either Wikipedia’s chess templates or
ChessPublisher. Page vi: Butter and chocolate cookies shaped like chess pieces, baked by the
author’s students majoring in Culinary Arts at De la Salle-College of Saint Benilde, Angelo
King International Center. Arranged to show a chess problem by the author. Page 2:
Integration of chess by DLS-CSB students in their studies. Photographs by the author. Page 3:
Profile view of head of Pithecanthropus, the Java Ape Man, reconstructed from the skull cap.
J. Arthur Thomson. Page 4, left: Original fossils of Pithecanthropus erectus (now Homo
erectus) found in Java in 1891. Public domain. Page 5, lower right: Xiangqi board, with
pieces in their starting positions. Wikimedia Commons. Page 6: Knights Templar playing
chess in Libro de los juegos, 1283. Alphonse le Sage. Page 7, upper right: François-André
Danican Philidor18th century French chess Master. François-André Danican Philidor from:
“L’analyze des échecs”. Londres, second edition 1777. {{PD-age}} category:Chess players.
Page 8, upper right: Wilhelm Steinitz, the first World Chess Champion. This image (and its
media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the
United States, Canada, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life
of the author plus 70 years. Page 8, lower: World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and
Emanuel Lasker in 1925. Wikimedia Commons. Page 9: Philippine Postage stamp depicting
Jose Rizal to be playing chess on board the ship Salvadora in 1882. From the author’s private
Rizaliana collection. Page 10: Current World Champion, the Indian Viswanathan Anand.
Wikimedia Commons. Page 11: The Chaturanga, an ancient Indian game which is presumed
to be the common ancestor of chess, shogi, and makruk, and related to xiangqi and janggi.
Wikimedia Commons. Page 12: A chess player’s haiku. Poetry and mixed media artwork by
the author. Page 14: Alfred Binet. Wikimedia Commons. Pages 15-16: DLS-CSB students
studying chess in various classes. Candid photographs by the author. Page 17: A PDA with
Pocket Fritz. Wikimedia Commons. Page 18: Studying chess tactics in class, De La Salle-
College of Saint Benilde/Angelo King International Center. Photographs by the author and
one of his students. Page 49: DLS-CSB SHRIM students playing chess in class. Candid
photograph by the author in his class. Page 58: “La Toujours Jeune.” Mixed media artwork
by the author. Page 70: First-Day cover of the 65th Anniversary of Polish Immortal Game.
Author’s private collection. Page 73: 13-year old Robert Fischer, watermark. Author’s private
collection. Page 74: Byrne-Fischer’s game, in descriptive notation. Wikimedia Commons.
Page 82: The Immortal Loser. Mixed media artwork by the author. Page 91: The IBM’s
promotional picture of Kasparov versus Deep Blue. Wikimedia Commons. Page 92: Game
Viewer: Deep Blue versus Kasparov, Game 6. Wikimedia Commons. Page 98: “Kasparov
versus the World”. Watercolor painting by the author. Page 99: E. Bacrot, I. Krush, and E.
Paehtz. Cropped images from Wikimedia Commons. Page 127: Mikhail Tal’s gravestone
showing his death date, “1992 27 VI” (June 27, 1992). Wikimedia Commons. Back cover
page: “Immortal Loser”. Photo manipulation and mirror flip by the author using Adobe
Photoshop. Back cover page inset: photograph of the author by J. Hazama, one of his students
at the Angelo King International Center, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde.
iv
To my father,
Martin Ocampo Fadul,
who first taught me tactics in chess

and great lessons in life
v
vi
Introduction
Chess reflects so much of life! A scientist friend of mine told me that

anthropologists would link the chess rule that a pawn, once it has reached
the eighth rank, can be promoted to another piece—queen, rook, knight or
bishop, except a king—to the feudal concept against usurping the position of
the king. He also explains how others say that the rule that allows having
more than one queen (but only one king) reflects the polygamous nature of
the male of our species. I don’t exactly believe these aforementioned
theories. Anyway, most chess games do not involve many queens from
promoted pawns. Perhaps, it is because monogamy is still the norm in
almost all societies in real life.
Arguably, there are a lot of good ideas in chess which may be useful in real
life for chess players and non-chess players alike. Indeed, in chess, the
promotion of a pawn once it has reached the eighth rank may somehow
encourage most of us not to remain pawns the rest of lives, but make every
effort to have power, prestige and position. My scientist friend says
sociologists of the Social Conflict persuasion explain pawn promotion as
social mobility. The chess pieces for them represent social stratification—
only one king, only one powerful queen, just two bishops, two etc., but
plenty of pawns. That sounds plausible for me, because the word pawn in
Spanish (peón) may also mean “laborer” or “worker”.
In chess, each piece move and/or capture differently from another piece.
Does this not reflect the real life situation of individual differences? This is
foundational in differential psychology and various theories of personality.
The player must coordinate his pieces to work together to win the game. In
real life, the manager of a company must supervise and inspire his or her
workers, and the rest, to do their share for the good of the company.
This book will share great lessons in chess from theory and real games, and
even greater lessons in real life as reflected in great chess games. Somebody
complained that life is too short to be wasted in trivial games such as chess.
But William Napier did retort that such is the fault of life, and not of chess!
1
2
Chapter 1 – History of Chess

in the History of Life
“Chess is like life.”
Boris Spassky
I am a Christian, and I believe that life began with God. I believe that on
the third and fifth days of creation God “let the earth sprout vegetation,
plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit after their kind with seed in
them on the earth,” …. And the earth brought forth vegetation, plants
yielding seed after their kind and the trees bearing fruit with seed in them
after their kind …. And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of
living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the
heavens.” So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature
that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and
every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And
God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the
seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” (Genesis 1:9-13, 20-22).
However, a scientist friend of mine (who plays chess feebly) told me that
about 4.5 billion years ago, Earth formed out of the debris swirling around
the sun, and being in that lucky spot where the sun is neither too close for
water to boil, nor too far for water to freeze, life emerged. He says all life on
Earth can be traced to Africa. Ever since microorganisms first appeared 3 to
4 billion years ago, they have constantly mutated and created a diversity of
life forms. Five to 7 million years ago, hominids
branched out of the line of apes and migrated to
different parts of the planet. Some 250,000 to
300,000 years ago, Homo sapiens or modern humans
also evolved in Africa from the hominid branch. For
early Homo sapiens to survive, they initially lived as
hunters and gatherers. The men hunted while the
women stayed “home” gathering fruits and tending Profile view of
the young. As their numbers multiplied and their head of
population grew, fruit-bearing trees and wildlife in Pithecanthropus,
their vicinity became inadequate that some had to the Java Ape Man,
move farther out in search of food. In a process that reconstructed
would repeat itself over and over for the next couple from the skull cap
3
hundred thousand years, humans migrated and resettled to wherever they

could find food and were soon spread out across the planet. Alaska and Asia
were joined by land at the time so humans also found their way to the
American continents. Among the artifacts gathered from the time of hunters
and gatherers, there is no evidence that a belief in god or gods existed. Even
today, hunter-gatherer cultures simply believe that their dead ancestors
stayed with them in spirit and acted as their guides.
My scientist friend continued to explain that the

discovery of agriculture changed that. When
farming was discovered 10,000 years ago and
humans learned to domesticate animals, food no
longer became a problem. Food surpluses became
common and the concept of “property” came into
existence. But there were times when periods of
drought killed their crops and so many died from
the ensuing famine. From this experience, early
humans began to look up to the sky and pray for
Original fossils of rain from an invisible but very humanlike god. Still,
Pithecanthropus there were those who continued life as hunter-
erectus (now Homo gatherers. But instead of looking for food to hunt
erectus) found in and gather, they simply raided and pillaged food
Java in 1891 stores of the agricultural societies. To protect their
food stores, the once-hunters of now-agricultural
societies became warriors. The concept of “military” was thus born.
Because of agriculture, the concept of morals became set in the human
mind. It was wrong for one to take another’s property as one’s own. And if
there were right things and wrong things, then there must be an absolute
right overseen by an Absolute Authority. He speculated that while hunter-
gatherers simply believed in the spirits of their deceased ancestors,
agricultural societies took things up a notch and gave birth to religion by
believing in God.
My scientist friend told me that with growing food supply also led to rapid
population growth. The increasing global population and human density
formed cities, made urban life complex and difficult, and caused misery to
many. Bureaucracy, tributes to rulers, control of land by urban elites, taxes,
slavery, and wars became byproducts of urban living. It comes as no
surprise then that starting at about 3,000 years ago, within a period of about
600 years, prophets and sages appeared spreading messages of salvation,
nirvana, reincarnation, and a better life elsewhere. What the prophets
4
seemed to be spreading, however, was simply a psychological way out from

the stresses brought about by city life in hopes of returning to much simpler
times without again becoming hunter-gatherers.
My scientist friend takes me step by step through the rest of human history.
He fuses science with history in a constantly forward-moving fashion as he
covers the rises and falls of the civilizations of Babylon, the Ancient
Egyptians, the Greeks, the Roman Empire, the Mongols, the Dynasties of
China, the Mayans and the Aztecs, the Renaissance, all the way up to the
present. What results from his curious approach is an eye-opening saga of
the human race where everything made perfect sense. No longer are epochs,
eras, and great upheavals isolated events. They are all one contiguous stream
of human progress. But my scientist friend failed to answer two questions I
asked him: “What is the meaning of life?” and, less fundamental and less
important, “Where and when did chess originate in human history?” He
evaded the questions and asked me just to play chess with him. But he
promised to research on them and to tell me about his findings. Hey, didn’t
the Java man (or was it the Peking man?) play with seeds, stones, and
specially-shaped bones on a primitive map sketched on the ground?
Well, I guess I already know the answer to the

less important question: present evidences show
that chess evolved in India. Its early form in the
6th century was (in Sanskrit) “four divisions of
the military”– infantry, cavalry, elephants, and
chariots, represented respectively by pawn,
knight, bishop, and rook. A theory by David H.
Li contends that chess arose from the game
xiangqi, or at least a predecessor thereof, existing
in China since the 2nd century BC. However,
Iranian and Arab scholars point to the Indian Xiangqi board, with pieces
chaturanga as the origin of their board games, in their starting positions
and not to the Chinese xiangqi! (See page 11).
In Persia around 600 AD, the name of the evolving board game became
shatranj and the rules were developed further. Shatranj was taken up by the
Muslim world after the Islamic conquest of Persia, with the pieces largely
retaining their Persian names. In Spanish shatranj was rendered as ajedrez,
in Portuguese as xadrez, and in Greek as zatrikion, but in the rest of Europe
it was replaced by versions of the Persian shāh (“king”).
5
Knights Templar playing chess in Libro de los juegos, 1283.
The game reached Western Europe and Russia by at least three routes, the
earliest being in the 9th century. By the year 1000 it had spread throughout
Europe. Introduced into the Iberian Peninsula by the Moors in the 10th
century, it was described in a famous 13th century manuscript covering
shatranj, backgammon, and dice named the Libro de los juegos.
By 1200 the rules of shatranj started to be modified in southern Europe,

and around 1475, several major changes rendered the game essentially as it
is known today. These modern rules for the basic moves had been adopted
in Italy and in Spain. Pawns gained the option of advancing two squares on
their first move, while bishops and queens acquired their modern abilities.
This made the queen the most powerful piece. These new rules quickly
spread throughout Western Europe, with the exception of the rules about
stalemate, which were finalized in the early nineteenth century.
This was also the time when chess started to develop a body of theory. The
oldest preserved printed chess book, Repetición de Amores y Arte de Ajedrez
(Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess) by a Spanish priest Luis
Ramirez de Lucena was published in Salamanca in 1497. Lucena and later
masters like the Portuguese Pedro Damiano, the Italians Giovanni Leonardo
Di Bona, Giulio Cesare Polerio and Gioachino Greco, and the Spanish
bishop Ruy López de Segura, developed elements of openings and started to
analyze simple endgames.
6
The Spaniards brought chess to the Philippines in the sixteenth century;

and much later, a Filipino—Eugenio “Eugene” Torre—will become Asia’s
first and only grandmaster for a number of years.
Back in the eighteenth century the center of European chess life moved
from the Southern European countries to France. The two most important
French masters were François-André Danican
Philidor, a musician by profession, who
discovered the importance of pawns for chess
strategy, and later Louis-Charles Mahé de La
Bourdonnais who won a famous series of matches
with the Irish master Alexander McDonnell in
1834. Centers of chess life in this period were
coffee houses in big European cities like Café de
la Régence in Paris and Simpson’s Divan in
London.
François-André Danican Philidor
18th century French Chess Master
As the nineteenth century progressed, chess organization developed

quickly. Many chess clubs, chess books and chess journals appeared. There
were correspondence matches between cities; for example the London Chess
Club played against the Edinburgh Chess Club in 1824. Chess problems
became a regular part of 19th century newspapers; Bernhard Horwitz, Josef
Kling and Samuel Loyd composed some of the most influential problems. In
1843, von der Lasa published his and Bilguer’s Handbuch des Schachspiels
(Handbook of Chess), the first comprehensive manual of chess theory.
The first modern chess tournament was held in London in 1851 and won,
surprisingly, by the German Adolf Anderssen, relatively unknown at the
time. Anderssen was hailed as the leading chess master and his brilliant,
energetic—but from today’s viewpoint strategically shallow—attacking
style became typical for the time. Dazzling games like Anderssen’s
Immortal game or Morphy’s Opera game were then considered as the
highest possible summit of the chess art.
Deeper insight into the nature of chess came with two younger players.
American Paul Morphy, a chess prodigy, won against all important
competitors, including Anderssen, during his short chess career between
1857 and 1863. Morphy’s success stemmed from a combination of brilliant
attacks and sound strategy. He intuitively knew how to prepare attacks.
Prague-born Wilhelm Steinitz later described how to avoid weaknesses in
7
one’s own position and how to create and exploit such weaknesses in the
opponent’s position. In addition to his theoretical achievements, Steinitz
founded an important tradition: his triumph over the leading German master
Johannes Zukertort in 1886 is regarded as the first official World Chess
Championship. Steinitz lost his crown in 1894 to a much younger German
mathematician Emanuel Lasker, who maintained
this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of all
World Champions.
It took a prodigy from Cuba, José Raúl

Capablanca (World Champion 1921–27), who
loved simple positions and endgames, to end the
German-speaking dominance in chess; he was
undefeated in tournament play for eight years until
1924. His successor was Russian-French
Alexander Alekhine, a strong attacking player,
who died as the World champion in 1946, Wilhelm Steinitz, the first
having briefly lost the title to Dutch player Max World Chess Champion
Euwe in 1935 and regaining it two years later.
Between the world wars, chess was revolutionized by the new theoretical
school of so-called hypermodernists like Aron Nimzowitsch and Richard
Réti. They advocated controlling the center of the board with distant pieces
rather than with pawns, inviting opponents to occupy the center with pawns
which become objects of attack.
World Champions José Raúl Capablanca (left) and Emanuel Lasker in 1925
8
Since the end of 19th century, the number of annually held master
tournaments and matches quickly grew. Some say that in 1914 the title of
chess grandmaster was first formally conferred by Tsar Nicholas II of
Russia to Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch and Marshall, but this is a
disputed claim. This tradition was continued by the World Chess Federation
(Fédération Internationale des Échecs or FIDE),
founded in 1924 in Paris. In 1927, the Women’s
World Chess Championship was established and
the first to hold it was the Czech-English master
Vera Menchik.
After the death of Alekhine, a new World Jose Rizal depicted to be

Champion was sought in a tournament of elite playing chess on board the
players ruled by FIDE, who have, since then, ship Salvadora in 1882
controlled the title. The winner of the 1948
tournament, Russian Mikhail Botvinnik, started an era of Soviet dominance
in the chess world. Until the end of the Soviet Union, there was only one
non-Soviet champion, the somewhat temperamental American, Robert
“Bobby” Fischer (World Champion 1972–1975).
In the previous informal system, the World Champion decided which

challenger he would play for the title and the challenger was forced to seek
sponsors for the match. FIDE set up a new system of qualifying tournaments
and matches. The world’s strongest players were seeded into “Interzonal
tournaments”, where they were joined by players who had qualified from
“Zonal tournaments”. The leading finishers in these Interzonals would go on
the “Candidates” stage, which was initially a tournament, later a series of
knock-out matches. The winner of the Candidates would then play the
reigning champion for the title. A champion defeated in a match had a right
to play a rematch a year later. This system worked on a three-year cycle.
The next championship, the so-called Match of the Century, saw the first
non-Soviet challenger since World War II, American Bobby Fischer, who
defeated his Candidates opponents by unheard-of margins and clearly won
the world championship match. In 1975, however, Fischer refused to defend
his title against Soviet Anatoly Karpov when FIDE refused to meet his
demands, and Karpov obtained the title by default. Karpov defended his title
twice against Viktor Korchnoi and dominated the 1970s and early 1980s
with a string of tournament successes.
9
Karpov’s reign ended in 1985 at the hands of another Russian player,

Garry Kasparov. Kasparov and Karpov contested five world title matches
between 1984 and 1990 and Karpov never won his title back.
In 1993, Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short broke with FIDE to organize
their own match for the title and formed a competing Professional Chess
Association (PCA). From then until 2006, there were two simultaneous
World Champions and World Championships: the PCA or Classical
champion extending the Steinitzian tradition in which the current champion
plays a challenger in a series of many games; the other following FIDE’s
new format of many players competing in a tournament to determine the
champion. Kasparov lost his Classical title in 2000 to Vladimir Kramnik of
Russia.
The FIDE World Chess Championship 2006 reunified the titles, when
Kramnik beat the FIDE World Champion Veselin Topalov and became the
undisputed World Chess Champion. In September 2007, Viswanathan
Anand became the next champion by winning a championship tournament.
The 2007 Undisputed World Chess Champion, the Indian Viswanathan Anand
So chess has gone back where it first evolved—in India—after almost two
thousand years. Or, was it in China? “What comes around goes around.”
10
11
In every chess game,

whether I win, draw, or lose
I will try to learn.
(A chess player’s haiku)
12
Chapter 2 – Learning and Playing Chess

Develop Character and
Sharpen the Mind
“Playing chess teaches you to think ahead,
to see the future consequences of current decisions.”
Eugene Brown
There are efforts to use the game of chess as a tool to aid the intellectual
development of young people. Due to the results of research studies, some
school districts and organizations are implementing chess programs.
In the U.S., the New York-based Chess-In-The-Schools, Inc., has been

active in the public school system in the city since 1986. It currently reaches
more than 30,000 students annually. The Americas Foundation for Chess
has initiated programs in partnership with local school districts in several
U.S. cities, including Seattle, San Diego, Philadelphia, and Tampa. The
Chess ‘n Math Association promotes chess at the scholastic level in Canada.
Chess for Success is a program for at-risk schools in Oregon.
At the collegiate level, the University of Texas at Dallas and the University
of Maryland, Baltimore County both recruit chess player-scholars and run
scholastic outreach programs in their respective communities.
Benjamin Franklin, in his article The Morals of Chess (1750), advocated

such a view:
“The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very

valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to
be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all
occasions; for life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to
gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which
there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree,
the effect of prudence, or the want of it. By playing at Chess then, we
may learn: 1st, Foresight, which looks a little into futurity, and
considers the consequences that may attend an action … 2nd,
Circumspection, which surveys the whole Chess-board, or scene of
13
action: - the relation of the several Pieces, and their situations;

