Endgame: Lasker - Tarrasch, 1914 St. Petersburg

Moving to the next game in Lasker's Moves that Matter, another one of Lasker's endgame escapes occurred in his game against archrival Tarrasch. The 1914 St. Petersburg tournament was played in two stages. Eleven players competed in a round robin preliminary, then the five top players met in a double round robin final. The scores of the two stages were combined to determine the overall winner.

In the diagrammed position, Lasker played 36.Bxg7. The game continued 36...Bxf5+ 37.Kf7, where Kasparov started his analysis. Here Tarrasch played 37...Bxg7, and after the further 38.Bxf5 Kxf5 39.Kxg7 a5 40.h4 Kg4 41.Kg6 (Kasparov: '!'; Soltis '!!'), Lasker managed to draw. Tarrasch had been expecting only 41.Kf6, which loses.

Tarrasch had a win with 37...Be6+ 38.Kf8 Bxg7+ 39.Kxg7 Bxb3, and then, for example, 40.h4 Bd1 41.Bg6 c4 42.h5 Bxh5 43.Bxh5 b4 44.Kf7 a5.

St. Petersburg (prelim) 1914
Tarrasch, Siegbert

Lasker, Emanuel
(After 35...Kd5-e5)
[FEN "5B2/6pB/p4bK1/1pp1kP2/4b3/1P6/1P5P/8 w - - 0 36"]

Soltis gives Lasker's 36.Bxg7 without comment. The move 36.Bxc5?? is a blunder because of 36...Bxf5+. Although Soltis says nothing about 36.Kf7, I can't find anything wrong with it. If 36...Bxf5, then 37.Bxf5 Kxf5 38.Bxg7 Bxg7 39.Kxg7 is the same position reached in the game. Avoiding the Bishop exchange with 38...Bd4 39.Bf8 a5 (39...c4 40.bxc4 bxc4 41.Ba3) doesn't win either: the sequence 40...a4 41.bxa4 bxa4 isn't a real threat. The alternative 36...Kf4 37.Bxg7 Bxg7 38.Kxg7 Bxf5 39.Bg8 doesn't look any stronger. What have I overlooked? Was Lasker's 36th move a blunder?

To play through the complete game see...

Emanuel Lasker vs Siegbert Tarrasch, St Petersburg preliminary 1914
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1271260

...on Chessgames.com.

World Championship Lost

In No Best Move?, I learned that Lasker never had a lost position in the last game against Schlechter. Here I see that he shouldn't have won either.

In the diagrammed position Schlechter played 39...Qh1+. The game continued 40.Rf1 Qh4+ 41.Kd2 Rxf1 42.Qxf1 Qxd4+. Despite the small material advantage for White and reduced number of Pawn, Lasker won by trading his Knight for the Bishop, winning the a-Pawn, and trading Queens. A tablebase says that the R+P vs. N+P endgame will be mate after at most 28 moves. Kasparov pointed out a position on the 51st move where Schlechter had a better chance of holding the draw, but he missed the chance.

World Championship Match (g.10)
Berlin 1910
Schlechter, Carl

Lasker, Emanuel
(After 39.Kf2-e1)
[FEN "2R2b1k/p3p3/8/1n6/N2P1r2/P2Q1R2/7q/4K3 b - - 0 39"]

The right move was 39...Qh4+. Black either gets a perpetual check on the first and second ranks or picks off the Rc8 on a fork. An example line is 40.Kd2 Qh2+ 41.Ke3 Rxf3+ 42.Kxf3 Qh3+ 43.Ke2 Qxc8. Schlechter explained that his 35th move was the result of a miscalculation. Did he also miscalculate on the 39th?

His silence on the error led to speculation that he needed to win the ten game match by two games to win the title. I wonder who started the speculation.

No Best Move?

When I studied the notes by Kasparov, Pachman, and Soltis, I was surprised to discover that Lasker's Grandmaster Blunder would not necessarily have lost the game. In the diagrammed position, Schlechter played his own blunder 35...Rxf4?.

World Championship Match (g.10)
Berlin 1910
Schlechter, Carl

Lasker, Emanuel
(After 35.Rc6-c4)
[FEN "5r1k/p3prb1/8/1n5q/N1RP1P2/P2Q1R2/3BK3/8 b - - 0 35"]

What should he have played? Looking at the three GM annotators in chronological order:

PAC: 'Schlechter's desire to attain an elegant, rather than a straightforward win leads to disaster. The search for beauty has often been severly punished. After the fairly obvious 35...Rd8 White has no real defense, e.g. 36.Be3 (36.Rc5 Nxd4+ 37.Qxd4 Qxf3+) 36...e5 37.d5 Nd6 and Black wins the exchange.'

KAS: Quoting Schlechter: 'This combination is incorrect. I calculated the variation 35...Rxf4 36.Bxf4 Rxf4 37.Rc8+ Bf8 38.Kf2 Qh4+ 39.Kg2 Qg4+ noticing too late 40.Rg3 Qxc8 41.Qg6. Decisive was 35...Rd8.'

