Chess is a scientific game and its literature ought to be placed on the basis of the strictest truthfulness, which is the foundation of all scientific research. W._Steinitz

The Blackburne-Steinitz Match,
London 1876
Researched by Nick Pope

MESSRS BLACKBURNE AND STEINITZ’S MATCH.
    The second game, played on Saturday, the 19th inst., commenced, by mutual consent, at three o’clock, and it has been agreed by both players to alter the rule respecting the hour for the beginning of the match games, to the effect that the games played on Tuesdays and Saturdays shall commence at three o’clock p.m., and the one due on Thursday at two p.m. A large number of visitors, including Lord Walden, Mr Cochrane, and Mr Strode, attended to witness the contest, which on that day was accompanied by unusually stirring incidents. Blackburne opened with the variation of the Scotch Gambit which had been adopted by the Viennese in one of the games of the memorable match by telegraph and correspondence between London and Vienna.  The defence then adopted by the London council wins a P. for the second player, whose king has, however, to abandon the privilege of castling in consequence, and to remain confined for a long time in an extremely perilous-looking position, while his pieces on the Q side are also shut up, an cannot be brought into play for some time. Though it has been demonstrated by the success of the London council that the P was worth all the trouble of a protracted defence in a correspondence game, where several days could be taken for the consideration of one move, and though the theoretical soundness of this defence has been advocated in our columns and by other authorities, this line of play is shunned by many practitioners as too difficult, especially in match games over the board wherein a time limit is adopted, which must of necessity be much shorter than the time allowances for correspondence games.
    Steinitz, who nevertheless adopted the same defence, wasted a great deal of time in the opening, and apparently hesitated in order to endeavour to vary the recognised line of play, as is his wont to do in match games; but he ultimately followed move by move the precepts of the so-called Vienna game, and the first deviation from that established form of play came from the leader of the attack. On the 9th move, Blackburne introduced the alteration of 9. Q takes B, instead of Kt takes B, as played by Vienna.  The game became more especially exciting when the second player exhausted his first hour on the 13th move, and, having an exceedingly difficult game to fight, was therefore still more likely to get into trouble with the time allowance in the second hour, when, according to the stipulations, he might have to forfeit, unless he succeeded in raising the average speed of his moves, which seemed doubtful, as his position was very critical.  He, however, managed to keep afloat up to the 20th move, when he ventured upon a sortie, attacking the opponent’s K Kt with his Q KtP, which some experts in the room considered questionable; and so it seems, unless our note to Black’s 22nd move should prove a redeeming feature of this defence.  Blackburne, without stopping to defend the Kt, began a vehement attack in his usual vigorous and brilliant style, and certainly, if he consistently followed it up, would have obtained a winning position on the 24th move.  He no doubt conceived at the time some of the beautiful variations which we give on that move below, for he showed them to the bystanders immediately after the game was finished; but he had no time left to make sure of them, and, seeing a mode of play which recovered his P, though it seemed to relax the attack, he preferred the latter as the less hazardous. On Mr Blackburne’s 29th move the alarum [sic] bell of his clock rang, to show that he could only rely upon the stipulated five minutes’ grace for his next two moves, and thus it happened that he did not elect the much stronger 29. QR takes B, which would have soon won a P. The adjournment for an hour took place on Black’s 30th move, and after resuming play Steinitz made two more moves, and then offered a draw. For reasons stated below, and probably also being annoyed at having let the opponent slip, Mr Blackburne rejected the offer, though the positions were quite equal.  But in trying to win Blackburne had to deploy one of his rooks, and subjected his queen to the attack of the two combined hostile rooks. When the opponent took up the offensive, Blackburne had an extremely difficult game to defend, and was also getting short of time. A feeble move on his part, made under those circumstances, enabled Steinitz to win a P and exchange both rooks, after which it came to an extremely difficult ending game as both parties has still their queens on the board. By cautious advance Steinitz managed, however, to secure an easily winning position on the 58th move.