…[and] 3rd, Caution, not to make our moves too hastily….”
The U.S. Chess Center in Washington, D.C. teaches chess to children,

especially those in the inner city, “as a means of improving their academic
and social skills.”
Alfred Binet—a French psychologist and inventor of
the first usable intelligence test, the basis of today’s IQ
tests—demonstrated in the late 19th century that good
chess players have superior memory and imagination.
Adriaan de Groot—a Dutch chess master and
psychologist—concurred with Alfred Binet that visual
memory and visual perception are important attributors
and that problem-solving ability is of paramount
Alfred Binet
importance.
There are a number of experiments that suggest that learning and playing
chess aids the mind. The United States Chess Federation’s chess research
bibliography collects such experimental results.
There is an extensive scientific literature on chess psychology. Alfred
Binet and others showed that knowledge and verbal, rather than visual-
spatial, ability lies at the core of expertise. Adriaan de Groot, in his doctoral
dissertation, showed that chess masters can rapidly perceive the key features
of a position. According to de Groot, this perception, made possible by years
of practice and study, is more important than the sheer ability to anticipate
moves. De Groot also showed that chess masters can memorize positions
shown for a few seconds almost perfectly. Memorization ability alone does
not account for this skill, since masters and novices, when faced with
random arrangements of chess pieces, had equivalent recall (about half a
dozen positions in each case). Rather, it is the ability to recognize patterns,
which are then memorized, which distinguished the skilled players from the
novices. When the positions of the pieces were taken from an actual game,
the masters had almost total positional recall.
More recent research has focused on the respective roles of knowledge and
look-ahead search; brain imaging studies of chess masters and novices;
blindfold chess; the role of personality and intelligence in chess skill, gender
differences, and computational models of chess expertise. In addition, the
role of practice and talent in the development of chess and other domains of
expertise has led to a lot of research recently. Ericsson and colleagues have
argued that deliberate practice is sufficient for reaching high levels of
expertise, like master in chess. However, more recent researches indicate
14
that factors other than practice are important. For example, Gobet and
colleagues have shown that stronger players start playing chess earlier in
life. My own research calls attention to the importance of scaffolding
technique in coaching: “I do, you watch; I do, you help; you do, I help; and
finally, you do, I watch.”
As mentioned earlier, there are now actual attempts to use the game of
chess as mental training in various countries. I wonder if soon we’ll have
“Chess” as a subject in all schools, or as a regular course in college.
I have been incorporating chess in my lessons in Philippine History, in
Introduction to Sociology, in General Psychology, and in the Jose Rizal
Course—with much satisfaction in my students and myself.
15
In terms of classroom management

and student achievement in both
quizzes and quality of projects
proposed and submitted, the learning
and playing of chess is very helpful
for me and for some of my
colleagues. Many of our students
narrated some of their outside-the-
classroom experiences in playing the
game, including meeting new friends
on-line, sharing analyses with other
people, and exploring old and new
chess variants. Some have also
created chess-related artworks using
various media. One of my students
majoring in culinary arts even baked
cookies shaped like chess pieces, in
dark and light colors! Of course, they
were literally eaten after a game.
16
Chapter 3 – Tactics in Chess,

Tactics in Life
“Chess is 99% tactics.”
Richard Teichmann.
In chess, a tactic refers to a short sequence of moves which limits the

opponent’s options and results in tangible gain. Tactics are usually
contrasted to strategy, in which advantages take longer to be realized, and
the opponent is less constrained in responding.
Just like in life where you focus more on short-term plans rather than long-
term ones, even masters in chess don’t usually focus on strategies but on
tactics, as the game proceeds. In life, many unexpected things can happen—
you might get sick or robbed, or your daughter might ask you to attend the
school program, etc. So in chess, your opponent’s next series of moves may
not be that predictable. Most people live life one day at a time; most chess
players use tactics and build winning advantages on them, rather than follow
a well-defined strategy.
The fundamental building blocks of tactics are two- or three-move

sequences in which the first move poses a double threat. The opponent is
unable to respond to both threats in one move, so the first player realizes an
advantage on the second move. This includes forks, skewers, discovered
attacks, x-ray attacks, undermining, overloading, and interference. Pins also
fall into this category to some extent, although it is common for a defending
player to relieve neither of the two threats posed by a pin, in which case the
attacking player commonly maintains the pin for a longer period of time. A
pin is therefore sometimes more strategic than tactical.
Frequently, tactics of several types are conjoined in a

combination. A combination, while still constraining the
opponent’s responses, takes several moves to obtain an
advantage, and thus is considered deeper and more
spectacular than the basic tactics listed above.
Chess computers are considered superhuman at tactics,

but rather spotty at strategy. Computers do not think about A PDA with
Pocket Fritz
17
tactics in human terms (fork, skewer, etc.); rather, they apply very simple
rules to evaluate hundreds of thousands of sequences, the vast majority of
which are spurious.
During the Second World War, British and American chess players were
actually employed as war tacticians and helped in breaking enemy codes.
Studying chess tactics in class, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde

Angelo King International Center
18
The Pin
“The pin is mightier than the sword.”
Fred Reinfeld
In chess, a pin is a situation brought on by an attacking piece in which a

defending piece cannot move without exposing a more valuable defending
piece on its other side to capture by the attacking piece. “To pin” refers to
the action of the attacking piece inducing the pin, and the defending piece so
restricted is described as pinned.
Only pieces that can move an indefinite number of squares in a horizontal,
vertical, or diagonal line, i.e., bishops, rooks and queens, can pin opposing
pieces. Kings, knights, and pawns cannot pin. Any piece may be pinned
except the king, since the king must be immediately removed from check
under all circumstances.
“The defensive power of a pinned piece is only imaginary.”

Aron Nimzowitsch
Types of Pin
In the diagram above, there is an absolute pin on the black knight as

moving it would illegally expose the black king to check from the white
19
bishop. There is a relative pin on the white knight as moving it would allow
capture of the white queen by the black rook.
An absolute pin is one where the piece shielded by the pinned piece is the
king. In this case it is illegal to move the pinned piece, as that would place
one’s king in check. A relative pin is one where the piece shielded by the
pinned piece is any piece other than the king. Moving such a pinned piece is
legal, but may not be prudent as the shielded piece would then be vulnerable
to capture.
Since the black queen is pinned to the black king by the white rook, the
queen cannot be moved off the e-file. This is an example of a partial pin.
If a rook or queen is pinned along a file, or a bishop or queen is pinned

along a diagonal, the pin is a partial pin: the pinned unit can still move
along its line but cannot leave that line. A partially pinned unit may break its
own pin by capturing the pinning piece; however, a partial pin can still be
advantageous to the pinning player, for instance if the queen is pinned by a
rook or bishop, and the pinning piece is defended, so that capturing it with
the queen would lose material. Note that a queen can only ever be partially
pinned, as it can move in any linear direction.
It is possible for two opposing pieces to be partially pinning each other. It

is also possible for one piece to be pinned in one direction and partially
pinned in another.
20
The act of breaking a pin is unpinning. This can be executed in a number

of ways: the piece creating the pin can be captured; another unit can be
moved onto the line of the pin; or the unit to which a piece is pinned can be
moved.
Although a pin is not a tactic in itself, it can be useful in tactical situations.

One tactic which takes advantage of a pin can be called working the pin. In
this tactic, other pieces from the pinning piece’s side attack the opposing
pinned piece. Since the pinned piece cannot move out of the line of attack,
the pinned piece’s player may move other pieces to defend the pinned piece,
but the pinning player may yet attack with even more pieces, etc. Pinning
can also be used in combination with other tactics. For example, a piece can
be pinned to prevent it from moving to attack, or a defending piece can be
pinned as part of tactic undermining an opponent’s defense. A pinned piece
can usually no longer be counted on as a defender of another friendly piece
(that is out of the pinning line of attack) or as an attacker of an opposing
piece (out of the pinning line). However, a pinned piece can still check the
opposing king – and therefore still can defend friendly pieces against
captures made by the enemy king.
A pin that frequently occurs in openings is the move Bb5 which, if Black
has moved …Nc6 and …d6 or …d5, pins the knight on c6, because moving
the knight would expose the king on e8 to check. (The same may, of course,
occur on the other flank, with a bishop on g5, or by Black on White, with a
bishop on b4 or g4.) A common way to win the queen is to pin her to the
king with a rook: for instance with the black queen on e5 and the black king
on e8 and no other pieces on the e-file, the move Re1 by White would pin
Black’s queen.
Sometimes in a chess game position, a piece may be considered to be in a

situational pin. In a situational pin, moving the pinned piece out of the line
of attack will result in a situation detrimental to the player of the pinned
piece, such as a checkmate. Although a situational pin is not an absolute pin
and the pinned piece can still be moved according to the rules, moving out
of line of attack can result in a bad situation or even immediate loss of the
game.
Consider the chess position shown next page. White has not castled or
moved the king or rook yet. The black bishop has just moved from e6 to d5,
making itself unprotected and available for capture by the white knight on
b4. It is now white’s turn to move. White should not capture the black
21
bishop because after 1. Nxd5, 1. .. Rb1+ wins white’s rook, because the
white king is forced to move away from the check, thereby exposing the
rook at h1 to attack and capture.
White to move
White’s knight should not capture the black bishop,
otherwise the rook at h1 will get captured.
This is an example of a situational pin.
I know someone who cannot leave his job because he has to protect
someone in his post. He is pinned to his present job, and will continue to be
relatively pinned unless he does something about it.
When you lend a good deal of money to someone you don’t know, or
invested the same in a business you don’t understand, that money is
somehow pinned. You won’t be able to use that money for the time being.
Its value becomes imaginary.
Furthermore, in countries like the Philippines where divorce is not legal,
getting married to someone you don’t love may also be viewed as getting
pinned for life, or at least, for as long as one’s spouse is alive.
So avoid getting into these situations. And if you got into this kind of
situations, try to get out of it, as quickly as you can.
22
The Fork
A fork is a tactic that uses one piece to attack two or more of the
opponent’s pieces at the same time, hoping to achieve material gain (by
capturing one of the opponent’s pieces) because the opponent can only
counter one of the two (or more) threats. The piece moving to make the
multiple attacks on the opponent’s pieces is the forking piece. The
opponent’s pieces which are attacked by the forking piece are ones which
are forked.
The white knight is forking the black king and rook. It is particularly
effective to fork a king because the rules in chess require immediate
attention to a threat to the king. In this situation, Black cannot choose to
defend another piece, nor can Black make an intermediate move
(zwischenzug) to complicate the situation; the king must be moved, after
which White can capture the rook.
In real life, we must look for schemes to “shoot two birds with one stone”.
For example, we may prefer using an insecticide that will kill two or more
types of pests at the same time. Or, when you brush your teeth, you better
use a “toothpaste and a mouthwash in one”.
Yes. In real life, we may also experience getting forked: like having two
problems at the same time. For instance, a man may get seriously sick at the
23
same time suffer from financial reversals. Such tragic situation should be
bravely but carefully handled.
The white queen is forking the black king, rook and bishop.
The white pawn is forking the black knights.
The black queen is forking the white rook, bishop and knight.
The black pawn is forking White’s minor pieces.
The type of fork is commonly named after the type of forking piece. For
example, in a knight fork, a knight moves to attack two or more opponent’s
pieces in the same move. Any type of piece may perform a fork, including a
king, and any type of piece can be forked.
Knights are often used for forks; they jump to a position where they
simultaneously attack two pieces and cannot be counterattacked.
A queen move also often attacks two pieces at the same time, but this
typically gains material only if both pieces are undefended, or if one is
undefended and the other is the opposing king. Since the queen is usually
more valuable than the pieces it is attacking, it usually only gains material
capturing undefended pieces. However, the possibility of a queen fork is a
very real threat when the queen is out in the open, as is often the case in an
endgame. A fork by a protected queen of the opposing queen and king (or an
24
undefended piece) can be useful if the forking player wants to force an

exchange of queens.
Pawns can also fork enemy pieces: by moving a pawn forward, it may
attack two pieces: one diagonally to the left and the other diagonally to the
right. In the diagram on page 23, the black pawn is forking the two white
rooks, while on facing page, a black pawn is forking a bishop and a knight,
while a white pawn forks two knights.
The term royal fork is sometimes used to describe the situation where the
king and queen are forked, and thus being the highest material gaining fork
possible.
Tissir-Dreev, 2004
Position after White’s 33rd move
The following example of a fork is from the first round of the FIDE World
Chess Championship 2004 between Mohamed Tissir and Alexey Dreev.
After 33…Nf2+ 34.Kg1 34…Nd3, White resigned. In the final position the
black knight is forking the white queen and rook, so that after the queen
moves away, white will lose the exchange.
Forks are often used as part of a combination which may involve other
types of chess tactics as well.
25
The Skewer
In chess, a skewer (or thrust) is an attack upon two pieces in a line and is
similar to a pin. In fact, a skewer is sometimes described as a “reverse pin”;
the difference is that in a skewer, the more valuable piece is in front of the
piece of lesser or equal value. The opponent is compelled to move the more
valuable piece to avoid its capture, thereby exposing the less valuable piece
which can then be captured. Only the long-range pieces (queen, rook, and
bishop) can skewer.
In the diagram above, with Black to move, the black queen is skewered by
White’s bishop. Black must move the queen, and on the next move, White
will capture the rook. This is a relative skewer; Black is likely to move the
queen, which is more valuable than the rook—but the choice is still
available.
In real life, we face skewers. I remember my friend getting held up by a

group somewhere in Cubao. My friend had to protect his wallet containing
much money, but in doing so, it exposed his purse containing less but still
substantial amount. And one of them got his purse. Fortunately, one of the
thieves was caught by the police. He was interrogated and it appeared that
he had to protect his group’s secrets. So, he disclosed just his own.
26
In the diagram above, with White to move, the white king is skewered by
the black bishop. This is an absolute skewer, because the rules of chess
compel White to move out of check. After White chooses one of the few
legal moves available, Black will capture the White’s queen.
The skewer is a direct attack upon the more valuable piece, therefore it is
generally a much more powerful and effective tactic than the pin. The victim
of a skewer often cannot avoid losing material (though it may be possible if,
for example, the more valuable piece can give check, thereby forcing the
skewering side to move out of check instead of being able to capture the
lesser piece, or if it is possible to move a less valuable piece in the way); the
only question is which material will be lost. The skewer occurs less often
than the pin in actual chess play. When it does occur, however, it is often
decisive.
In real life, be on the look out for skewers. Go to school, not only to
acquire skills and gain more knowledge, but also to make new friends and
fight boredom. Go to church not only to worship but also to fellowship with
your church mates.
Some businessmen apply the skewer concept in another way: they “attack”
several markets simultaneously. Mr. Gokongwei was not satisfied in
entering the airlines business (Cebu Pacific), but “attacked” the cellular
phone (Sun) and the beverage (C2) markets as well.
27
The Sacrifice
In chess, a sacrifice is a move giving up a piece or pawn in the hopes of
gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could
also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an
opponent’s piece of lower value.
Any chess piece except the king can be sacrificed. Because players usually
try to hold onto their own pieces, offering a sacrifice can come as an
unpleasant surprise to one’s opponent, putting him off balance, and causing
him to waste much precious time trying to calculate whether the sacrifice is
sound or not, and whether to accept it or not. Sacrificing one’s queen, or a
string of pieces, adds to the surprise, and such a game can be awarded a
brilliancy prize.
Types of sacrifice
True vs. Quasi
Sacrifices can be regarded as falling being either true sacrifices or quasi

sacrifices:
In a true sacrifice, the sacrificing player will often have to play on

with less material than his opponent for quite some time.
In a quasi sacrifice, the player offering the sacrifice will soon regain
the sacrificed material, or he may even gain more material than was
originally sacrificed. A quasi sacrifice of a pawn is more often
called a gambit.
A true sacrifice produces less direct results; therefore, it may not even be
clear even after several moves that the chances of the player who offered the
sacrifice are any better than they were before the sacrifice was initiated.
Because of this, true sacrifices are also called speculative sacrifices.
True sacrifices
Developmental. It is common to give up a pawn in the opening to speed

up one’s development. Many gambits fall into this category. Developing
sacrifices are frequently returned at some point by the opponent; else the
28
development edge might be leveraged to create more substantial threat

such as a kingside attack.
Strategic/positional. In a general sense, the aim of all true sacrifices is

to obtain a positional advantage. However, there are some speculative
sacrifices where the compensation is in the form of an open file or
diagonal or a weakness in the opponent’s pawn structure, and it is not
even clear how this might potentially be turned into something more
tangible. These are the hardest sacrifices to make; they require deep
strategic understanding.
The unexpected sacrifice 6.Bxf7+
Bishops Sacrifice. This involves sacrificing a bishop in the beginning

of the game to get an extra pawn and not allow the opponent to castle.
Attack on the king. A player might sacrifice a pawn or piece to get

open lines around the vicinity of the opponent’s king, to get a kingside
space advantage, to destroy or damage the opposing king’s pawn cover,
or to keep the opposing king in the center. However, the path to
checkmate might not be clear, and one might not exist. If the opponent
fends off the attack while managing to keep the material, they will
usually win the game. The Greek gift sacrifice is a canonical example.
29
Greek gift sacrifice: a classic
The Greek gift sacrifice or classical bishop sacrifice is a typical

sacrifice of a bishop by White playing Bxh7+ or Black playing Bxh2+.
A situation where the Greek sacrifice works
The position above, which might occur after the moves 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5
3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Nf3 Bb4 6.Bd3 O-O, is a simple case where the
Greek gift sacrifice works. White can play 7.Bxh7+! Kxh7 8.Ng5+ and
wins:
• 8...Kh8 9.Qh5+ Kg8 10.Qh7#