KAS: If 35...Rd8: 'After Minev's brilliant discovery 36.Ke1!! it is now Black who has to find a way to save the game:36...Qh1+ 37.Qf1 Qxf1+ 38.Kxf1 Nxd4 39.Rh3+ Kg8 40.Kg2 with a level position.'

KAS: 'Years later Capablanca suggested 35...e5!?. This leads to a crazy position, which does not lend itself to evaluation: 36.dxe5 Bxe5 37.Ke1 Bf6 38.Rc5 Qh1+ 39.Rf1 Qh4+ 40.Kd1 Nd4 41.Rd5 Qg4+ 42.Kc1 Ne2+ 43.Kb1. Here too there can be no question of a 'decisive advantage' for Black: all three results are possible.'

KAS: 'From the purely practical viewpoint, probably more promising is Tarrasch's recommendation of 35...Nd6!? 36.Rc5 Nf5 building up the pressure.' After more analysis, Kasparov concludes, 'Although Schlechter held an appreciable initiative, nowhere did he have a direct win.'

SOL: 'This is the kind of position that refutes Tarrasch's claim that there is always an identifiable "best move". All that can be said is that the best move to keep pressure on White is 35...Nd6 and the best move to sharpen the position is 35...e5. But neither leads to a clear outcome.'

As bad as Lasker's move 23rd was, it was not bad enough to lose the game. It turns out that the same can be said for Schlechter's 35th.

Winter's Chess Notes Celebrates 25 Years

Most people interested in chess history know that Edward Winter's Chess Notes is located at ChessHistory.com. According to the introduction to the archive...

Chess Notes Archives
http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/archives.html

...it has been there since September 2004. The monthly archive indicates which C.N. items appeared in which months on the site. The same introduction informs that C.N. items:

• 1-1933 were published from 1982 through 1989 as a bimonthly periodical,
• 1934-2187 were in the form of a syndicated column,
  
• 2188-2486 appeared in 'New in Chess', and
  
• 2487-3414 appeared at ChessCafe.com.

The first of the endnotes to Winter's book 'Chess Explorations' gives more detailed information about the bimonthly periodical:

• 1982 : 1-291, 'Draw!' by W.Heidenfeld
  
• 1983 : 292-592, 'Paul Keres Chess Master Class' by I.Neishtadt
  
• 1984 : 593-871, 'The Oxford Companion to Chess' by D.Hooper and K.Whyld
  
• 1985 : 872-1071, 'Chess Curiosities' by T.Krabbé
  
• 1986 : 1072-1299, 'The Test of Time' by G.Kasparov
  
• 1987 : 1300-1521, 'Chess Personalia' by J.Gaige
  
• 1988 : 1522-1788,
  
• 1989 : 1789-1933, 'Johannes Zukertort, Artist of the Chessboard' by J.Adams

The same endnote informs that a Book of the Year award was given for most of the early years, and I've included the titles in the table. Winter's most recent note is C.N. 4839, dated 7 February 2007. Since the first bimonthly periodical was dated January - February 1982, it has been 25 years since C.N. no.1 appeared.

Grandmaster Blunder

The trick that I used in the last post (Finding the Critical Move where the first link leads to the full game) worked. On reaching the diagrammed position, Pachman wrote, 'The first crisis in the game'. The main definition that Answers.com gives the word crisis is 'A crucial or decisive point or situation; a turning point.' The term 'crisis point' is better than 'the position of the critical move', and is used frequently by annotators.

Lasker played 23.Bxg6, which appears to be tactically correct. After ...fxg6, White has Qb3+, forking the King and Bishop. When the Queen captures the Bishop on b7, the Knight on a6 is trapped. Unfortunately for Lasker, his 23rd move was a blunder and deserves a '?'.

World Championship Match (g.10)
Berlin 1910
Schlechter, Carl

Lasker, Emanuel
(After 22...Qd5-h5)
[FEN "r4rk1/pb2ppb1/n1p3p1/7q/N2P4/P2BP3/2QB1P1P/2R1K1R1 w - - 0 23"]

After the intermediate moves, 23...Qxh2 24.Rf1, the game continued as calculated: 24...fxg6 25.Qb3+. Here Black played the surprising 25...Rf7 26.Qxb7 Raf8. All three annotators gave a '!' to Black's 26th move, which initiates an attack on the King. Now White was in trouble.

Finding the Critical Move

In The Most Infamous World Championship Game, I noted two controversies associated with that game. If we accept the logical resolution of the first controversy: that Schlechter needed to win the match by one game, not two, the second controversy remains: how or why did he lose the game when he had draw, match, and title in hand?

Every good chess game, meaning every game that represents a real fight, contains a number of positions which are more important than other positions. These are potential turning points where a good move maintains the logic of the position and a poor move loses. This is sometimes called the Critical Move. The higher up the Elo food chain, the faster a player finds these moves.

In most well annotated games, the position(s) with the critical moves jumps at you. In the games discussed so far in this series on Lasker's Moves that Matter, I was able to identify those positions after playing through the game a few times. When I look at the tenth game of the Lasker - Schlechter match, many positions are candidates for critical moves.