The Field, London, 1876.02.26
 
Blackburne,JH — Steinitz,W
(2)
C45/04
Scotch: Pulling (Horwitz)
1876.02.19
GBR London (West-End Chess Club)
Annotations by Blackburne & Steinitz
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Qh4 5.Nb5 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Qxe4+ 7.Be2 Kd8 8.0-0 Bxd2 9.Qxd2
** In the match between London and Vienna, the latter retook the bishop with the knight.  The course here adopted does not seem to afford greater facilities for the defense, and has, perhaps, the advantage for match play that it has not received such an exhaustive analysis as the line of play pursued in the above mentioned game.
9...Nf6
** In the altered position this appears better than the mode of development for this knight advocated by Messrs Potter and Steinitz in their analysis of the above quoted game, namely 9...Nh6 (see The Field, April 18, 1874). The chief reason given by those two examiners was the weakness of Blacks f-pawn, which might more specially compromise the defense, since the first player had, in a great many variations, fine opportunities of attacking that weak point with one of his knights; but in the present position, after the queen in place of the knight has retaken the bishop, such a contingency was too remote to be taken into serious consideration, and it was probably the best course to defend at once the point at d5 against any future occupation from either of the adversarys knights.
10.N1c3 Qe5 11.Rfe1 a6 12.Na3 Qd4
** 12...b5, blocking out the opponents a-knight, was tempting, but would have been thoroughly unsound, e.g., 12...b5 13.Bf3 Qc5 (best) 14.b4 Qb6 (best) 15.Qg5 Rg8 16.Nd5 and wins.
13.Qg5 Rg8 [?:??-1:00] 14.Rad1 h6
** An important move, not alone to prevent the hostile queen from establishing herself at any of the strong posts on the kingside, but also to enable Black to bring his own queen into greater security by constantly offering the exchange of queens.
15.Qg3 Qe5 16.Qh4 Qg5 17.Qc4 [1:00-?:??] 17...Ne5 18.Qb4
** White would have gained nothing by attacking the knight and the queen, by 14.f4, though the knight might have been temporarily put out of play.  For instance, 18.f4 Nxc4 19.fxg5 Nxa3 20.gxf6 Nxc2 21.Bd3 Nxe1 22.Bh7 Re8 23.fxg7 Nd3 and Black is out of danger; for if the bishop takes the knight, he replies 24...Rg8, which recovers the most dangerous pawn.
18...Nc6
** Blacks last two moves were made under the pressure of time limit, and under the impression that he could advance the pawn to b5 if the opponent retreated the queen to b3; but it appears that after Whites next answer this expedient could not be adopted, e.g., 19.Qb3 b5 20.Bf3 Bb7 21.Qxf7 Ne5 22.Rxe5 Qxe5 23.Bxb7 Rb8 24.Bc6, etc.
19.Qb3 Rf8 20.Nc4 b5
** This move is weak, and gives the opponent an excellent opportunity for displaying his power of brilliant resource. 20...Qc5 was the correct play.
21.Bf3 Bb7
** Had Black captured the knight, the adversary would have recovered the piece at once by 22.Qa3, attacking the rook, followed by 23.Bxc6.
22.Nd5 Rb8
** Probably 22...Kc8 would have been the much safer line of play. The move in the text subjects Black to a most vehement attack, from which he ought hardly to have escaped.