• 8...Kg8 9.Qh5 Re8 10.Qxf7+ Kh8 11.Qh5+ Kg8 12.Qh7+ Kf8
13.Qh8+ Ke7 14.Qxg7#
• 8...Kh6 9.Nxf7+ wins the queen
• 8...Kg6 9.h4 and there is no satisfactory way to meet the threat
of 10.h5+ Kh6 (10...Kf5 11.Qf3#) 11.Nxf7+
These variations are typical of many Greek gift sacrifices, though the
outcome is not always so clear-cut.
Greek gift sacrifices, or the threat of them, occur relatively frequently

in play, especially at the lower levels. One of the most famous examples
of the sacrifice is found in the game Edgard Colle – O’Hanlon, Nice
30
1930. Less commonly, a Greek gift sacrifice may be the prelude to a

double bishop sacrifice, as seen in the game Lasker - Bauer, Amsterdam
1889.
The etymology of the phrase “Greek gift” in this context is not entirely
clear. The obvious explanation is that it alludes to the Trojan Horse, and
specifically to Virgil’s famous “timeo danaos et dona ferentes” (“I fear
the Greeks even [when they are] bringing gifts”, Aeneid II.49). The
Oxford Companion to Chess, however, suggests that one explanation is
that the sacrifice often occurred in Gioachino Greco’s games.
Quasi sacrifices
Avoiding loss. A sacrifice could be made to force stalemate or perpetual

check, to create a fortress, or otherwise force a draw, or to avoid even
greater loss of material. Later, the tactical concepts, desperado and
swindle, will be discussed and they are about avoiding loss.
Checkmate. A common benefit of making a sacrifice is to allow the

sacrificing player to checkmate the opponent. Since checkmate is the
ultimate goal of chess, the loss of material (chess piece point value)
should not matter in a successful checkmate. Sacrifices leading to
checkmate are typically forcing, and often checks, leaving the opponent
with only one or a few options (example, checking the king with the
knight, queen takes the knight, then rook checkmates the king with
absence on the queen).
Material gain. A sacrifice might initiate a combination which results in

an overall loss material gain, making the upfront investment of the
sacrifice worthwhile. A sacrifice leading to a pawn promotion is a
special case of this type of sacrifice.
Simplification. Even if the sacrifice leads to net material loss for the
foreseeable future, the sacrificing player may benefit because they are
already ahead in material and the exchanges simplify the position
making it easier to win. A player ahead in material may decide that it is
worthwhile to get rid of one of the last effective pieces the opponent
has. (Similarly, in real life, some sell off their extra properties at bargain
prices or even give them away, to enable them to manage their lives
more easily.)
31
Other types of sacrifices
Forced vs. non-forced
Another way to classify sacrifices is to distinguish between forcing and

non-forcing sacrifices. The former type leave the opponent with no option
but acceptance, typically because not doing so would leave them behind in
material with no compensation. Non-forcing sacrifices, on the other hand,
give the opponent a choice. A common error is to fail to recognize that a
particular sacrifice can be safely declined with no ill-effects.
Miscellaneous sacrifices
A tactical sacrifice can be categorized further by how the sacrifice
works, although some sacrifices may fall into more than one category.
In deflection sacrifices the aim is to distract one of the opponent’s
pieces from a square where it is performing a particular duty.
In destruction sacrifices a piece is sacrificed in order to knock away a
materially inferior, but tactically more crucial piece, so that the
sacrificing player can gain control over the squares the taken
chessman controlled.
A magnet sacrifice is similar to a deflection sacrifice, but the
motivation behind a magnet sacrifice is to pull an opponent’s piece to
a tactically poor square, rather than pulling it away from a decisive
square.
In a clearance sacrifice the sacrificing player aims to vacate the
square the sacrificed piece stood on, either to open up for his own
pieces, or to put another, more useful piece on the same square.
In a tempo sacrifice, the sacrificing player abstains from spending
time to prevent the opponent from winning material because the time
saved can be used for something even more beneficial, for example
pursuing an attack on the king or guiding a passed pawn towards
promotion.
In a suicide sacrifice, the sacrificing player aims to rid himself of the
remaining pieces capable of performing legal moves, and thereby
obtain a stalemate and a draw from a poor position. The “suicidal
piece” or piece being sacrificed is called a desperado.
32
Examples of various types of sacrifices from real games
A deflection sacrifice
Levon Aronian – Peter Svidler

Tal Memorial Tournament, Moscow, 2006
Position after 24.exd4??
In the diagram above, Aronian’s queen on d3 is at the top of the ladder, and
his rook on d1 represents the bottom. He mistakenly played 24. exd4??,
opening up the e-file for black’s rook. After Svidler played 24. …Re1+!,
Aronian was forced to resign, because Black’s move forces the reply Rxe1
(or Qf1 Rxf1+ Rxf1 which amounts to the same thing), after which White’s
queen is undefended and therefore lost.
This particular type of sacrifice has also been called the “Hook and Ladder
trick”, for the White queen is precariously at the top of the “ladder”, while
the rook is at the bottom, supporting it.
In real life drama in 2004, millions of chickens in various places around

the world, were swiftly slaughtered and burned in a bid to prevent the spread
of avian flu, even where poultry is a multibillion-dollar industry and/or the
mainstay of local economy. This sacrifice deflected the virus that may
transmit to humans.
33
A sacrifice to avoid losing
Evans – Reshevsky, USA 1963.
Black played 21…Qxg3? and White drew with 22.Qg8+! Kxg8 (on any
other move Black gets mated) 23. Rxg7+!. White intends to keep checking
on the seventh rank, and if Black ever captures the rook it is stalemate.
This saving move from Evans has been dubbed “The Swindle of the
Century” in chess literature. White’s rook is known as a desperado piece.
What’s a Desperado?
In chess sacrifice, a desperado is a piece that seems determined to give

itself up, typically either: 1) to sell itself as dearly as possible in a situation
where both sides have hanging pieces, or, 2) to bring about stalemate if it is
captured (or in some instances, to force a draw by threefold repetition if it is
not captured) (Hooper & Whyld 1992:106-07). Andrew Soltis describes the
former type of desperado as “a tactical resource in which you use your
doomed piece to capture as much material as possible before it dies” (Soltis
1975:246).
I am devoting more space for this section on desperado because I think it

has some very important applications in real life!
34
Desperado: examples of the first definition
Bogolyubov–Schmid, West German Championship 1949
Position before Schmid played 5...Nxe4!?
A classic example of the first definition is the Bogolyubov–Schmid, West

German championship, Bad Pyrmont, 1949. In the position above, Schmid
played the surprising novelty 5...Nxe4!?, with the point that 6.Nxe4 would
be met by 6...Qe7 7.f3 d5, and Black will regain the sacrificed piece.
According to the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, White can then gain a
small advantage with 8.Bb5 Bd7 9.Bxc6 bxc6 10.0-0 dxe4 11.fxe4! g6 (or
11...0-0-0 12.Qf3) 12.Qf3 Bg7 13.c3 0-0 14.Bf4 c5 15.Nb3 Bc6 16.Qg3!
Tartakower and du Mont recommend 7.Nb5 (instead of 7.f3) Qxe4+ 8.Be2
Kd8 9.0-0 “with compensations for the mislaid pawn.” (Tartakower & du
Mont 1975:39-40). Instead, play continued 6.Nxc6 Nxc3! initiating a
sequence of desperado moves, where each player keeps capturing with his
knight, rather than pausing to capture the opponent’s knight. Black cannot
pause for 6...bxc6?? 7.Nxe4 Qe7 8.Qe2, leaving White a piece up with a
winning position. 7.Nxd8! White must also continue in desperado fashion,
since 7.bxc3? bxc6 would leave Black a pawn up. Nxd1 Again the
desperado move is forced, since 7...Kxd8?? 8.bxc3 would leave Black a
queen down. 8.Nxf7 Since 8.Kxd1 Kxd8 would leave White a pawn down,
the knight continues capturing. Nxf2 Still continuing in desperado fashion,
in preference to 8...Kxf7 9.Kxd1 with material equality. 9.Nxh8 Nxh1.
Between them, the desperado knights have captured thus far two queens,
two rooks, two knights, and three pawns.
35
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4 Nxe4!? 6.Nxc6 Nxc3
7.Nxd8 Nxd1 8.Nxf7 Nxf2 9.Nxh8 Nxh1 10.Bd3 Bc5 11.Bxh7 Nf2 12.Bf4
d6 13.Bg6+ Kf8 14.Bg3 Ng4 15.Nf7? Better is 15.Bd3 followed by Ng6+
“with a probable draw” (Tartakower & du Mont 1975:39-40). Ne3 16.Kd2
Bf5! 17.Ng5 Desperation. 17.Bxf5 Nxf5 18.Ng5 Be3+ wins. Bxg6 18.Ne6+
Ke7 19.Nxc5 Nxc2!
The desperado knight strikes again, this time with deadly effect. Not
19...dxc5? 20.Kxe3 with equality. 20.Bh4+ Ke8 21.Ne6 Kd7 22.Nf4 Nxa1
23.Nxg6 Re8 24.Bf2 Nc2! 25.Nf4 If 25.Kxc2, Re2+ followed by ...Rxf2
wins.
25. .. Nb4—The knight departs, having captured in its 13 moves White’s

queen, both rooks, a knight and three pawns; while its White counterpart
captured the queen, a rook, both bishops, a knight, and two pawns in its 14
moves. 0-1
Tal versus Keres
Tal–Keres, Candidates Tournament 1962
Position before Keres played 18...Nd3!
Another example of this first type of desperado is Tal-Keres, Candidates

Tournament, Curacao, 1962 (see diagram above). Seeing that White’s
knight on d4 is unprotected, Keres offered to simplify the position with 18. ..
36
Nd3!, when 19.Pxd3 Bxd4 20.Rb1? would allow 20...Qf6! forking White’s
b and f-pawns. Instead, Tal went in for complications with 19.Nc6? Nxf2!,
when either 20.Kxf2 Qb6+ or 20.Nxd8 Nxd1 21.Nxf7 Nxb2 22.Nxd6 Nc4!
23.Nxc4 Bxa1 would leave with a material advantage. Tal tried 20.Qf3?
Nxh3+! 21.Kh2 If White captures the knight, 21...Qb6+ regains the piece
and leaves Black with a won game. 21...Be5+! 22.Nxe5 dxe5 23.Rad1 If
23.gxh3, Qxd2. 23...Nf4! Now 24.Bxf4 is met by 24...Qh4+. Black won
(Soltis 1975:247-48).
A lesson in real life: if you are desperately looking for a job, sell your
skills as dearly as possible in a situation where both you and the company
have hanging futures.
Desperado: examples of the second definition
Pilnick-Reshevsky, US Championship, 1942
Black moved 51... g4??, White replied 52. Qf2!
One of the best known examples of sacrificing a desperado piece to

achieve stalemate is the game between Carl Pilnick and Sammy Reshevsky,
U.S. Championship 1942 (see diagram above). After 51. .. g4?? 52. Qf2! the
white queen is a desperado piece: Black will lose if he doesn’t capture it, but
its capture results in stalemate.
37
A lesson in real life: there are times when you are already winning; then
something terrible happens that threatens to eat up all your winnings. Let go
of your winnings and settle for a draw, rather lose everything.
Reshevsky versus Geller: Falling into a Stalemate Trap
Reshevsky-Geller, Zürich 1953
Position after 53... Rf3+!
Reshevsky also fell into a stalemating trap against Efim Geller in the 1953
Candidates Tournament. In the diagram above, after 53. .. Rf3+!, 54. Kxf3
would be stalemate. If 54. Kg2, then 54... Rxg3+! and again White couldn’t
take the rook without resulting in stalemate, and Black has won a crucial
pawn, thus enabling him to draw the ending. In light of the aforementioned
games, the Russian analyst Verkhovsky remarked that Reshevsky apparently
suffered from stalemate blindness.
A lesson in real life: keep an eye on your gains in life —possessions and
position. Unforeseen events happen from time-to-time that may take your
gains away. And unforeseen events like these may, unfortunately, come
more than once.
38
Keres versus Fischer:

Successful Search for a Stalemate Opportunity
Another famous game saved by the opportunity of stalemate is Keres-

Fischer, Curacao 1962, although Fischer avoided the stalemating lines and
allowed Keres to draw by perpetual check instead. In the position shown
below, Keres played the centralizing 72. Qe5!!
Fischer commented:
What’s this? He makes no attempt to stop me from queening!?

Gradually my excitement subsided. The more I studied the situation,
the more I realized that Black had no win.
Keres-Fischer, 1962
Position after 71... Kh7
Lesson in real life: If life seems dark and difficult, don’t be afraid to go on
even when you have a formidable opponent (like Fischer). You can still
manage to clinch a draw. How many failing students in a difficult course
have managed to pass that course, by patiently going through every lecture,
and every examination?
39
Keres–Fischer, 1962
Position after 75. Qg6+! if 73... g1=Q, 74. Qh5+ Kg7
Now if 72. ... g1(Q), 73. Bf5+ Kg8 (73. ... Kh6?? 74.Qh8#) 74.Qe8+ Kg7
75. Qe7+ Kg8 (75...Kh8?? 76.Qh7#) 76.Qe8+ draws by repetition; if 72. ...
Qf2+, 73.Kh3 g1(Q) 74.Bf5+ Kh6 75. Qf6+ Kh5 76. Bg6+! Qxg6 77.
Qg5+!! and either capture is stalemate.
The game continued 72. .. Qh1+ 73. Bh3. Now if 73... g1=Q, 74. Qh5+
Kg7 75. Qg6+! and either capture of the queen results in stalemate (see the
diagram above) – otherwise the white queen keeps checking the black king:
75...Kh8 76. Qh6+ Kg8 77. Qg6+! Kf8 78. Qf6+ Ke8 79. Qe6+, and Black
must repeat moves with 79...Kf8, since 79...Kd8?? runs into 80.Qd7#
(Fischer 1969:233).
The game continued 73... Qxh3 74. Kxh3 g1Q 75. Qe7+ Kh8
76. Qf8+ Kh7
77. Qf7+ ½-½. Draw. Wasn’t Fischer “robbed” of the victory he

was expecting? Later, the related term ‘swindle’ as used in chess will be
explained.
40
Tilberger versus Drelikiewicz:

Getting Rid of Too Much Possessions
Sometimes it is possible for the inferior side to sacrifice two or three pieces
in rapid succession to achieve a stalemate. An example is seen in the
diagram below. Black managed to secure a draw with 51...h3+! 52.Kxh3
Qf5+! 53.Qxf5 not 53.Kg2? Qxd7 Rxg3+! 54.Kh4 Rg4+!
Tilberger-Drelikiewicz, Poland 1970
Black to move and achieve a draw
Lessons in real life: when you find yourself losing in life, getting rid of
several possessions may save you from losing everything. Try to manage a
draw, rather than lose the whole situation. For example, in driving your car
there are times when you may have to give in, even if you have the right of
way, in order for you to avoid getting hit or getting an inconvenient scratch.
Another example may be about marital fights. You may have to give in,
even if you believe that you’re right, and your spouse is wrong. Otherwise,
you may lose your love forever.
41
Korchnoi versus Vaganian:

Desperado and Swindle are interrelated
Korchnoi-Vaganian, 1989
Black to move and swindle White to a draw
In Korchnoi-Vaganian, Skellefteå 1989, a similar three-piece sacrifice

might have enabled Vaganian to save the game. From the position at left,
Vaganian played 35...Qxc2+? 36.Kh3 Qa4 37.Kh4. Jacob Aagaard notes
that now “White had a winning endgame, which Korchnoi indeed won.”
Aagaard instead recommends 35...b6!!, when the natural 36.Qxc6 would be
met by 36...Ne3+! 37.Rxe3 Qf1+! (diagram next page) 38.Kxf1 stalemate
(Aagaard 2004:28).
In chess, a swindle is a ruse by which a player in a losing position tricks his

opponent, and thereby achieves a win or draw instead of the expected loss. It
may also refer more generally to obtaining a win or draw from a clearly
losing position. I. A. Horowitz and Fred Reinfeld distinguish among “traps”,
“pitfalls”, and “swindles”. In their terminology, a “trap” refers to a situation
where a player goes wrong through his own efforts. In a “pitfall”, the
beneficiary of the pitfall plays an active role, creating a situation where a
plausible move by the opponent will turn out badly. A “swindle” is a pitfall
adopted by a player who has a clearly lost game. Horowitz and Reinfeld
observe that swindles, “though ignored in virtually all chess books”, play an
42
enormously important role in over-the-board chess, and decide the outcome

of innumerable games.
Korchnoi-Vaganian
Position after 37...Qf1+!
Although “swindling” in general usage is synonymous with cheating or

fraud, in chess the term does not imply that the swindler has done anything
unethical or unsportsmanlike. There is nonetheless a faint stigma attached to
swindles, since players feel that one who has outplayed one’s opponent for
almost the entire game is morally entitled to victory. However, the best
swindles can be quite artistic and have become famous.
There are ways that a player can maximize the chances of pulling off a
swindle, including being sharp-eyed, playing actively and exploiting time
pressure. Although swindles can be accomplished in many different ways,
themes such as stalemate, perpetual check, and surprise mating attacks are
often seen.
The ability to swindle one’s way out of a lost position is a useful skill for
any chess player, but Frank Marshall may be the only player who has
become well known as a frequent swindler. Marshall was proud of his
reputation for swindles, and even wrote a book entitled Marshall’s Chess
Swindles (1914).
43
Korn versus Pitschak:

Black was swindled by White to a draw
Korn-Pitschak, 1936
Position before 31. .. d3xe2!
In Korn-Pitschak, Brno 1936, White’s desperado queen and rook salvaged

a draw despite Black’s attacking passed pawn. After 31...dxe2!, Black
appeared to be winning in view of 32.Qxd4 exf1(=Q)+ or 32.Qxe2 Qh4+
33.Kg1 Qh2#. Instead, Korn played 32.Rf8+! Kxf8 33.Qf5+ Ke8 2...Kg8?
33.Qf7+ Kh8 34.Qf8# 34.Qf7+ Kd8 35.Qf8+! Ne8 36.Qe7+! Now
36...Kxe7 is stalemate, while 36...Kc8 37.Qb7+! Kd8 38.Qe7+! repeats the
position (Korn 1966:16) (Pachman 1973:17-18).
In life, besides the noble art of winning, there seems to be a nobler art of
preventing total loss. There is wisdom in the avoidance of complete loss,
which engineers and managers call damage control.
44
Korn-Pitschak, 1936
Position after 36.Qe7+!
Again: when you find yourself losing in life, getting rid of several
possessions may save you from losing everything. Holding on to them may
only lead you to completely losing them and losing all.
The worst you can do is to give up without even trying. Yes, the worst
thing you can do is to end your life. Suicide is cowardice. It is like resigning
in chess when the game’s outcome is not very clear. We must all be brave
enough to face life even in the most trying times.
45
Hedge versus Palatnik:

Black could have swindled White to a draw
Hedge-Palatnik, 1988
Black to move
Black can draw by 71... Bg7!
An example with only a few pieces is this position from a 1988 game
between Hedge and S. Palatnik. Black resigned in this position, but he could
have easily secured a draw:
• 71... Bg7!
• 72. Rh4 Bd4!, etc. (Dvoretsky 2006:237). Capturing the bishop
results in stalemate, otherwise the bishop keeps the rook from
checking on the eighth rank.
In real life, you are to strive to finish your goals. Don’t give up too early.
Don’t give up too easily. Keep in mind our numerous examples on the
desperado. Prepare for the worst but hope for the best.
“No game was ever won by resigning.”