To gain insight into this game, I enlisted the support of the two annotators who have been helping me understand the games, Kasparov (GK) and Soltis (AS), and added a third GM player/historian, Ludek Pachman (LP), who included the game in his classic 'Decisive Games in Chess History'. I collated the symbols they assigned to each move (!, ?, etc.) into a side by side comparison and produced the following PGN file...

[Event "Ch World (match)"]
[Site "Berlin/Vienna"]
[Date "1910.??.??"]
[Round "10"]
[White "Lasker Emanuel"]
[Black "Schlechter Carl"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D94"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 g6 {GK:!?} 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Bd3 O-O 7.Qc2 {GK:?!} Na6 {AS:!? LP:(?)} 8.a3 dxc4 {GK:?!} 9.Bxc4 b5 {GK:?} 10.Bd3 b4 {GK:?!} 11.Na4 {AS:!} bxa3 12.bxa3 Bb7 13.Rb1 Qc7 14. Ne5 {LP:!?} Nh5 15.g4 {GK:? LP:!?} Bxe5 {GK:?} 16.gxh5 {GK:! LP:! } Bg7 17.hxg6 hxg6 18.Qc4 {GK:! AS:!} Bc8 {GK:!} 19.Rg1 {GK:?!} Qa5+ {AS:!} 20.Bd2 Qd5 21.Rc1 {AS:!} Bb7 22.Qc2 {GK:!?} Qh5 23.Bxg6 {GK:? AS:? LP:!?} Qxh2 {GK:!} 24.Rf1 fxg6 25.Qb3+ Rf7 26. Qxb7 Raf8 {GK:! AS:! LP:!} 27.Qb3 {LP:?} Kh8 28.f4 g5 {GK:!? AS:! LP:!} 29.Qd3 gxf4 {AS:! LP:!} 30.exf4 Qh4+ 31.Ke2 {AS:!} Qh2+ 32.Rf2 Qh5+ 33.Rf3 Nc7 {GK:! AS:! LP:!} 34.Rxc6 {GK:?! AS:? } Nb5 {GK:! AS:! LP:!} 35.Rc4 {GK:!} Rxf4 {GK:? AS:? LP:?} 36. Bxf4 Rxf4 37.Rc8+ Bf8 38.Kf2 {GK:! AS:!} Qh2+ {LP:!} 39.Ke1 Qh1+ {GK:? AS:? LP:?} 40.Rf1 Qh4+ 41.Kd2 Rxf1 42.Qxf1 Qxd4+ 43.Qd3 Qf2+ 44.Kd1 Nd6 45.Rc5 Bh6 46.Rd5 Kg8 47.Nc5 Qg1+ 48.Kc2 Qc1+ 49.Kb3 Bg7 50.Ne6 { GK:?!} Qb2+ {GK:?} 51.Ka4 Kf7 {GK:? AS:?} 52.Nxg7 Qxg7 53.Qb3 { LP:!} Ke8 54.Qb8+ Kf7 55.Qxa7 Qg4+ 56.Qd4 Qd7+ 57.Kb3 Qb7+ 58.Ka2 Qc6 59.Qd3 Ke6 60.Rg5 Kd7 61.Re5 Qg2+ 62.Re2 Qg4 63.Rd2 Qa4 64.Qf5+ Kc7 {GK:?!} 65.Qc2+ Qxc2+ 66.Rxc2+ Kb6 67.Re2 Nc8 68.Kb3 Kc6 69.Rc2+ Kb7 70.Kb4 Na7 71.Kc5 1-0

...The first glance indicates the critical moves: 23.Bxg6 {GK:? AS:? LP:!?}, 26...Raf8 {GK:! AS:! LP:!}, 28...g5 {GK:!? AS:! LP:!}, 33...Nc7 {GK:! AS:! LP:!}, 34...Nb5 {GK:! AS:! LP:!}, 35...Rxf4 {GK:? AS:? LP:?}, and 39...Qh1+ {GK:? AS:? LP:?}. All but one were played by Schlechter. What will further analysis tell me?

Wikipedia Chess the New Google No.1

I do a lot of Google searches on chess topics. I often start a search with the word 'chess'...

Results 1 - 10 of about 39,400,000 for chess
http://www.google.com/search?q=chess

...then add the phrase I need for the particular search of the moment. That means I sometimes see the top-10 list for chess several times in a single day. Today, for the first time I can remember, the Wikipedia chess entry...

Chess - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess

...is appearing at no.1 in the results. The previous no.1 was Jon Edwards' site...

Chess is Fun
http://www.princeton.edu/~jedwards/cif/intro.html

...now appearing at no.3. Going back a few years, I remember that the USCF's USchess.org held the no.1 position for quite a while.

Wikipedia Chess has been climbing the top-10 for many months and it was just a question of time before it came in at no.1. Although it may bounce in and out of the top position over the near term, I expect it will eventually occupy that spot for years to come.