23.Qa3 Rg8 24.Ne5
** At this extremely critical juncture, Blackburne, who had conducted the attack in an excellent manner, was unfortunately very hard pressed for time so much that he had ultimately, on the 29th move, to take advantage of the five minutes grace accorded by the conditions, and he was unable to work out in all its details the very fine combination he afterwards pointed out, and which, though apparently hazardous, was, so far as our examination goes, quite sound in all variations.  He ought to have played here 24.Re5, and the game might have gone on thus: 24.Re5 Nxe5 (or 24...Qh4 25.Nxf6 Qxf6 [or 25...gxf6 26.Re4 Qh3 (best) 27.Bg4, and wins] 26.Red5 bxc4 27.Rxd7+ Ke8 [if 27...Kc8 28.Bg4 follows] 28.Rxc7, and ought to win) 25.Qe7+ Kc8 26.Ndb6+ cxb6 27.Nxb6+ Kc7 28.Qd6+ Kd8 29.Qxb8+ Bc8 30.Bb7 (better than 30.Qxc8+, which would only draw the game), and wins.
24...Nxe5 25.Qe7+ Kc8 26.Rxe5 Nxd5 27.Qxf7 Qd8 28.Bxd5 Bxd5 29.Rexd5 [2:00-?:??]
** No doubt is would have much improved Whites position if he had here retaken with the other rook, and reserved the e-rook to occupy e7.
29...d6 30.R5d3 Qe8
** At this stage the game was adjourned, and was resumed after an hours interval.
31.Qd5 Rf8 [?:??-2:00] 32.Qd4 Rf6
** Here Steinitz proposed a draw, and Blackburne admits that the offer was a fair one, as the position and forces were quite even; but Blackburne in refusing the offer, relied chiefly upon the circumstances that his opponent had exhausted about seventeen minutes of his third hour over the last two moves, and he trusted the chance of inveigling Black into such complications as would necessitate his consuming more time than the limit would allow, or cause him to make some ill-considered move of which advantage could be taken.
33.Re3 Qc6 34.Rde1
** 34.Qa7 would have been of no use, for Black would have replied 34...Qb6, and, if White checked with the rook, the Black king would move to d7, and White could not then take the rook with the queen, on account of the impending mate, commencing with 36...Qxf2+, followed by the sacrifice of the queen at f1.
34...Kb7 35.Rc3 Qd7
** Black might also with safety here have played 35...Re8, but the move in the text gave him more aggressive chances.
36.Rce3 Rbf8 37.f3 R8f7 38.Re8 Qc6 39.c3 Rf5 40.R8e7 Rd5 41.Qh4 [3:00-?:??]
** White could not well sacrifice the queen for two rooks by playing 41.Rxf7 for Black would win at least two pawns on the queenside by 42...Qd5, after capturing the queen and the opponents retaking the rook with the pawn. Nevertheless 41.Qf2 was better than the move in the text.
41...Qc5+ 42.Kf1 g5 43.Qe4
** Again 43.Qf2 was preferable, but Blackburne had here to fight against the difficulty of making all his moves up to the 45th within the five minutes grace allowed to him, he having already exhausted his limit on the 41st move.
43...Rxe7 44.Qxe7 Rd2 45.Re2 Rd1+ 46.Re1 Qc4+ 47.Qe2 Rxe1+ 48.Kxe1 Qxa2 49.Qe4+ d5 50.Qc2 Qc4 51.Qd2
** In answer to 51.b4, Black would have advanced 51...a5, and upon the opponent taking it, he had time to recover it by 52...Ka6.
51...a5 52.g3 b4 53.f4 gxf4 54.gxf4 bxc3 55.bxc3 a4 56.Kd1 a3 57.Kc1 Kc6 58.Kb1
** He had nothing else; had he advanced 58.f5, Black would have replied 58...Qf1+, followed accordingly either by the exchange of queens, or the immediate advance of the a-pawn.
58...Qb3+
** Now Whites king and queen are altogether confined, and Black can bring his king round so as to exchange queens, and to capture the f-pawn at the proper moment, as was actually done.
59.Ka1 Kd6 60.Qc1 Ke7 61.Qd2 Kf7 62.Qc1 c5 63.Qd2 Kf6 64.Qc1 Kf5 65.Qd2 Qb2+ 66.Qxb2 axb2+ 67.Kxb2 Kxf4 0-1.
The Field, London, 1876.02.26

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