Savielly Tartakover
46
A non-forcing sacrifice
Najdorf – Reshevsky, 1952
Position after h2-h4
This time Reshevsky is at the receiving end of a sacrifice. White has just
played h2-h4. If Black takes the knight he will soon get mated on the h-file,
but he simply ignored the bait and continued developing.
In real life, if you are at the receiving end of a sacrifice, it would be wise to
check what the other person is up to. He may be up to something sinister, or
up to something that may put you in trouble. At times, simply ignoring the
offer (“sacrifice,” “bargain price,” etc.) is an option.
On the other hand, in real life, some “good” sacrifices are at times ignored:
a man’s sacrificial gifts be ignored by the woman he is courting; and even
the sacrifices of parents may be ignored by their, alas, very own children. So
what do we do if our sacrifices are ignored? Just sit tight, and continue with
the game of life.
47
A positional sacrifice
Spassky – Tal, Moscow 1971
Black played 1… d4! 2. Nxd4 Nd5. In exchange for the sacrificed pawn,
Black has obtained a semi-open file, a diagonal, an outpost on d5 and
saddled White with a backward pawn on d3. However, it is by no means
clear that this is adequate compensation—the game was eventually drawn.
In real life, sacrifice is something difficult for most people, and I am no

exception. However, I was able to learn a lot about it through my own
experience. If you are able to sacrifice your own happiness at one time, it
does eventually return to you an even better outcome. I think this is
something young people should try to understand. There are too many
young people who starve themselves from the best lives they can have
because they only focus on now, on their own present physical satisfaction.
Of course you must enjoy yourself, that is only human, but knowing
moderation and how to treat schooling and related things with high priority
are imperative. It seems a lot of young people rely too much on friends and
social situations to make them happy. They must learn to sacrifice to avoid
losing their lives, in a manner of speaking, in the future.
Yet, similarly, it is by no means crystal clear that a person’s sacrifice will

always yield adequate compensation. I know of a few good, sacrificing
people who still failed to make it in life.
48
“Adequate compensation for a sacrifice is

having a sound combination leading to a winning position;
adequate compensation for a blunder is
having your opponent snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.”
Reuben Fine
(Above, Black delivered a bewildering knight sacrifice)
“One of the many qualities that determine a good chess game

is a surprising sacrifice.”
Susan Polgar
49
“The chessboard is the world,

the pieces are the phenomena of the Universe,
the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature
and the player on the other side is hidden from us.”
Thomas Huxley
50
Chapter 4 – Selected Chess Games

for Great Lessons in Life
“Chess is Life”
Bobby Fischer
We learn valuable life principles from biographies of great men. We are

taught about Abraham Lincoln, Mohandas Gandhi, and/or Jose Rizal.
Business schools take up the experiences and tactics of Bill Gates, of Henry
Sy, of John Gokong-wei, etc.
Of course, we can get valuable life lessons also from chess games,
especially the brilliant ones. The following are ten notable chess games,
selected for their illustrative lessons, in chronological order.
The Immortal Game

between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky
The Immortal Game was played on June 21, 1851 by Adolf

Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. The very bold sacrifices
made by Anderssen to finally secure victory have made it one
of the most famous chess games of all time. Anderssen gave
up both rooks and then his queen, checkmating his opponent
with his three remaining minor pieces. It has been called an
achievement “perhaps unparalleled in chess literature”
(Hartston, 1996). The following annotated moves of the game
show the reason:
White: Adolf Anderssen

(Actually, Anderssen was playing with the Black pieces, but moved
first and therefore, is shown here as playing White, to match modern
chess convention.)
Black: Lionel Kieseritzky
Opening: King’s Gambit (C33 in Encyclopedia of Chess Openings)
1. e4 e5 2. f4
51
This is the King’s Gambit: Anderssen offers his pawn in exchange

for faster development. Although this was a common opening in the
nineteenth century, it is less common today, as defensive techniques
have improved since Anderssen’s time.
2. .. exf4
Kieseritzky accepts the gambit; this variant is thus called the

King’s Gambit Accepted.
3. Bc4 Qh4+?!
The Bishop’s Gambit: Black’s move will force White to move his
king and White will not be able to castle, but this move also places
Black’s queen in peril, and White can eventually attack it with a
gain in tempo with Ng1-f3.
Position after 4. .. b5?
4. Kf1 b5?!
This is the Bryan Counter-gambit, deeply analyzed by Kieseritzky,

and sometimes bears his name. It is not considered a good move by
most players today.
5. Bxb5 Nf6 6. Nf3

52
This is a common developing move, but the knight now attacks

Black’s queen, forcing Black to protect it instead of developing his
own side.
6. .. Qh6 7. d3
With this move, White now has solidified control over the critical
center of the board. German grandmaster Robert Hübner
recommends 7. Nc3 instead.
7. .. Nh5
This move threatens Ng3+, and it protects the pawn at f4, but it
also sidelines the knight to a poor position at the edge of the board,
where knights are the least powerful.
8. Nh4 Qg5
Better was 8. .. g6, according to Kieseritzky.
9. Nf5 c6
This simultaneously unpins the queen pawn and attacks the bishop.
However, some have suggested 9. .. g6 would be better, to deal with
a very troublesome knight. Notice how the players in those days
developed one or two pieces, then moved them several times.
Position after 11. Rg1!
53
10. g4 Nf6 11. Rg1!
This is an advantageous passive piece sacrifice. If Black accepts,

his queen will be moved away from the action, giving White a lead
in development.
11. .. cxb5?
Hübner believes this was Black’s critical mistake; this gains

material, but loses in development, at a point where White’s strong
development is able to quickly mount an offensive. Hübner
recommends 11. .. h5 instead.
12. h4!
White’s knight at f5 protects the pawn, which is attacking Black’s

queen.
12. .. Qg6 13. h5 Qg5 14. Qf3
White (Anderssen) now has two threats:
• Bxf4, which will trap Black’s queen (the queen has no safe
place to go),
• e5, which would attack Black’s knight at f6 while
simultaneously exposing an attack by White’s queen on the
unprotected black rook at a8.
14. .. Ng8
This deals with the threats, but prevents Black from developing
even further — now the only Black piece not on its starting square
is the queen, which is about to be put on the run, while White has
control over a great deal of the board.
15. Bxf4 Qf6 16. Nc3 Bc5
This is an ordinary developing move by Black, which also attacks

the rook at g1.
54
17. Nd5!?
White responds to the attack with a counter-attack. This move

threatens Nc7, which would fork the king and rook. Richard Réti
recommends 17. d4 .. 18. Nd5, which results in an advantage for
White.
Position after 17… Qxb2
17. .. Qxb2
Black gains a pawn, and threatens to gain the rook at a1 with check.
18. Bd6!
With this move White offers to sacrifice both his rooks. Hübner
comments that, from this position, there are actually many ways to
win, and he believes there are at least three better moves than 18.
Bd6: 18. d4, 18. Be3, or 18. Re1, which lead to strong positions or
checkmate without needing to sacrifice so much material.
The commercial version of the chess-playing computer program

Junior recommends 18. Nc7+, followed by Re1.
Garry Kasparov has pointed out that the world of chess would have
lost one of its “crown jewels” if the game had continued in such an
55
unspectacular fashion. The Bd6 move is extraordinary, because

White is willing to give up so much material.
18. .. Bxg1?
It is from this move that Black’s defeat stems. Wilhelm Steinitz

suggested in 1879 that a better move would be 18… Qxa1+; likely
moves to follow are 19. Ke2 Qb2 20. Kd2 Bxg1.
19. e5!
This sacrifices yet another White rook. More importantly, this

move blocks the Queen from participating in the defense of her
king, and threatening mate in 2: 29. Nxg7+ Kd8 30. Bc7#.
19. .. Qxa1+ 20. Ke2
At this point, Black’s attack has run out of power; Black has a
queen and bishop on the back rank, but cannot effectively mount an
immediate attack on White, while White can storm forward.
According to Kieseritzky, he resigned at this point. Hübner notes
that an article by Friedrich Amelung in the journal Baltische
Schachblaetter, 1893, reported that Kiesertizky probably played 20.
.. Na6, but Anderssen then announced the mating moves. In any
case, it is suspected that the last few moves were not actually played
on the board in the original game.
20. .. Na6
The Black Knight covers the c7 square as White was threatening

21. Nxg7+ Kd8 and 22. Bc7#.
Another attempt to defend would be 20… Ba6 allowing the Black

King to flee via Kc8 and Kb7, although White has enough with the
continuation 21. Nc7+ Kd8 and 22 Nxa6 where now on 22… Qxa2
to defend f7 against Bc7+, Nd6+ and Qf7#, White can play 23.
Bc7+ Ke8 24. Nb4 d5 25. Nd6+ and White wins or 22… Bb6
(preventing Bc7+) 23. Qa8 Qc3 24. Qxb8 Qc8 25. Qxc8 Kxc8 26.
Bf8 h6 27. Nd6+ Kd8 28. Nxf7+ Ke8 29. Nxh8 Kxf8 with a
winning endgame for White.
56
Does the game warn against material greed? In real life, we all
know the dangers of becoming very materialistic at the expense of
our family. Who has not heard of that story of an overseas worker
who got rich, but lost his wife to another man? “For what is a man
profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or
what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” —Matthew 16:26.
Position after 22. Qf6+
21. Nxg7+ Kd8 22. Qf6+!
This is a brilliant Queen sacrifice. It forces Black to give up his

defense of e7.
22. .. Nxf6 23. Be7# 1-0
At the end, Black is ahead in material by a considerable margin: a

queen, two rooks and a bishop. But the material does not help
Black. White has been able to use his remaining pieces–two knights
and a bishop–to force mate. Very, very beautiful, I think.
How come, Savielly Tartakower described this game, simply as “a

beautiful game”? In real life, what one may consider outstanding
and very, very beautiful may be just a little above the ordinary to
another. Oftentimes, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” That’s
one thing mysterious in life.
57
“The memory of the just is blessed….”

Proverbs 10:7
“La Toujours Jeune”
“A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving

favor rather than silver and gold.”
Proverbs 22:1
58
The Evergreen Game

between Adolf Anderssen and Jean Dufresne
This a famous chess game played in 1852 between Adolf

Anderssen and Jean Dufresne. (According to biographies, both men
“lived quiet, stable, responsible, respectable, middle-class lives.”)
Adolf Anderssen was one of the strongest players of his time, and
was considered by many to be the world champion after winning the
1851 London tournament. Jean Dufresne, a popular author of chess
books, was a master of lesser but still considerable skill.
This was an informal game, like the Immortal Game. Wilhelm
Steinitz later identified the game as being the “evergreen in
Anderssen’s laurel wreath,” giving this game its name. The German
word Immergrün (Evergreen), used by Steinitz, refers to a specific
evergreen plant, called periwinkle (Vinca) in English. The symbolic
meaning is expressed in the French translation, “The Forever Young
Game” (La Toujours Jeune).
White: Anderssen
Black: Dufresne
Opening: Evans Gambit, C52
The position after 7. .. d3?!
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4
59
This is the “Evans Gambit”, a popular opening in the 19th century

and still seen occasionally today. White gives up material to gain an
advantage in development.
4. .. Bxb4 5. c3 Ba5 6. d4 exd4 7. O-O d3?!
This is not considered to be a good response; alternatives include

7… dxc3 or 7… d6.
8. Qb3!?
This immediately attacks the f7 pawn, but FIDE Master Graham

Burgess suggests 8. Re1 instead (Burgess, Nunn & Emms 2004:20).
8. .. Qf6 9. e5 Qg6
White’s e5 pawn cannot be captured; if 9. .. Nxe5, then 10. Re1 d6

11. Qa4+, forking the king and bishop for the win of a piece.
The position after 10. Re1!
10. Re1! Nge7 11. Ba3 b5?!
Rather than defending his own position, black offers a counter-

sacrifice to activate his queen’s rook with tempo. Burgess suggests
60
11. .. a6 instead to allow the b-pawn to advance later with tempo

(Burgess, Nunn & Emms 2004:21).
12. Qxb5 Rb8 13. Qa4 Bb6
Black cannot castle here because 14. Bxe7 would win a piece as the
knight on c6 cannot simultaneously protect the knight on e7 and the
bishop on a5.
14. Nbd2 Bb7 15. Ne4 Qf5? 16. Bxd3 Qh5 17. Nf6+!?
This is a beautiful sacrifice, although Burgess notes that 17. Ng3

Qh6 18. Bc1 Qe6 19. Bc4 wins material in a much simpler way
(Burgess, Nunn & Emms 2004:21-22).
The position after 19. .. Qxf3
17. .. gxf6 18. exf6 Rg8 19. Rad1 Qxf3?
After 19… Qxf3 The black queen cannot be captured because the
rook on g8 pins the white pawn on g2 (see position). Black now
threatens to take either on f2 or g2, both major threats endangering
the white king, however there is a shattering resource available.
20. Rxe7+! Nxe7
61
The alternative passive response of 20. .. Kd8 does hold for while
but White is better after 21. Rxd7+ Kc8 22. Rd8+ (22…Rxd8 23.
gxf3 +-) Kxd8 23. Bf5+ Qxd1 24. Qxd1+ Nd4 25. g3
21. Qxd7+! Kxd7 22. Bf5+
Double checks are dangerous because they force the king to move.
Here it is not only dangerous but decisive.
The final position after 24. Bxe7#
22. .. Ke8 (22. .. Kc6 loses to 23. Bd7 checkmate)
23. Bd7+ Kf8 24. Bxe7# 1-0
Well, 23. .. Kd8 is mated by 24. Bxe7# or by 24. fxe7#
Savielly Tartakower said, “A combination second to none in the

literature of the game.” (Tartakower & du Mont 1975:35)
62
The Opera Game between Paul Morphy and two allies,

the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard
The Opera Game was a famous game played in 1858 between the
American chess master Paul Morphy and two strong amateurs, the
German noble Duke Karl of Brunswick and the French aristocrat
Count Isouard, who consulted, playing together as partners against
Morphy.
This game is often used by chess teachers to demonstrate the

importance of rapidly developing one’s pieces, consolidation of
forces, as well as other lessons.
White: Paul Morphy

Black: Duke of Brunswick/Count Isouard
Opening: Philidor Defense, C41
Paris, France, 1858.
The position after 7. .. Qe7
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 Bg4 (?)
Though criticized today, this was standard theory at the time. Now
3…exd4 or 3…Nf6 are the usual moves, while 3…f5 is a more
aggressive alternative.
63
4. dxe5 Bxf3
If … dxe5, then 5. Qxd8+ Kxd8 6. Nxe5 and White wins a pawn

and Black has lost the ability to castle. Black, however, did have the
option of 4…Nd7 5.exd6 Bxd6, when he’s down a pawn, but has
some compensation in the form of better development.
5. Qxf3 dxe5
6. Bc4 Nf6
This seemingly sound developing move runs into a surprising

refutation. After White’s next move, both f7 and b7 will be under
attack.
7. Qb3 Qe7 (see diagram on page 63)
Black’s only good move. Almost all of Black’s moves lead to

checkmate, for example 7. .. Nc6 8. Bxf7 Ke7 9. Qe6#. 7. .. Qd7
loses the rook to 8. Qxb7 followed by 9. Qxa8. Black is forced to
move the queen to e7 which blocks the f8 bishop and more
importantly impedes kingside castling.
8. Nc3
White prefers fast development to material. He declines to win a

pawn with 8. Qxb7 Qb4+ (the only way to avoid loss of the rook) 9.
Qxb4, or to win two with 8. Bxf7+ Kd8 (or 8. .. Qxf7 9. Qxb7 and
now Black cannot avoid loss of the rook) 9. Qxb7, preferring to
mass his forces for a quick checkmate and get back to the opera.
8. .. c6
9. Bg5 b5 (?)
10. Nxb5!
Morphy chooses not to retreat the bishop, which would allow Black
to gain time for development. Black’s move 9. .. b5 loses but it is
64
difficult to find anything better; for example 9 … Na6 10.Bxf6 gxf6

11.Bxa6 bxa6 12.Qa4 Qb7 and Black’s position is in a mess.
10. .. cxb5?
Black could have played 10…Qb4+, which would have forced

Morphy to exchange queens, although White would retain a clearly
won game.
The position after 12. .. Rd8
11. Bxb5+ Nbd7

12. 0-0-0
The combination of the bishop’s pin on the knight and the open file
for the rook will lead to Black’s defeat.
12. .. Rd8 (see diagram above)
13. Rxd7 Rxd7
14. Rd1 Qe6
Compare the activity of the White pieces with the idleness of the
Black pieces.
15. Bxd7+ Nxd7
65
If … Qxd7, then 16. Qb8+ Ke7 17. Qxe5+ Kd8 18. Bxf6+ gxf6 19.
Qxf6+ Kc8 20. Rxd7 Kxd7 21. Qxh8 and White is clearly winning.
16. Qb8+!
Morphy finishes with a stylish queen sacrifice.
The final position

16. .. Nxb8 17. Rd8# 1-0.
66
Lasker – Bauer, Amsterdam 1889
This game between Emanuel Lasker and Johann Bauer played in

Amsterdam in 1889 is one of the most famous of all time on account
of Lasker’s sacrifice of both bishops to strip away the pawn cover
around his opponent’s king and win material.
The same sacrificial pattern as seen in this game has been echoed
in a number of later games, notable examples including Nimzovich-
Tarrasch, St Petersburg 1914; Miles-Browne, Lucerne 1982; and
Polgar-Karpov, 7th Essent 2003.
The game was played right at the beginning of Lasker’s career in
the first round of the 1889 Amsterdam tournament, the first high-
level closed tournament Lasker participated in. Lasker finished the
tournament in second place with 6/8, a point behind the winner
Amos Burn and ahead of James Mason and Isidor Gunsberg, among
others. Bauer finished sixth of the nine participants with 3.5/8.
It is interesting that a similar sacrifice occurred already in Burn-
Owen, 1884, but in this case the sacrifice was not correct and Owen,
who conducted it, lost the game. Nevertheless it may have been an
inspiration for Lasker.
White: Emanuel Lasker

Black: Johann Bauer
Opening: Bird’s Opening, A03
Position after 14…Nxh5

67
1.f4 d5 2.e3 Nf6 3.b3 e6 4.Bb2 Be7 5.Bd3 b6 6.Nc3

Bb7 7.Nf3 Nbd7 8.O-O O-O 9.Ne2 c5 10.Ng3 Qc7
11.Ne5 Nxe5 12.Bxe5 Qc6 13.Qe2 a6 14.Nh5 Nxh5 (see
diagram on page 67)
Now the simple recapture 15.Qxh5, threatening 16.Qxh7# is met by

