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Last update: Friday June 3, 2005 9:44
Reshevsky who died at the age of 80 in 1992 was an enormous natural talent, he played both normal and blindfold simultaneous displays from a very young age. His natural feel and ‘going with the flow’ was legendary but at times this made him lazy as the great Fischer soon pointed out in the following position:
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8...Na5??
As with a lot of
blunders at such a high level the idea, in this case to exchange White's
powerful bishop situated on the a2-g8 diagonal, is an excellent one.
Unfortunately it fails to an amazing tactical shot.
9 e5! Ne8
Obviously Black cannot
afford 9...Na5xb3 due to 10 exf6 when he will lose material as both his bishop
on g7 and his knight on b3 would be 'en prise'.
10 Bxf7+!! Kxf7
10...Rxf7 or
10...Kh8 are no better due to the same response.
11 Ne6!!
And Black capitulated
with...
11...dxe6
Although he had little
choice though as 11...Kxe6 12 Qd5+ Kf5 13 g4+ Kxg4 14 Rg1+ Kh5 (14...Kh4 when
White can then mate with either 15 Bg5+ or 15 Qe4+.) 15 Qg2 with mate next move
to follow. After the text Black struggled on manfully for some time although
the result was never in doubt.
I find coaching juniors quite rewarding but even I get caught out at times, I had explained to a group the following rules for castling:
Where had I gone wrong?? It wasn’t long - and thankfully in some ways the same day! - that two hands went up during a game with a question. I went over and Black had tried to castle under the above rules and White had correctly objected! Here was the position:
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Don’t ask how the knight managed to get to g8 uncaptured or the quality of the chess leading to the diagrammed position. Facts are facts and I had egg on my face. I of course stopped the games in progress and amended rule (2) above to 'There mustn’t be any pieces between the king and rook'.
Even great players have their moments concerning the rules of chess, though, and on a similar theme to the above, the great Victor Korchnoi, a former Candidates finalist and at 68 still over 2600 FIDE rating, had to ask an arbiter if he could castle in the following type of position:
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Obviously there were a number of other pieces on the board but the concept was - could he castle with the h8 square covered by the White bishop on the a1-h8 diagonal?! The rather bemused and shocked arbiter, without trying to tender any kind of advice, explained the rules of castling and Korchnoi hurried off a happier man.
The other day at a junior club I wandered over to see the following position:
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"How many moves have you played?" I asked. "Four" they both replied in unison. "Of course it’s White to play his fifth move now", one added. I questioned the position's legality but was soon shown the error of my ways as both produced their scoresheets to justify the proceedings - how did the game go?
Solution: 1 Nf3 d5 2 Nd4 (or 2 Ne5) 2...Nf6 3 Nc6 Nfd7 4 Nxb8 Nxb8. Black can of course reverse the order of his moves one and two.