15…f5, when it is not easy for white to prove an advantage. Instead,
Lasker unleashes his famous double sacrifice, winning material and
the game by force.
15.Bxh7+! Kxh7 16.Qxh5+ Kg8 17.Bxg7! Kxg7
Refusing the second bishop does not save Black: 17…f5 loses to
18.Be5 Rf6 19.Rf3 with Rg3 to follow, and 17…f6 loses to 18.Bh6.
18.Qg4+ Kh7 19.Rf3
Black must give up his queen to avoid mate.
19…e5 20.Rh3+ Qh6 21.Rxh6+ Kxh6 22.Qd7
Were it not for this move, forking the two bishops, Black would
have adequate compensation for his queen, but now Lasker has a
decisive material advantage. Now Lasker converts this advantage
into the win.
22…Bf6 23.Qxb7 Kg7 24.Rf1 Rab8
25.Qd7 Rfd8 26.Qg4+ Kf8 27.fxe5 Bg7
28.e6 Rb7 29.Qg6 f6 30.Rxf6+ Bxf6 31.Qxf6+ Ke8
32.Qh8+ Ke7 33.Qg7+ Kxe6 34. Qxb7 Rd6
35. Qxa6 d4 36.exd4 cxd4 37. h4 d3
38. Qxd3 Black resigns
68
The Polish Immortal, Glucksberg vs. Najdorf 1928.
The Polish Immortal is the name given to a famous chess game

between Glinksberg and Miguel Najdorf played in Warsaw, Poland.
Some sources give its date as circa 1930, and give the name of the
player of the white pieces as “Glucksberg.” Garry Kasparov gives
the date of the game as 1928, and the name of Najdorf’s opponent
as “Glinksberg,” attributing these facts to Najdorf and his daughter.
In this game Black sacrificed all four of his minor pieces.
1.d4 f5 2.c4 Nf6 3.Nc3 e6
The Dutch Defense, A85 in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings
4.Nf3 d5 5.e3 c6 6.Bd3 Bd6
7.0-0 0-0 8.Ne2 Nbd7 9.Ng5
Well, 9.Ng5 looks like an elementary blunder, losing a pawn, but in

fact the position is more complicated than that.
9. .. Bxh2+!
10.Kh1!?
After 10. Kxh2 Ng4+ 11. Kh1 Qxg5 Black is up a pawn for nothing.
After 10. Kh1, White threatens both Nxe6, winning material, or to
trap Black’s bishop with g3 or f4.
10. .. Ng4!
11.f4
Defending White’s knight on g5 and cutting off the escape route of

Black’s bishop; not 11. Nxe6? Qh4!
11. .. Qe8 12.g3 Qh5 13.Kg2
White has surrounded Black’s bishop and threatens to win it with

Rh1, Nf3, and Nxh2 as shown in the diagram next page.
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Position after 13.Kg2
13. .. Bg1!!
Najdorf is sacrificing the bishop in order to continue the attack on

White’s king.
14.Nxg1
Not 14.Kxg1? because Qh2#; or 14.Rxg1? Qh2+ and 15…Qf2#
14. .. Qh2+ 15.Kf3 e5! 16.dxe5 Ndxe5+ 17fxe5 Nxe5+
18.Kf4 Ng6+ 19.Kf3 f4!! 20.exf4
If 20.Bxg6 Bg4+ 21.Kxg4 Qxg3+ 22.Kh5 hxg6+

23.Kxg6 Rf6+ 24.Kh5 Rh6#
20. .. Bg4+!!
21.Kxg4 Ne5+!
22. fxe5 h5# 0-1.
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The Peruvian Immortal, Peruvian Master Esteban Canal

versus amateur N.N. (sacrifice of two rooks and queen)
The Peruvian Immortal is the name given to a spectacular chess

game played by the Peruvian master (later grandmaster) Esteban
Canal against an unknown amateur in a simultaneous exhibition he
gave at Budapest in 1934. In just 14 moves, Canal sacrificed both
his rooks and his queen, finishing with a mate by the two criss-
crossing bishops (known as Boden’s mate).
Du Mont calls it, “A charming game.” Irving Chernev writes, “In

13 moves, Canal sacrifices both Rooks and his Queen—and then
mates on his 14th move! … A man might play a million games of
chess and never duplicate Canal’s feat.” Fred Reinfeld writes,
“When Anderssen sacrificed two Rooks, the Queen, etc., against
Kieseritzky, the finished product was described as ‘the immortal
game.’ It might be more accurate to call it ‘an immortal game,’ for
since that time there have been many claimants to the title. Not the
least deserving is [this] little gem, on which Canal may have
lavished something less than five minutes. The game has the blazing
quality of a Liszt improvisation.”
Canal-N.N., Budapest 1934

Center-Counter (or Scandinavian Defense)
B01 in the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 c6 5.Nf3 Bg4
This is the Lasker variation of the Center-Counter Game or

Scandinavian Defense.
6.Bf4 e6 7.h3 Bxf3 8.Qxf3 Bb4 9.Be2 Nd7 10.a3

10. .. O-O-O??
In another book, Reinfeld writes, “Black mistakenly thinks that

[11.axb4] is out of the question. But White, seeing further ahead and
relying on his excellent attacking position, has a stunning surprise
continuation.” Iakov Neishtadt writes, “Black is convinced that his
opponent cannot take the Bishop. This would indeed have been the
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case if he had played not 10…0-0-0, but 10…Ngf6.” Seirawan and

Minev advise, “Think twice before castling on the Queenside!”
Position after 10…0-0-0??

11.axb4!! Qxa1+
12.Kd2! Qxh1
Reinfeld writes “Microscopically preferable was 12…Ne5 13.Bxe5

Qxh1 14.Qxf7 Rd7 (amusing would be 14…Ne7 15.Qxe6+! Rd7
16.Bg4 Rhd8 17.Qd6! forcing mate) 15.Qe8+ Rd8 16.Qxe6+ Rd7
17.Qd8+ Rd8 18.Bg4#!”
13.Qxc6+! bxc6
14.Ba6#
72
The Game of the Century

between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer
The chess game played between Donald

Byrne and the then 13-year old Bobby Fischer
in the Rosenwald Memorial Tournament in
New York City on October 17, 1956 was
nicknamed “The Game of the Century” by
Hans Kmoch in Chess Review. (Others, such as
Larry Evans, have offered different games as
candidates for this description, such as the
game between Garry Kasparov and Veselin
Topalov at the Wijk aan Zee Corus tournament
in 1999.) The term “Game of the Century” is a bit hyperbolic.
Byrne’s play (11.Bg5?; 18.Bxb6?) was weak; had a strong
grandmaster rather than a 13-year-old played Black, it would still be
an outstanding game, but probably not the Game of the Century.
Many players consider the game inferior to other games of Fischer,
such as his stunning win over Donald’s brother Robert at the 1963
U.S. Championship.
Donald Byrne (1930–1976) was one of the leading American chess

masters at the time of this game. He had won the 1953 U.S. Open
Championship, and would later represent the United States in the
1962, 1964, and 1968 Olympiads. He became an International
Master in 1962, and would likely have risen further if not for ill
health. Robert “Bobby” Fischer (1943-2008) was at this time a
promising young master. Following this game, he had a dramatic
rise, winning the 1957 U.S. Open on tie breaks, winning the 1957-
58 U.S. (Closed) Championship (and all seven later championships
he played in), qualifying for the Candidates Tournament and
becoming the world’s youngest grandmaster at age 15 in 1958. He
won the world championship in 1972, and is considered one of the
greatest chess players in history.
In this game, Fischer (playing Black) demonstrates brilliance,

innovation, improvisation and poetry. Byrne (playing White), after a
standard opening, makes a seemingly minor mistake on move 11,
losing tempo by moving the same piece twice. Fischer pounces,
with brilliant sacrificial play, culminating in an incredible queen
sacrifice on move 17. Byrne captures the queen, but Fischer gets far
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too much material for it – a rook, two bishops, and a pawn. At the
end, Fischer’s pieces coordinate to force checkmate, while Byrne’s
queen sits helpless, at the other end of the board.
Graham Burgess, John Nunn, and John Emms suggest three lessons
to be learned from this game, which can be summarized as follows:
1) In general, don’t waste time by moving the same piece

twice in an opening; get your other pieces developed first;
2) Material sacrifices are likely to be effective if your
opponent’s king is still in the middle and a central file is
open; and
3) Even at age 13, Fischer was a player to be reckoned with.
Byrne-Fischer’s game, in descriptive notation
1. Nf3
This is a vague move by Byrne. From here, the game can develop
into a number of different openings.
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1. .. Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7
Fischer defends based on hypermodern principles, inviting Byrne

to establish a classical pawn stronghold in the center, which Fischer
intends to target and undermine with his fianchettoed bishop and
other pieces.
4. d4 0-0
Fischer castles, bringing his king to safety. 4…d5 would have

reached the Grünfeld Defense immediately. After Fischer’s 4…0-0,
Byrne could have played 5.e4, whereupon 5…d6 6.Be2 e5 reaches
the main line of the King’s Indian Defense.
5. Bf4 d5 (Grünfeld Defence, 5.Bf4, D92)
The game has now transposed to the Grünfeld Defence, usually

initiated by 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5.
6. Qb3
A form of the so-called Russian System (the usual move order is

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Qb3), putting pressure on
Fischer’s central d5 pawn.
6. .. dxc4
Fischer relinquishes his center, but draws Byrne’s queen to a

square where it is a little exposed and can be attacked.
7. Qxc4 c6
Also possible is the more aggressive 7…Na6 (the Prins Variation),

preparing …c5 to challenge White’s center.
8. e4 Nbd7
In later games, Black played the more active 8…b5 followed by

9…Qa5. An example is Bisguier-Benko, U.S. Championship 1963-
64. Fischer’s choice is a little slow, although one would not guess
that from the subsequent play.
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9. Rd1 Nb6
10. Qc5
An awkward square for the queen, which leaves it exposed to a

possible …Na4 or …Ne4, as Fischer brilliantly demonstrates. Since
both of those squares are protected by Byrne’s knight on c3, he
understandably did not appreciate the danger. 10.Qb3 would have
left the queen better placed, although it would have invited further
harassment with 10…Be6.
10. .. Bg4
Byrne’s pawns control the center squares. However, Fischer is

ahead in piece development and has castled, while Byrne’s king is
still in the center. These factors would not have been very
significant had Byrne attended to his development on his next move.
The position after 11. Bg5.
11. Bg5?
Byrne errs, moving the bishop a second time instead of completing

his development. Burgess, Nunn and Emms, as well as Wade and
O’Connell, suggest 11. Be2, to protect the King and prepare for
kingside castling. Flear-Morris, Dublin 1991, continued with 11.
Be2 Nfd7 12. Qa3 Bxf3 13. Bxf3 e5 14. dxe5 Qe8 15. Be2 Nxe5 16.
O-O and White was slightly better. Byrne doubtless thought that
Black’s slight lead in development would be transitory, not
anticipating the maelstrom that his young opponent now initiates.
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11. .. Na4!!
Fischer offers an ingenious knight sacrifice. If Byrne plays

12.Nxa4, Fischer will play Nxe4, leaving Byrne with some terrible
choices: 13. Qxe7 Qa5+ 14. b4 Qxa4 15. Qxe4 Rfe8 16. Be7 Bxf3
17. gxf3 Bf8 produces a deadly pin.
13. Bxe7 Nxc5 14. Bxd8 Nxa4 15. Bg5 Bxf3 16. gxf3 Nxb2 gives
Fischer an extra pawn and ruins Byrne’s pawn structure.
13. Qc1 Qa5+ 14. Nc3 Bxf3 15.gxf3 Nxg5 regains the sacrificed
piece with a better position.
13. Qb4 Nxg5 14.Nxg5 Bxd1 15.Kxd1 Bxd4 16.Qd2 Bxf2 with a
winning material advantage for Fischer
12. Qa3 Nxc3

13. bxc3 Nxe4!
Fischer again offers material in order to open the e-file and get at
White’s king that has not castled.
14. Bxe7 Qb6

15. Bc4
Byrne wisely declines the offered material. If 15. Bxf8, Bxf8

16.Qb3, Fischer analyzes 16…Nxc3! 17.Qxb6 (17.Qxc3?? Bb4
wins the queen) axb6 18.Ra1 Re8+ 19.Kd2 Ne4+ 20.Kc2 Nxf2
21.Rg1 Bf5+, which he considers winning for Black. Also strong is
16…Re8 17.Qxb6 (17.Be2 Nxc3!) 17…axb6 18.Be2 Nxc3 19.Rd2
Bb4 20.Kf1 Ne4 21.Rb2 Bc3 22.Rc2 Nd2+! 23.Kg1 (23.Nxd2
Bxe2+ 24.Kg1 Bd3! 25.Rc1 Bxd2 leaves Black with a winning
material advantage) Rxe2 24.Rxc3 Nxf3+ 25.gxf3 Bh3 26.Rc1 Rxa2
leaving White absolutely paralyzed.
15. .. Nxc3!
Now if 16.Qxc3, Rfe8 pins the bishop to White’s king, thus

regaining the sacrificed piece with an extra pawn.
16. Bc5 Rfe8+ 17. Kf1
Byrne threatens Fischer’s queen; Fischer brings his rook into play,
misplacing Byrne’s king. Now Fischer’s pyrotechnics seem to be at
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an end. Surely he must save his queen, whereupon White can play
18.Qxc3, with a winning material advantage.
After 17. Kf1.
Instead of protecting his queen, Fischer will launch a stunning

counterattack with …Be6.
17. .. Be6!!
This stunning move is the one that made this game famous. Instead
of saving his queen, Fischer offers to sacrifice it. Fischer pointed out
that 17…Nb5? loses to 18.Bxf7+ Kxf7 19.Qb3+ Be6 20.Ng5+ Kg8
21.Nxe6 Nxd4 22.Nxd4+ Qxb3 23.Nxb3.
18. Bxb6?
Byrne takes the offered queen, hoping to outplay his 13-year-old

opponent in the ensuing complications. However, Fischer gets far
too much for his queen, leaving Byrne with a hopeless game.
18.Bxe6 would have been even worse, leading to a smothered mate
with 18…Qb5+ 19.Kg1 Ne2+ 20.Kf1 Ng3+ 21.Kg1 Qf1+! 22.Rxf1
Ne2#. 18.Qxc3 would have been met by 18…Qxc5! and if 19.dxc5,
Bxc3. White’s best chance may have been 18.Bd3 Nb5!, which
Kmoch wrote would also result in “a win for Black in the long run”.
18. .. Bxc4+
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Fischer now begins a “windmill” series of discovered checks,

picking up material.
19. Kg1 Ne2+ 20. Kf1 Nxd4+ 21. Kg1 Ne2+ 22. Kf1
(21.Rd3? axb6 22.Qc3 Nxf3 23.Qxc4 Re1# according to Fischer)
22…Nc3+ 23. Kg1 axb6
Fischer captures a piece, simultaneously attacking Byrne’s queen.
24. Qb4 Ra4!
Fischer’s pieces cooperate nicely: the bishop on g7 protects the

knight on c3, which protects the rook on a4, which in turn protects
the bishop on c4 and forces Byrne’s queen away. Perhaps Byrne
overlooked this move when analyzing 18.Bb6, expecting instead
24…Nxd1? 25.Qxc4, which is much less clear. Otherwise, it is hard
to explain why Byrne played 18.Bxb6, since Black now has a
clearly winning position.
25. Qxb6
Unfortunately for Byrne, he has nothing better than this pawn-

grab, since he has no queen move available that would protect his
threatened rook on d1.
After 25… Nxd1.
79
Fischer has gotten more than enough material for his sacrificed
queen.
25. .. Nxd1
Fischer has gained a rook, two bishops, and a pawn for his
sacrificed queen, leaving him ahead the equivalent, roughly, of one
minor piece – an easily winning advantage in master play. White’s
queen is far outmatched by Black’s pieces, which dominate the
board and will soon overrun White’s position. Moreover, Byrne’s
remaining rook is stuck on h1 and it will take precious time (and the
loss of the pawn on f2) to free it. Byrne could resign here, but
gamely plays on until checkmate. Why?
One of Byrne’s chess students later recounted Byrne’s account

why he played on: “First of all, you have to remember that in 1956
no one knew that Bobby Fischer was going to become Bobby
Fischer! He was just a very promising 13-year-old kid who played a
great game against me. When it got to the position where I was lost,
I asked some of the other competitors if it might be a nice thing to
let the kid mate me, as a kind of tribute to the fine game he played.
They said, ‘Sure, why not?’ and so I did.”
After 35… Bc5+; mate is inevitable.
26. h3 Rxa2 27. Kh2 Nxf2 28. Re1 Rxe1

29. Qd8+ Bf8 30. Nxe1 Bd5 31. Nf3 Ne4 32. Qb8 b5
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Note that every piece and pawn of Black is defended, leaving

White’s queen powerless.
33. h4 h5 34. Ne5 Kg7
Fischer breaks the pin, allowing the bishop to attack as well.
35. Kg1 Bc5+
Now Fischer draws away the white king from his last defender,
and uses his pieces in concert to force checkmate.
Final position, after 41… Rc2#
36. Kf1 Ng3+ 37. Ke1 Bb4+
Kmoch notes that 37…Re2+ would have mated a move sooner.
38. Kd1 Bb3+

39. Kc1 Ne2+
40. Kb1 Nc3+
41. Kc1 Rc2# 0-1
81
“The Immortal Loser”

http://www.sito.org/cgi-bin/egads/showart?show=jaf.0033&idonly=jaf&seq=0
82
The Immortal Losing Game

between Bogdan Sliwa and David Bronstein.
A game between the Soviet grandmaster David Bronstein and the

Polish International Master Bogdan Śliwa in 1957 in Gotha is
referred to as the Immortal Losing Game. This is an allusion to the
more famous Immortal Game between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel
Kieseritzky. It is so called because Bronstein, in a completely lost
position, set a series of elegant traps in an attempt to swindle a
victory from a lost game, although Śliwa skillfully avoided
Bronstein’s traps and still won.
White: Śliwa – Black: Bronstein, Gotha, 1957
1.d4 f5 2.g3 g6 3.Bg2 Bg7 4.Nc3 Nf6
Both players have fianchettoed their bishops. If White had played

the now-standard 4.c4 instead of 4.Nc3, a Leningrad variation of
the Dutch Defence would have been reached.
5.Bg5 Nc6 6.Qd2 d6 7.h4 e6
8.O-O-O h6 9.Bf4 Bd7 10.e4 fxe4
11.Nxe4 Nd5
12.Ne2 Qe7 13.c4 Nb6?
If 13…Nxf4 then 14.Nxf4 Qf7
14.c5! dxc5 15.Bxc7! O-O 16.Bd6 +
White has won the exchange by skewering Black’s queen and rook
16…Qf7 17.Bxf8 Rxf8 18.dxc5 Nd5
19.f4 Rd8 20.N2c3 Ndb4 21.Nd6 Qf8
22.Nxb7 Nd4!
83
If 22…Rb8 then 23.Qxd7+
23.Nxd8 Bb5!
Śliwa-Bronstein: position after 23. .. Bb5!
24.Nxe6!
If 24.Nxb5?! then Qf5!
(a) 25.Nxd4?? Nxa2#;
(b)25.Qxb4?? Qc2#;
(c) 25.Nc3?? Nxa2+! 26.Nxa2 Nb3#;
(d) 25.Rde1?? Nxa2+ 26.Kd1 Qb1+ 27.Qc1 Qxc1#;
(e) 25.b3 Qxc5+ 26.Kb1! (26.Nc3?? Ne2+! 27.Qxe2 Qxc3+

28.Kb1 Qa1#) Qf5+ 27.Kc1! Qc5+ draws by perpetual
check;
(f) White can still probably win with 25.Qf2! Nxa2+ 26.Kd2
Nxb5 27.Ke1.
84
24…Bd3!
Position after 24…Bd3!
25.Bd5!
If 25.Nxf8?? Nxa2+ then 26.Nxa2 Nb3#
25…Qf5! 26.Nxd4+ Qxd5!
Śliwa-Bronstein: position after 26…Qxd5!
85
27.Nc2!
If 27.Nxd5?? then Nxa2#
27…Bxc3
28.bxc3!
If 28.Qxc3?? then Nxa2+ and wins the queen.
28…Qxa2
29.cxb4! 1-0
If 29.Nxb4?? then Qb1#.
In chess, if you got yourself in a losing position, sit tight and hope
for a blunder. In real life, when things don’t go the way you expect
them to be—that is, you find yourself in a losing position—just
continue living for who knows when things might become better.
At least, when you still fail in the end, there is no regret because you
have tried. GM Susan Polgar once advised chess players “Win with
grace, lose with dignity.” The same is applicable even in real life.
86
Deep Blue – Kasparov, 1996, Game 1
Deep Blue – Kasparov, 1996, Game 1 is a famous chess game in

which a computer played against a human being. It was the first
game played in the 1996 Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov match,
and the first time that a chess-playing computer defeated a reigning
world champion under normal chess tournament conditions (in
particular, normal time controls).
Deep Blue was a computer developed by International Business

Machines (IBM) to beat grandmaster Garry Kasparov, the top chess
player in the world at the time according to Elo ratings. Playing
White, Deep Blue won this first game in the match on February 10,
1996 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Kasparov rebounded over the
next five games, winning three and drawing two, to soundly beat the
machine in the 1996 match.
The move-by-move details of the game are described below,

intermixed with typical commentary by chess experts from various
references.
White: Deep Blue

Black: Kasparov
Opening: Sicilian Defense, B22
The position after 10. .. Bb4
87
1. e4 c5 2. c3
It is more common to play 2. Nf3, but Kasparov has deep

experience with that line, so White’s opening book goes in a
different direction.
2. .. d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bg4
6. Be2 e6 7. h3 Bh5 8. O-O Nc6
9. Be3 cxd4 10. cxd4 Bb4
A more common move here is Be7. This was a new approach by

Kasparov, developing the bishop in an unusual way. The merit of
the new move is debated. After this move, the computer left its
opening book and began calculating its next move.
11. a3 Ba5 12. Nc3 Qd6 13. Nb5 Qe7
Some would claim Qe7 is a dubious move because it supposedly

“allows White to make its pieces more active.” This itself is a
dubious claim. Extensive human and computer analysis suggests
that Qe7 in isolation is a close equivalent to Qb8 and Qd5, and
parity is maintained with Qe7 as played in this game up until 17….
Bb6. One possible line which possibly maintains parity even further
is 13…. Qe7 14. Ne5 Bxe2 15. Qxe2 O-O 16. Rac1 Rac8 17. Bg5
Rfd8 18. Bxf6 gxf6 19. Nc4 a6 20. Nxa5 …. Alternatively, Qd5 and
Qb8 can also maintain parity with the following: 13…. Qd5 14. Nc3
Qd6 15. Bg5 Rd8 16. Qa4 O-O 17. Rad1 Bxf3 18. Bxf3 Bc7 19. g3
Nxd4 20. Bxb7 …. and 13…. Qb8 14. Ne5 Bxe2 15. Qxe2 a6 16.
Nc3 O-O 17. Nxc6 bxc6 18. Rac1 Rc8 19. Na4 Bc7 20. Nc5 ….
14. Ne5! Bxe2 15. Qxe2 O-O 16. Rac1 Rac8 17. Bg5
Black now has a problem, especially with the pinned knight on f6.
17…. Bb6 18. Bxf6 gxf6
Kasparov avoids … Qxf6? Because White would gain material with

19. Nd7. Note that Kasparov’s king is now far more exposed.
88
19. Nc4! Rfd8 20. Nxb6! Axb6 21. Rfd1 f5 22. Qe3!
This is an excellent place for White’s queen.
The position after 22. .. Qf6
22… Qf6 23. d5!
This type of pawn sacrifice is typical of Kasparov’s style of play.

Indeed, Kasparov commented that he might have played 23. d5
himself in this position, since it hurts Black’s pawn structure and
opens up the board, and Black’s exposed king suggests that there is
probably a way to exploit the result. Kasparov has been attacking
White’s d-pawn, and the computer wisely decides to advance it for
an attack instead of trying to defend it.
23… Rxd5 24. Rxd5 exd5 25. b3! Kh8?
Kasparov attempts to prepare a counter-attack by preparing to move

his rook to the g file, but it will not work. Burgess suggests that
25…. Ne7 Rxc8+ would have been better, though White would still
have some advantage. Indeed, after this point it is difficult to
identify any move that will dramatically help Black.
26. Qxb6 Rg8 27. Qc5 d4 28. Nd6 f4 29. Nxb7
89
This is a very materialistic move, typical of computers; White grabs

an undeveloped pawn for a small gain in material. However, Deep
Blue has not identified any threat of checkmate from Black, so it
simply acquires the material.
29…. Ne5 30. Qd5
30. Qxd4?? Would lose to 30… Nf3+.
30…. f3 31. g3 Nd3
The move 31… Qf4 won’t work, because of 32. Rc8! Qg5 33. Rc5!
The final position
32. Rc7 Re8
Kasparov is attacking, but the computer has correctly determined

that the attack is not a real threat.
33. Nd6 Re1+ 34. Kh2 Nxf2 35. Nxf7+ Kg7
36. Ng5+ Kh6 37. Rxh7+ 1-0
90
After 37. .. Kg6 38.Qg8+ Kf5 39.Nxf3, Black cannot meet the
simultaneous threats of 40.Nxe1, 40.Rf7 and 40.Qd5+. Kasparov
resigned.
The IBM’s promotional picture of Kasparov versus Deep Blue
91
Game Viewer: Deep Blue versus Kasparov, Game 6
92
Deep Blue - Kasparov, 1997, Game 6
The infamous sixth game of the Deep Blue - Kasparov rematch,

played in New York City on May 11, 1997 and starting at 3:00 p.m.
EDT, was the last chess game in the rematch of 1997 of Deep Blue
versus Garry Kasparov. It marked the first time that a computer had
defeated a World Champion in a match of several games. This, as
well as the fact that Kasparov had only lasted 19 moves in this
game, attracted a lot of media attention. This final game lasted
barely more than an hour.
Before this game the score was tied at 2½-2½. Kasparov had won
the first game, lost the second game (after resigning in a drawn
position) and drawn games 3, 4 and 5 after having advantageous
positions in all three. He was tired and sad before this game.
The position after 5. Ng5
White: Deep Blue

Black: Garry Kasparov
Opening: Caro-Kann Defense, Steinitz Variation, B17
1.e4 c6
Uncharacteristically, Kasparov plays the solid Caro-Kann Defense.

In later matches against computers he opted for 1...e5 or 1...c5, the
93
sharp Sicilian Defence, Kasparov’s usual choice against his human

opponents.
2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Ng5
This relatively recent innovation breaks one of the classic opening

principles (“don't move the same piece twice in the opening”), but
puts pressure on the weak f7 square. Kasparov had played this move
himself as White at least three times earlier.
5...Ngf6
Not 5...h6? 6.Ne6! fxe6?? 7.Qh5+ g6 8.Qxg6#.
6.Bd3 e6 7.N1f3 h6?
The position after 7...h6?

This is an odd blunder by Kasparov who is one of the most
theoretically knowledgeable players in chess history. Apparently
Kasparov got his opening moves mixed up, playing ...h6 a move too
early. The normal 7. .. Bd6 8.Qe2 h6 9.Ne4 Nxe4 10.Qxe4 was
played in Kasparov-Kamsky, 1994 and Kasparov-Epishin, 1995,
among other games. The upcoming sacrifice is well known to theory
and Kasparov must have known about it (in fact, there are some
reports that he even wrote an article supporting 8.Nxe6 as a
refutation).
94
8.Nxe6!
Actually it is not Deep Blue’s extraordinary skills which made it
play this move; the knight sacrifice is programmed into the
computer’s opening book. This move had been played in a number
of previous high-level games, with White achieving a huge plus
score.
8...Qe7
Instead of taking the knight immediately, Kasparov pins the knight
to the king in order to give his king a square on d8. However, many
annotators have criticized this move and said that Kasparov ought to
have taken the knight immediately. Although the Black king uses
two moves to reach d8 after 8...fxe6 9.Bg6+ Ke7, the Black queen
can be placed at the superior c7 square.
9.0-0
White castles so that 9...Qxe6?? loses to 10.Re1, pinning and
winning the black queen. Black must now take the knight or he will
be a pawn down.
The position after 11. Bf4
9...fxe6 10.Bg6+ Kd8 11.Bf4
If Black's bishop were on d6 instead of f8, White would not be able

to play this. For the sacrificed knight, White’s bishops have a
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stranglehold on Black’s position. Black, having moved his king, can

no longer castle, his queen is blocking his own bishop, and he has
trouble getting out his pieces and making use of his extra knight.
11...b5
The first new move of the game and Deep Blue must now start
thinking on its own. Kasparov’s idea is to get some breathing room
on his queenside and prevent White from playing c4.
12.a4 Bb7 13.Re1 Nd5 14.Bg3 Kc8
15.axb5 cxb5 16.Qd3 Bc6 17.Bf5
White is pounding at Black's e6 pawn and is planning to invade the

position with his rooks. Kasparov cannot hold onto all his extra
material and desperately decides to surrender his queen for a rook
and a bishop.
17...exf5 18.Rxe7 Bxe7 19.c4 Black Resigns
Final position
Black resigns because White’s queen will soon invade through c4 or

f5, and once Re1 is played Black will be finished. A sample line
would be: 19...bxc4 20.Qxc4 Nb4 (20...Kb7 21.Qa6 mate!) 21.Re1
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Kd8 22.Rxe7 Kxe7 23.Qxb4+. This is the shortest losing game in

Kasparov’s career.
After the game Kasparov was in a foul mood and accused the Deep
Blue team of cheating (i.e. having a team of human masters to aid
the computer during the game). Although Kasparov wanted another
rematch, IBM declined and ended their Deep Blue program.
As in chess, in life, even an expert may commit a serious mistake

with grave consequences. And humility should always be exercised
even by those with high stature. “Matalino man daw ang matsing,
ay napaglalamangan din.” (“Even though the monkey is considered
sly, it can still be outsmarted.”)
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Kasparov versus The World

http://www.sito.org/cgi-bin/egads/showart?show=jaf.0034&idonly=JAF
98
Kasparov versus The World, in which the reigning world

champion played via the Internet against the rest of the
world in consultation.
Kasparov versus The World was a game of chess played in 1999

over the Internet. Conducting the white pieces, Garry Kasparov
faced the rest of the world in consultation, with the World Team
moves to be decided by plurality vote. Over 50,000 individuals from
more than 75 countries participated in the game. The host and
promoter of the match was the MSN Gaming Zone, with sponsorship
from the bank First USA. After 62 moves played over four months
Kasparov won the game. In his words:
It is the greatest game in the history of chess. The sheer

number of ideas, the complexity, and the contribution it has
made to chess make it the most important game ever played.
Pre-game speculation and preparation
Prior to the game, Kasparov was considered a prohibitive favorite.

He was reigning World Champion, he was playing with the
advantage of the white pieces, and previous examples of majority
Internet voting had produced mediocre competition. For example,
Anatoly Karpov had taken the black pieces against the rest of the
world earlier that year, and had won convincingly. Contrary to
expectations, however, Kasparov’s game produced a mixture of
deep tactical and strategic ideas, and although Kasparov won, he
admitted that he had never expended as much effort on any other
game in his life.
E. Bacrot I. Krush E. Paehtz
The World Team had several points in their favor, some of which
were innovative for an Internet game. Firstly, four young chess stars
were selected by MSN to suggest moves for the World Team. They
were, in decreasing order of FIDE rating, Etienne Bacrot, Florin
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Felecan, Irina Krush, and Elisabeth Paehtz. Also, grandmaster

Daniel King, recruited to provide a running commentary, often
acted as a fifth advocate. Secondly, the moves were slowed down to
a pace of one move per day; that is, Kasparov had 24 hours to
consider each of his moves, and the World Team had 24 hours to
respond. Thirdly, MSN provided a bulletin board for the discussion
of the team’s moves. It was hoped that these advantages would
collectively allow for true consultation, and raise the level of play.
Kasparov played his first move 1.e4 on June 21, and the World
Team voted by a 41% plurality to meet him on his home turf with
the Sicilian Defence.
White: Garry Kasparov

Black: The World via (MSN)
Opening: Sicilian Defence, Canal Attack, ECO:B52
Garry Kasparov - World Team

Sicilian Defence, B52
Position after 3.Bb5+
Kasparov unexpectedly chose to move into a closed game after the

World Team chose his favorite Sicilian Defence. However, he later
apologized for this move.
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+
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Kasparov’s third move was the first real surprise of the game. He
typically plays the more ambitious 3.d4 in this position,
immediately opening the game. His actual move is more likely to
result in a closed game with only a strategic pull for White.
Kasparov apologized to the World Team for this move, but excused
himself in light of his upcoming match for the World Championship
against Vladimir Kramnik in 2000. Presumably he had prepared
some innovations in his main lines, and did not want to reveal them
in advance.
3. .. Bd7 4.Bxd7+ Qxd7 5.c4
Some viewers wanted Black to play 4...Nxd7, but were outvoted

by those who thought Black’s queen was safe on the light squares
with White’s light bishop off and thought Black stronger with its
knight on c6. With c4, Kasparov solidified his hold on the d5 square
by advancing the c-pawn before developing his queen's knight,
which joined the attack on d5 on the next move. The resulting pawn
formation for White is sometimes called the Maróczy Bind, a way
of cramping Black’s position. The World Team responded by
contesting the control of the d4 square.
5. .. Nc6 6.Nc3 Nf6 7.0-0 g6
Now Black must try to castle on its King-side and can set it up by
freeing its dark bishop to either the e or g files. Rather than move
the e-pawn to e6 or e5 and have the dark bishop blocked by its d-
pawn, the World Team opted to fianchetto its remaining bishop,
further contesting the dark central squares. Kasparov immediately
broke up the center with his queen's pawn, before the black bishop
could come to bear.
8.d4 cxd4 9.Nxd4 Bg7 10.Nde2
The center was too hot for the white knight on d4, because the
World Team was threatening a discovered attack by moving the
black knight away from f6, unmasking the g7 bishop. Exchanging
knights on c6 would have been silly for Kasparov, as it would have
brought a black pawn to c6, giving the World Team greater control
of d5; instead a retreat was in order. All of Kasparov's moves up to
this point were considered good according to opening theory of the
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time, but the line has since fallen out of favor, precisely because of
what occurred next in this game. If White had wanted to achieve the
strategic aims of this opening line, i.e. cramping Black's position
without allowing counter-play, then either a different move
(10.Nc2) or a different move order was necessary.
After 10...Qe6!
This was a novelty by the World Team that blew the game wide
open. The black queen is forking two central pawns and White can
not save them unless it joins battle for the center.
10. .. Qe6!
Black finally secured the opportunity to castle but refused to be so

defensive. This move was a novelty by the World Team, i.e. a move
which had never before been played in a recorded game. Krush
discovered and analyzed the move, and enlisted Paehtz to
recommend it as well, to give it a better chance of winning the vote.
Their combined advocacy, plus much discussion on the bulletin
board, was enough to gain it 53% of the vote. After this move, MSN
requested that the four official analysts not coordinate with each
other, perhaps to ensure a greater variety of recommendations. The
analysts worked in isolation from each other thereafter.
102
At this point in the game, several aspects of the cooperation within

the World Team had become apparent:
• It was clear from a look at the voting results that, although the
World Team was managing to pick theoretically correct moves,
many rank amateurs were voting as well. Demonstrably bad
moves were garnering a significant percentage of the votes;
even worse, on move 12, about 2.4% of the voters chose illegal
moves which did not get the World Team out of check.
• The World Team was not coordinating well with itself on the
bulletin board. Typical posts were brash, emotionally heated,
and confrontational, and profanity flowed freely. Much more
energy was being spent on flame wars than on analysis.
The tenth move was a turning point for the World Team, not only
because it increased Krush’s stature and energized the World Team,
but because it blew the position on the board wide open. The black
queen forked Kasparov’s central pawns; he could not save them
both. Counterattacking with 11.Qb3 would have been met by 11...0-
0 12.Qxb7 Rfc8, and the World Team would have won back a
central pawn with a favorable game. Kasparov was forced to enter
the storm with the next several moves.
After 14. .. axb6.
The position is now materially even, but Black has a lead in

development and control of the center to compensate for the
doubled pawns and centralized King.
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11.Nd5 Qxe4
12.Nc7+ Kd7
13.Nxa8 Qxc4
14.Nb6+ axb6
After forced moves on both sides, Kasparov made a desperado

move with his knight to double the World Team’s pawns. Materially
the game was still even, with a knight and two pawns balancing a
rook. The World Team had the positional disadvantages of doubled
pawns and a centralized king, but the advantage of a lead in
development and a central pawn mass. With no central pawns,
Kasparov had no obvious way to expose the black king. In the
judgment of most commentators, the World Team was at least
equal, and it was perhaps Kasparov who was fighting uphill.
Kasparov rose to the challenge with an excellent move picked from

alternatives which would have let the World Team take a strong
initiative. For instance, it was tempting to harass the black queen
and possibly fianchetto the white queen with 15.b3, but this would
have invited the World Team to switch wings and initiate a kingside
attack with 15...Qh4. Or, to blindly follow the rule “never move a
piece twice in the opening when you can develop another piece”
with 15.Be3 would have allowed the World Team to play 15...Nd5,
bringing the black knight to the square it most fervently wished to
occupy. Kasparov’s actual move contested d5, somewhat blunted
the effect of the black bishop on g7, and retained a compact, flexible
position.
15.Nc3!
On the fifteenth move the World Team hotly debated a number of

promising alternatives, including 15...e6 (still contesting d5), 15...d5
(occupying d5 outright!), 15...Ne4 (trading off Kasparov's best-
placed piece), 15...Rd8 (intending to artificially castle and mobilize
the central pawns), 15...Ra8 (pressuring the queenside and
threatening a rook lift via a5), and 15...b5 (threatening to dislodge
the white knight and pressure the queenside). The plethora of strong
104
options available to the World Team was reflected in the analysts’

recommending four different moves.
By this point in the game, several chess clubs had begun posting
daily analysis to complement what was available on the official
bulletin board and Web site of the game. The weightiest of these
was the GM School, a consortium of Russian grandmasters. For the
World Team’s 15th move, they recommended 15...b5, along with
Paehtz. Some people expected the unofficial recommendation of the
GM School to be influential, particularly when the official analysts
could not agree, but 15...b5 came in a distant second with 15% of
the vote. In first place was Jon Speelman’s idea of 15...Ra8 with
48% of the vote.
15. .. Ra8
The results of the vote were a reflection of the increasing

coordination of the World Team. Krush was maintaining an analysis
tree, and continually updating with all the suggestions and
refutations from the bulletin board. Not only did the analysis tree
allow the World Team to work with less duplication of effort, it
served as a standing, detailed argument for the correctness of the
recommended move.
In short, Krush was facilitating two tasks simultaneously: not only

discovering a good move, but building a consensus that it was
indeed a good move. Given that she had become the center of all the
cooperative effort of the World Team (as opposed to individual
effort, however heroic), even players of much greater strength began
sharing their ideas with her, so that she would incorporate them into
her analysis. In particular, Alexander Khalifman of the GM School
struck up a constructive correspondence with her.
16.a4!
This move was directed at the World’s maneuver 16...Ra5, which

could now be met by 17.Nb5!, paralyzing the black queenside.
Simultaneously, Kasparov threatened a rook lift of his own via Ra3,
which could disrupt Black’s plans in several continuations. Finally,
16.a4 prevented the World Team’s doubled b-pawns from
advancing, thus making them future targets. The game remained
105
very unclear and dynamic, but it suddenly appeared to be the World

Team which was fighting to retain its balance.
Again for the 16th move the four analysts made four different
recommendations. This time Krush’s suggestion of 16...Ne4
garnered 50% of the vote to 14% for 16...Nd4 in second place.
After 18.Qb3
Kasparov responded to the aggressive play of the World Team

with a fork by his Queen. The World Team however, aided by
Alexander Khalifman, found suitable counter-play.
16...Ne4
17.Nxe4 Qxe4
18.Qb3
On its 16th move, The World Team forced Kasparov to trade off
his only piece that was not on the back rank, and simultaneously
unmasked the action of the g7 bishop. Kasparov responded with a
queen fork of the black pawns on b6 and f7. The loss of a pawn
appeared unavoidable, but the World Team uncovered ways to gain
some counter-play. The bulletin board debate raged between playing
18...e6 19.Qxb6 Nd4, to make sure it was the weak doubled pawn
106
which went missing, or the more aggressive immediate 18...Nd4,

allowing 19.Qxf7. Khalifman, however, found the extremely subtle
move 18...f5, and after chewing it over, the bulletin board was more
or less convinced.
The strength of the bulletin board consensus was tested when the
other three analysts unanimously recommended 18...Nd4. The vote
came out with 43% in favor of Krush’s recommendation of 18...f5,
and 35% in favor of the otherwise unanimous recommendation of
18...Nd4. This sparked complaints on the bulletin board that Krush
had “taken over the game”. Those who grumbled were not
overstating Krush’s influence; her recommendations were selected
every single move from the 10th to the 50th.
18...f5!
The World Team conceded Kasparov the b6 pawn, but for a price.
After 19.Qxb6 Nd4, the World Team would have had dual threats of
Nc2 and Ra6, ensuring very active play for the pawn. If instead
Kasparov continued developing with 19.Be3, the World Team could
have offered a queen trade with 19...Qb4, and banked on the central
pawn mass to be quite strong in any endgame. But rather than these,
Kasparov once again found a powerful continuation: a developing
move with stronger attacking possibilities.
19.Bg5
Kasparov, up against much stiffer resistance from the World Team

than he had imagined possible, began to drop hints that he was
effectively playing against the GM School, and not against the
Internet as a whole, but move 19 (among others) debunked that
theory. The GM School recommended 19...Qd4, while the bulletin
board found a flaw in their analysis, and generally favored 19...Qb4
as being more forcing. Furthermore, for much of the game, a few
top grandmasters of the GM School were busy with other
commitments, and the World Team analysis was driven instead by a
handful of dedicated IM’s and FM’s, along with dozens of amateurs
exploring and double-checking countless lines with strong chess
software.
107
On this particular move, the voting was further complicated by a

large faction in favor of 19...Nd4, with a counter-attack, and this
was the recommendation of both Felecan and Paehtz. The winning
total of 35% for 19...Qb4 was the lowest winning total for any move
of the game, perhaps because the move essentially forced Kasparov
to intensify his attack on the kingside. Note that a queen trade was
strategically out of the question for White, as it leads to a favorable
endgame for Black.
After 20.Qf7
Black can grab a pawn and protect its bishop with 20...Qxb2. But
this puts terrific pressure on the e7 pawn and the Black King.
19...Qb4 20.Qf7
On move twenty it was tempting for the World Team to grab a

pawn and protect the g7 bishop with 20...Qxb2, daring the white
rooks to occupy whichever files they chose, but in many
continuations the World Team's king would sit rather uncomfortably
in the center. After much debate on the bulletin board, no clear
refutation of the pawn grab was discovered, but it was still deemed
too risky by many. Bacrot, Felecan, Paehtz, and King independently
agreed, and by a large margin the World Team decided to protect its
bishop and close the e-file with
108
20...Be5
Kasparov of course did not fall for the simple trap of grabbing the
h-pawn, because 21.Qxh7 Rh8 (skewering Kasparov’s queen and h-
pawn) 22.Qxg6 Bxh2+ 23.Kh1 Qg4 would have won at least a piece
for the World Team. Instead he opted for a simple defensive move
which restored his threat to plunder the black kingside.
21.h3
A few World Team members favored shoring up the kingside with

21...Rh8, effectively admitting that the 15th move was a mistake. To
defend in that way would have left Black with a very passive
position, and invited Kasparov to activate his pieces. Instead, the
World Team opted to play actively, exchanging the kingside pawns
for Kasparov’s queenside pawns. This line showed that the pressure
the black rook exerted on the queenside was not illusory, and
Kasparov’s reply on move 16, even if brilliant, did create a
weakness.
After 25...Bd4
The game has now started to become an endgame. White and Black
are in a race to get their h- and b-pawns respectively, promoted.
21...Rxa4 22.Rxa4 Qxa4 23.Qxh7 Bxb2
109
24.Qxg6 Qe4 25.Qf7 Bd4
The dust settled, and the material was still even, with a rook
balancing a knight and two pawns. With a pair of rooks exchanged,
and neither side having pawn levers to use against the enemy king,
both kings were safe enough that direct attacks became less likely.
Therefore, although the queens remained on the board, the game
started to take the character of an endgame, with the struggle to
promote a pawn rising to the foreground. Indeed, Kasparov could
have immediately begun marching his h-pawn forward, and the
World Team would have had difficulty restraining it. On the other
hand, the World Team’s b-pawn would have been able to advance
equally quickly, making the position very double-edged. Rather
than launching the race at once, Kasparov made a subtle move to tie
down the World Team into a more passive position.
26.Qb3
Kasparov hit at the weak b-pawn, and prepared Be3. The World
Team did not want to trade bishops, and considered the
consolidating move 26...Bc5 so that 27.Be3 could be met with
27...Nd4. However, Kasparov had the even deeper threat of first
using his queen to help his rook into play. After 26...Bc5 27.Qb1!,
the World Team could not have accepted a queen exchange which
would bring the white rook to life, but moving away the queen
would allow 28.Re1, and suddenly the white pieces would be
coordinating just fine.
In keeping with its play throughout the game, the World Team
found a sharp, active alternative in 26...f4, which extensive analysis
showed to be at least as good as 26...Bc5. However, Krush’s
recommendation on behalf of the bulletin board once again stood
alone against the unanimous recommendations of the other three
analysts. In an extremely close vote, 26...f4 edged out 26...Bc5 by a
margin of 42.61% to 42.14%.
26. .. f4!
The World Team blocked off Kasparov’s bishop from its natural
post on e3, and threatened to generate an attack on the white king
after all. 27.Qb1 could be met by 27...Bxf2+, while 27.Qd1 would
110
run into 27...f3, and starting the pawn race with 27.h4 would be
answered by 27...Ne5 with attacking play for the World Team.
Kasparov instead opted for a simple and natural move.
27.Qf7
Moving the queen to the square it just came from only appeared to
lose time. In actuality, the World Team had to use a move to defend
its f-pawn. Furthermore the white queen indirectly supported
Kasparov’s h-pawn to advance, and put the brakes on the World
Team’s threat of advancing the f-pawn to f3. After the World Team
defended its f-pawn, Kasparov decided to launch the race to
queening which had been hanging in the background for several
moves.
After 29...Qc4
The game has started to shift toward Kasparov’s advantage: Black

cannot match the march of White’s h-pawn by moving its b-pawn,
without losing tempo.
27. .. Be5 28.h4 b5 29.h5 Qc4
The World Team could not afford to blindly keep racing the b-pawn
forward with 29...b4, because White’s queen still guarded the b3
111
square, which Black would have to lose a tempo to guard before

advancing once more.
The move 29...Qc4, in contrast, did not lose a tempo, because

Kasparov could not afford to trade queens in a way that would have
undo the doubled pawns of Black and give the World Team a
central pawn mover for the endgame. The alternative 29...Qe2 also
might have held the fort for Black, by offering to exchange the
white h-pawn for the black f-pawn. However, as part of the trade,
the bishops would also have come off, and none of the four analysts
was prepared to trade the World Team’s good bishop for
Kasparov’s cramped one just yet.
Some of the bulletin board analysis focused on Kasparov’s possible

reply 30.Qf8, keeping the queens on the board and threatening to
harass the black king from behind. However, computer checking of
many lines found no advantage for White in this strategy, and in fact
revealed chances for White to press too hard in a complex position
and stumble into disadvantage. Kasparov elected to force a queen
trade, break free his imprisoned bishop, open the f-file for his rook,
and create connected passed pawns in a pure endgame. The World
Team’s responses were essentially forced.
30.Qf5+ Qe6
After 33.fxg3
112
The ensuing position is a sharp one for both sides, with six passed
pawns in total. Here, as elsewhere in the game, the World Team
chose to counter-play.
31.Qxe6+ Kxe6
32.g3 fxg3
33.fxg3
Despite the reduced material, the position remained sharp due to

the presence of six passed pawns. On move 33, the World Team had
the option of seizing Kasparov’s g-pawn, losing two tempos in the
queening race. After the sequence 33...Bxg3 34.h6 Be5 35.h7 Bg7
36.Rf8 b4 37.h8Q Bxh8 38.Rxh8 an extremely unbalanced endgame
would have ensued, with Kasparov having a rook and bishop versus
the World Team’s knight and four pawns. The central position of
the black king might have been just enough to hold a draw for the
World Team, but none of the four analysts trusted the position
enough to recommend it. Instead the World Team opted for counter-
play, as usual, this time by a vote of 72%.
33...b4
34.Bf4
Kasparov’s offer to trade bishops caught the bulletin board entirely

off guard. It had been assumed that Kasparov would try to bring his
king into the center to restrain the black pawns, and the World Team
gave deep thought to 34.Kf2 Kf5. After Kasparov’s actual move, it
would have been suicide for the World Team to trade off its
precious bishop. 34...Bd4+ looked promising, particularly because it
would not lose a tempo, since Kasparov would have to move out of
check. After the game, Kasparov said that he would not have been
able to break through if the World Team had played the more
defensive 34...Bh8, but the possibility did not receive much
attention on the bulletin board. Danny King forwarded 34...Bh8 in
his running commentary, but all four official analysts felt more
comfortable with the more active move, so 34...Bd4+
overwhelmingly won the vote.
113
34...Bd4+
The World Team had hastily put together proposed defenses

against either of Kasparov’s king advances 35.Kg2 and 35.Kh2. In
one of the former lines, the black knight threatens to usher home the
b-pawn and returns to the kingside just barely in time to stop the
white h-pawn, delivering a check from f4 on the way. In one of the
latter lines it turned out to be critical that the black bishop could
attack the white king from e5. Nevertheless Kasparov surprised
everyone (including the GM School) with an incredible move:
35.Kh1!
Although it is intuitively crazy to move the white king away from

the action into a corner where it can neither support the white pawns
toward queening, nor delay the black pawns from queening, this
move put the World Team in a serious predicament.
But perhaps even greater than the effect of this move on the
position was its effect on the psyche of the bulletin board. For the
second straight move, Kasparov had avoided almost all of the World
Team’s preparation without conceding positional advantage in the
process. A small number of people had been rude and abusive the
entire game, and Krush had graciously accepted their analysis while
ignoring their bad manners, but the shaky nature of the World
Team’s position emboldened the complainers. As the World Team
began to panic in a dangerous position, the flames, insults, and petty
bickering reached heights not seen since the initial dozen moves of
the game. For example, there were sharp cries that the 33rd move
had lost the game for the World Team.
There are clear lessons in real life here: the majority may not
always be right, but the majority is the majority. The minority
should respect the choice of the majority. The bright ones should
not only be good in chess, but also good in persuasion—in selling
the concept or the idea to the World.
In the scramble following Kasparov’s 35th move, very few on the

World Team believed that 35...Ne5 is probably enough to hold the
draw, and somewhat fatalistically opted for pushing the b-pawn.
114
After 36.g4
Kasparov’s connected passed pawns are marching toward victory.

The World, on the other hand, is in a very awkward position and
must attempt to salvage a draw.
35. .. b3 36.g4
In this position Kasparov had connected passed pawns supporting

each other, whereas the World Team needed the knight (or possibly
even the king) to laboriously move into position to usher the black
b-pawn to queening. Furthermore, should the black bishop move,
the white rook could slide over to g1 where it would support the g-
pawn from behind while still keeping an eye on the b1 queening
square, an additional subtle point of Kasparov’s 35th move. Finally,
by temporarily controlling the dark squares with his bishop and the
light squares with his pawns (which 36.h6 would not have done)
Kasparov kept the black king from advancing to f5, which in some
lines would have been sufficient to blockade the pawns.
The bulletin board was in anguish at this point, having convinced

itself that 36...b2 would lose to 37.g5 Nb4 38.g6 Nd3 39.h6, and
then 39...Nxf4 would not be check due to Kasparov’s 35th move,
and would therefore fail to hold the draw. Similarly an immediate
36...Nb4 would merely transpose to the above line and lose. The
only move for which some lines seemed still possibly drawn was
115
36...Kd5, which Krush duly recommended, but Bacrot and Felecan

suggested 36...b2, while Paehtz favored 36...Nb4. This created yet
another razor-thin vote margin, with 36...Kd5 scoring 37.69% of the
vote winning over 36...b2 with 37.11%.
36. .. Kd5
This game, which had started in June, had now spilled over into
September, longer than anyone had anticipated. Kasparov, however,
had grown sufficiently confident in his position that he called a
press conference about the game, presumably in order to announce a
forced win. The black pieces did not seem up to the task of both
holding off the white pawns and pushing through the black pawn,
while the white rook was working effectively through threats alone,
without even moving.
37.g5
Kasparov’s two passed pawns apparently required two black pieces

to restrain, but the black knight could not cross over via e5 because
Kasparov would have simply exchanged the white bishop for it.
Therefore the bulletin board turned its attention to 37...e5, driving
away the white bishop and clearing the way for Ne7. But Kasparov
had a devilish reply in 38.Bc1! His pawns would be so strong in this
line that he could have sacrificed his bishop for Black's b-pawn,
particularly since the black bishop would be temporarily cut off
from the h8 queening square. Also, in many lines where Black does
not force the white bishop to give itself up, it can reverse field with
Ba3, tying the black king to the defense of the d6 pawn.
With its back against the wall, the World Team found the only
saving move.
37. .. e6
This move opened e7 so the black knight could cross over, but also
kept open the a1-h8 diagonal for the black bishop. Kasparov
probably had thought that 38.Rd1 was winning in this line.
Certainly many participants on the bulletin board thought so! But an
exhaustive analysis shows that the World Team had the resources to
hold on, at times by the narrowest of margins, if it responded with
116
38...Ke4. The power of the centralized black king vis-à-vis the white
king off in the corner would come into play, showing that even
brilliant chess moves have minor disadvantages.
Instead of trying the complexities of the 38.Rd1 line, Kasparov said

at his press conference that he had no idea how the game would turn
out, and began to force the World Team into an ending in which
each side got a new queen, and the outcome was still very uncertain.
38.h6 Ne7 39.Rd1 e5 40.Be3 Kc4
After 41...exd4
As play progressed through the endgame, the World Team’s voting

became increasingly unpredictable, responding poorly even to
forced moves.
41.Bxd4 exd4
The World Team’s moves were all essentially forced. Kasparov’s

main chance to deviate would have been with 40.Bc1, but then
40...Ke6 appeared to hold. Although the black bishop was at that
time temporarily cut off from holding back the pawns, the black
king was temporarily not cut off, and an extra tempo in such
positions makes all the difference. Kasparov, when making his 38th
117
move, had in all probability already elected to force the World

Team’s responses all the way to the 50th move.
As the game became more and more strategic, with endgame plans
replacing middle-game tactics, voting for a good move seemed
increasingly beyond the ability of casual World Team members. For
example, on the 40th move Kc4 was a crucial tempo in the World
Team’s fight to promote the b-pawn, so it was recommended by all
the analysts and Danny King, but it received a mere 79% of the
vote. Earlier forced moves had gotten as much as 98% of the vote.
Perhaps this reflected the fact that many weak players got hints from
their home computer chess software, which were notoriously poor at
endgames.
The World Team’s pawns, even though ungainly, had become a
sufficiently potent threat that Kasparov’s rook could not take the
double role of guarding the home rank and forcing through the
passed pawns against black’s knight. White’s king had to come out
of its corner at last.
42.Kg2 b2 43.Kf3 Kc3 44.h7
Kasparov could have made the pawn advance on either of the two
previous moves as well, but it would have merely transposed, with
the World Team responding as it did in the actual game:
After 46.Rh1
If black tries to queen the b-pawn immediately it loses after

46...b1Q 47.Rxb1 Kxb1 48.Kxd4.
118
44. .. Ng6 45.Ke4 Kc2 46.Rh1
The World Team needed to advance the d-pawn as well as the b-

pawn, in order to get a second queen after Kasparov sacrificed his
rook for the first one. Against the recommendations of the analysts,
nine percent of the World Team voted for the horrible blunder of
immediately queening the b-pawn, which loses after 46...b1Q?
47.Rxb1 Kxb1 48.Kxd4. It was merely to give the World Team this
opportunity to blunder that Kasparov marched his king to the center
instead of straight forward. The white king arrived to assist the
white pawns just as quickly with diagonal moves as with straight
ones, and the diagonal moves gave it incidental threats in the center.
46...d3 47.Kf5
For the World Team’s 47th move, the analysts were again
unanimous, this time recommending immediate queening. Yet 15%
of the voters were tempted to try to hang onto the knight a few
moves longer with 47...Nh8. This would have led to a lost endgame
after 48.g6 d2 49.g7 d1Q 50.Rxd1 Kxd1 51.gxh8Q b1Q+, because
Black cannot engineer a perpetual check.
After 50...d1=Q
119
The resolution of this endgame is unclear. White seems to have an

advantage with his advanced g-pawn, but later analysis seemed to
indicate a drawn position with exact play on both sides.
47. .. b1Q
48.Rxb1 Kxb1
49.Kxg6 d2
50.h8=Q d1=Q
The race to queen a pawn ended in a tie, but the position is no

longer equal. Kasparov’s far-advanced g-pawn was an imminent
threat to queen, while the World Team’s pawns were potentially
liabilities as much as assets, since they could give the white king a
small amount of shelter from threatened checks. The general plan of
defense for the World Team was to place its king favorably, so that
Kasparov could not threaten a deadly queen trade, and then
determinedly check Kasparov’s king to prevent him from queening
the g-pawn. In some lines the World Team could gain counter-play
by advancing its own pawns, but this was a secondary strategy.
The World Team had relied heavily on computer analysis for much
of the game, but at this point the forward-searching chess engines
began to produce worthless suggestions. This type of position is
seldom understood by computers, except by endgame tablebases. As
of October 1999, however, there were no seven-piece endgame
tablebase, and seven pieces remained in the actual position. After
the game was over, Peter Karrer constructed a specialized tablebase
for the purpose of fully understanding this endgame. With the aid of
the tablebase, Krush and IM Ken Regan were able to prove that the
position after the World Team’s 50th move was drawn with best
play on both sides. Both Kasparov and the bulletin board suspected
that the position was drawn, but as the further course of the game
proved, no one fully understood the position at the time.
Some World Team members tried to gain insight from the position
by consulting state-of-the-art five piece tablebases, with the black
pawns missing, and were encouraged to find the position dead
drawn. Unfortunately for the World Team, the extra black pawns
120
complicated the position extremely and not necessarily to the World

Team’s advantage. For example, analysis positions arose which
were theoretically drawn with both black pawns in place, but which
would be won for White if exactly one black pawn were not there,
and then again drawn with both black pawns gone.
51.Qh7
This move threatened to gain Kasparov tempo by advancing the

king with discovered check. The bulletin board and Krush came up
with the response 51...Ka1, which Kasparov later said he had
considered dead drawn, and the subsequent tablebases confirmed to
be so. But Felecan recommended 51...d5 and Paehtz favored 51...b5,
while Bacrot was silent. For the first time in 40 moves, Krush’s
recommendation was not selected, receiving only 34% for 51...Ka1
to 39% for 51...b5.
A possible explanation for this move selection emerged when

someone bragged to the bulletin board that he had tricked MSN into
letting him vote multiple times for 51...b5. He also included an
explanation of how he had done this. Whether or not he had actually
added unfair votes, and if so, whether or not the number of votes
added was enough to tip the balance, the ballot-stuffing method he
outlined was indeed workable, as several bulletin board members
verified on the 59th move, after Kasparov had already secured the
victory.
51. .. b5?!
52.Kf6+
The bulletin board and Krush now concluded that 52...Kc1 offered
the best chances of holding a draw, and tablebases later verified it
was both sufficient and necessary. However, with Bacrot
recommending 52...Ka1 and both Felecan and Paehtz favoring
52...Kb2, the latter move eked out a victory with 42%. The idea was
to use the king to support the b-pawn toward promotion, but it does
not quite work.
52. .. Kb2?
Tablebases show that Kasparov could have initiated a forced win
with 53.Qe4, but the win is so deep that he failed to spot it. This
endgame position was beyond the realm of previous endgame
121
theory, and even the World Champion did not quite grasp all the
threads. (That said, it is of course beyond the scope of this book to
demonstrate the win.) Instead Kasparov made an inadequate but
reasonable-looking queen maneuver to shelter his king from checks
on the f-file:
After 54.Qf4
At this point, Bacrot’s recommendation of 54...Qd5 would have

saved the game, but unfortunately the World Team chose to go
along with Krush’s doomed suggestion.
53.Qh2+?! Ka1!
54.Qf4
Kasparov gave the World Team a chance to save the draw after all
with accurate defense. However, the position was so complex that
the bulletin board discussion was not sure whether any defensive
move was sufficient. Eventually they and Krush recommended
sacrificing the b-pawn with 54...b4 in order to allow the black queen
to give check on the f-file. Bacrot advocated centralizing the black
queen with 54...Qd5, while Felecan and Paehtz suggested 54...Qd3.
Later analysis showed that Bacrot’s recommendation could hold the
draw in a relatively comprehensible fashion, and Felecan and
Paehtz’s move could hold after some desperate ingenious
122
squirming, but Krush’s move would concede Kasparov a forced

win, if he could find it.
After 58.g6.
Both possible continuations 58. .. Qe4 and 58...Qf5 are eventually

losing.
54...b4?
55.Qxb4 Qf3+
56.Kg7 d5
57.Qd4+ Kb1
58.g6
Kasparov played forcefully on 55th through the 57th moves, and the
World Team responded each time with a large majority for the best
plausible move. On move 58, however, there was another swirl of
controversy. Both 58. .. Qe4 and 58. .. Qf5 looked reasonable, but
the bulletin board had analyzed the former to a forced loss, so Krush
duly recommended the latter. Due to an e-mail glitch, her
recommendation and analysis were not received on time by the
MSN site, and voting proceeded for some time with Bacrot and
123
Paehtz both recommending 58...Qe4 against only Felecan favoring

58. .. Qf5. When the weaker move won the vote 49% to 44%, there
were furious remarks from the bulletin board that the result of the
game had been invalidated by the delay of Irina Krush’s
recommendation.
Kasparov admitted that 58. .. Qf5 would have put up stiffer

resistance, but claimed it was also losing, and published a forced
win. Subsequently tablebases showed an error in Kasparov’s
analysis, but confirmed that 58...Qf5 could not have saved the draw
with best play on both sides.
58. .. Qe4
59.Qg1+
At this point several disgruntled members of the bulletin board,

knowing the game to be lost, suggested the 59...Qe1?? move which
would quickly lead to a Kasparov victory. This was meant as a
protest against Microsoft and the whole competition. For instance, a
lot of participants were still angry over the e-mail glitch in move 58,
which they felt was what caused the current losing situation.
59...Qe1?? got the majority of the votes, but Microsoft invalidated
all votes for this move, claiming that ballot stuffing had taken place.
Also, MSN announced that this was the only move on which ballot
stuffing had taken place at a level where it was significant, even
though some players (as previously mentioned) had published a
ballot stuffing technique and had admitted to using it several moves
earlier. This made some players even angrier. While they
acknowledged that some ballot stuffing might have taken place,
they also thought it likely that 59. .. Qe1?? would have won the vote
anyway. MSN refused to release the raw vote counts so no
independent analysis of the situation was possible. Due to
complaints, Microsoft added a resign-option to the next vote, which
got 28% of the vote after it was first added. Twenty-eight per cent is
high, but not the majority.
124
“The Passed Pawn is a criminal, who should be kept under lock and
key. Mild measures, such as police surveillance, are not sufficient.”
Aron Nimzovich
After 62.g7
Kasparov’s promotion of his g7 pawn is unstoppable. The World

Team resigned after this move.
59. .. Kb2
60.Qf2+ Kc1
61.Kf6 d4
62.g7 1-0
With his 62nd move, Kasparov announced a forced mate found by

the computer program Deep Junior. In light of this, 51% of the
World Team voters opted to resign on October 22, 1999—a little
over four months after the game commenced.
125
In real life, the World (i.e., humanity) has fought several complex
games—difficult “games” against AIDS, against Hepatitis B, and
against avian influenza. Many prominent men and women proved to
be great tacticians for it appears that we have won in the opening
rounds: powerful viruses and the like, threatened to wipe out
humanity in just a few years, but we have creatively retorted to do
some tactical novelty like splitting and splicing genes to produce the
drug that will neutralize the virus; do some drastic sacrifices like
slaughtering suspected infected chickens en masse; and aggressively
disposing tons of milk reformulated with melamine by some
irresponsible people who apparently failed to foresee the
consequences of what they did. So far, so good.
However, the World needs to recognize other games in life, with

relatively new developments. We now have to fight once more
against international terrorism, against poverty, against
environmental degradation, resources depletion, and others—
simultaneously. In fact, these often times “blindfold,” simultaneous
games are very dangerous because the survival of the human race is
at stake. We need the cooperation of everybody. There is no place
for rudeness, bad manners, and irresponsible talk. There is no place
for “grand standing” and credit-grabbing without any substantial
contribution. The participants of the World must get their act
together in order to win. We only have one world; losing it will be
disastrous. No one knows if there will be a “rematch”.
Hopefully, humanity will learn from the afore-discussed game

wherein the World did not fare very well against its opponent (just
one man), especially in the end game. Let us be forewarned, with
trepidation, that unless the World would change many of its
alarming bad habits—ballot stuffing, emotionalism, not doing one’s
part on time, complacency, et cetera—the World (i.e., us) might
lose the critical games in the latter part of the history of our species,
even the history of our planet, the place in the universe where life
appears to be unique.
Finally, let us not lose sight of the world beyond this present life.
Let us cast our burden upon the LORD, and He shall sustain us; He
shall not let the righteous to be moved. Psalm 55:22.
126
Mikhail Tal’s gravestone

showing his death date, “1992 27 VI” (June 27, 1992)
“When the chess game is over,

the pawn and the king go back to the same box.”
An Irish saying
127
128
References
Aagaard, J. 2004. Excelling at Chess Calculation, Gloucester Publishers,
ISBN 978-1-85744-360-8
Averbakh, Y. 1996. Chess Middlegames: Essential Knowledge, Cadogan,
ISBN 1-85744-125-7
Burgess, G. 2000. The Mammoth Book of Chess, Carroll & Graf.
ISBN 0-7867-0725-9
Burgess, G., Nunn, J. & Emms, J. 2004. The Mammoth Book of the World’s
Greatest Chess Games (2nd ed.), Carroll & Graf.
ISBN 978-0-7867-1411-7.
Chernev, I. 1974. Wonders and Curiosities of Chess, Dover Publications.
ISBN 0-486-23007-4.
Chernev, I. 1955. The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess: A Treasury of
Masterpieces in Miniature, Simon & Schuster.
du Mont, J. 1965. 200 Miniature Games of Chess.
Dvoretsky, M. 2006. Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual (2nd ed.), Russell
Enterprises, ISBN 1-888690-28-3
Eade, James. 1996. Chess for Dummies. Foster City, CA: IDG Books
Worldwide, Inc. ISBN 0-7645-5003-9.
Edge, F. M. 1973. The Exploits & Triumphs in Europe of Paul Morphy the
Chess Champion with a new introduction by David Lawson. Dover.
ISBN 0-486-22882-7.
Evans, L. 1970. Modern Chess Brilliancies, Fireside, ISBN 0-671-22420-4
Fischer, R. 1969. My 60 Memorable Games, Simon and Schuster
Harding, T. 2002. 64 Great Chess Games. Dublin: Chess Mail.
ISBN 0953853640.
Hartston, B. 1996. Teach Yourself Chess. Hodder & Stoughton, 150.
ISBN 0-340-67039-8.
Hooper, D. & Whyld, K. 1992. The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed.),
Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-866164-9.
Korn, W. 1966. The Brilliant Touch in Chess, Dover Publications
129
Marko, P. and Haworth, G.McC. 1999. The Kasparov-World Match. ICCA

Journal, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 236-238.
Nalimov, E.V., Wirth, C., and Haworth, G.McC. 1999. KQQKQQ and the
Kasparov-World Game. ICCA Journal, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp. 195-212.
Neishtadt, I. 1980. Catastrophe in the Opening. Pergamon Press.
ISBN 0-08-024097-6
Nichelli, P., Grafman, J., Pietrini, P., Alway, D., Carton, J. C., Miletich, R.
1994. Brain activity during chess playing. Nature, vol. 369, no. 6477,
p. 191.
Pachman, L. 1973. Attack and Defense in Modern Chess Tactics, David
McKay
Reinfeld, F. 1973. Chess: Win in 20 Moves or Less. Barnes & Noble.
ISBN 06-463358-2
Reinfeld, F. 1957. How to Win Chess Games Quickly. Barnes & Noble.
ISBN 389-00227-5
Šahovski Informator, Belgrade. Encyclopedia of Chess Openings, Vol. C 1997,
at 271 n.26.
Seirawan, Yasser and Minev, Nikolay. 1991. Take My Rooks. International
Chess Enterprises. ISBN 1-879479-01-X.
Shenk, D. 2006. The Immortal Game: A History of Chess. Doubleday.
ISBN 0-385-51010-1.
Soltis, A. 1975. The Art of Defense in Chess, David McKay, ISBN 0-679-
13043-8
Steinitz, W. 1889/1895. The Modern Chess Instructor. 2 vol. New York and
London: G.P. Putman & Sons.
Tartakower, S. & du Mont, J. 1975. 500 Master Games of Chess (1952),
Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-23208-5.
van Perlo, Gerardus C. 2006. Van Perlo’s Endgame Tactics, New In Chess,
ISBN 978-90-5691-168-3
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ISBN 0-08-024094-1.
130
Index
A E
ajedrez (Spanish) 5 Encyclopedia of Chess Openings
(ECO) 35, 51, 69, 71
Alekhine, Alexander 8-9
Evans, L. 34, 59, 60, 73
Ashtapada 11
Evans Gambit 59-60
B Evergreen Game 58-62
Bacrot, Etienne 99
F
Bauer, Johann 67
Felecan, Florin 99
Binet, Alfred 14
FIDE 9-10
Bird’s Opening 67
Fischer, Robert “Bobby” 73
Bishop’s Gambit 52
fork 17-18, 23-27, 55, 60, 68, 102
Bogolyubov, Nikolay 35 Franklin, Benjamin 13
Bryan Counter-gambit 52 Fritz 17
Byrne, Donald 73-78
G
C gambit 28, 51-52, 59, 61
Canal, Esteban 71 GM School 105, 107, 114
Canal Attack 100 Gokongwei 27
Capablanca, José Raúl 8 Grandmaster 7, 9, 53, 71, 73, 83,

87, 100, 105, 107
Caro-Kann Defense 93
Greek gift sacrifice 29-31
Center-Counter Defense 71
Grünfeld Defense 75
Chaturanga 11
Chinese chess 5 H
Huxley, Thomas 50
D Hypermodern principles 75
De Groot’s doctoral dissertation 14
De La Salle-College of Saint I
Benilde 2, 18 IBM 87
Deep Blue 87-97 Immortal Game 7, 51, 59, 71, 83
Deep Junior 125
desperado 34 J
Drelikiewicz 41 Junior (computer program) 55

131
PDA 17
K
Peruvian Immortal game 71
Karpov, Anatoly 9-10, 67, 99
Philidor, François-André Danican 7
Kasparov, Garry 87-97, 99
Philidor Defense 63
Kasparov vs The World 99
Philippines 7, 22
Keres, Paul 36-40
pin 17, 19-23, 27, 65
Khalifman, Alexander 105-107
Pitschak, Rudolf 44-45
Kieseritzky, Lionel 51-53, 56, 71,
83 Pocket Fritz 17
King, Daniel 100 Polgar, Susan 49, 67, 86
King’s Gambit 51
Q
King’s Indian 75
Quasi-sacrifice 31
Knights Templar 6
Queen sacrifice 57, 66, 73
Korn, Walter 44-45
Queenside castling 72
Krush, Irina 99
R
L
Réti, Richard 8
Lasker, Emanuel 8, 67
Rizal, Jose 9, 15
Li, David H. 5
Russian 8, 9, 10, 38, 75, 105
M Ruy López de Segura 6
Maróczy Bind 101
S
Marshall, Frank 9, 43
sacrifice 28-31
MSN 99
scaffolding technique in teaching
chess/coaching 15
N
Scandinavian Defense 71
Najdorf, Miguel 69
Sicilian Defense 87, 94, 100
Nimzovich, Aron 125
skewer 17, 26-27, 83, 109
O Śliwa, Bogdan 83
O’Hanlon, John 30 Soltis, Andrew 34
Opera Game 63 Speelman, Jon 105
Steinitz, Wilhelm 7-8, 56, 59, 93
P
swindle 34, 42-43, 46, 83
Paehtz, Elisabeth 99
132
T
tablebase 120-122, 124
tactics 17-18, 25, 51, 55, 118
Tal, Mikhail 33, 36, 48, 127
Torre, Eugenio “Eugene” 7
trap 38, 42, 54, 69, 83
X
xadrez (Portuguese) 5
xiangqi (Chinese) 5
Z
zatrikion (Greek) 5
zwischenzug (German) 23
133

Lessons in Chess Lessons in Life

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Lessons in Chess, Lessons in Life

Application of the Psychology of the Game in Real Life

Copyright © 2008 by Lulu Press and

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

Lulu Press Inc.

Lulu Enterprises UK Ltd.

ISBN 978-0-557-01191-9 hardbound

Layout and Cover Design by the author himself

Chapter 1 - History of Chess 3

Chapter 2 – Learning and Playing Chess 13

Chapter 3 – Tactics in Chess, 17

Chapter 4 – Selected Chess Games 51

Martin Ocampo Fadul,

who first taught me tactics in chess

Chess reflects so much of life! A scientist friend of mine told me that

Chapter 1 – History of Chess

hundred thousand years, humans migrated and resettled to wherever they

My scientist friend continued to explain that the

seemed to be spreading, however, was simply a psychological way out from

Well, I guess I already know the answer to the

Knights Templar playing chess in Libro de los juegos, 1283.

By 1200 the rules of shatranj started to be modified in southern Europe,

The Spaniards brought chess to the Philippines in the sixteenth century;

As the nineteenth century progressed, chess organization developed

It took a prodigy from Cuba, José Raúl

After the death of Alekhine, a new World Jose Rizal depicted to be

In the previous informal system, the World Champion decided which

Karpov’s reign ended in 1985 at the hands of another Russian player,

In every chess game,

(A chess player’s haiku)

Chapter 2 – Learning and Playing Chess

In the U.S., the New York-based Chess-In-The-Schools, Inc., has been

Benjamin Franklin, in his article The Morals of Chess (1750), advocated

“The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very

action: - the relation of the several Pieces, and their situations;

The U.S. Chess Center in Washington, D.C. teaches chess to children,

In terms of classroom management

Chapter 3 – Tactics in Chess,

In chess, a tactic refers to a short sequence of moves which limits the

The fundamental building blocks of tactics are two- or three-move

Frequently, tactics of several types are conjoined in a

Chess computers are considered superhuman at tactics,

Studying chess tactics in class, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde

In chess, a pin is a situation brought on by an attacking piece in which a

“The defensive power of a pinned piece is only imaginary.”

In the diagram above, there is an absolute pin on the black knight as

If a rook or queen is pinned along a file, or a bishop or queen is pinned

It is possible for two opposing pieces to be partially pinning each other. It

The act of breaking a pin is unpinning. This can be executed in a number

Although a pin is not a tactic in itself, it can be useful in tactical situations.

Sometimes in a chess game position, a piece may be considered to be in a

undefended piece) can be useful if the forking player wants to force an

Position after White’s 33rd move

In real life, we face skewers. I remember my friend getting held up by a

True vs. Quasi

Sacrifices can be regarded as falling being either true sacrifices or quasi

 In a true sacrifice, the sacrificing player will often have to play on

Developmental. It is common to give up a pawn in the opening to speed

development edge might be leveraged to create more substantial threat

Strategic/positional. In a general sense, the aim of all true sacrifices is

The unexpected sacrifice 6.Bxf7+

Bishops Sacrifice. This involves sacrificing a bishop in the beginning

Attack on the king. A player might sacrifice a pawn or piece to get

In a true sacrifice, the sacrificing player will often have to play on