home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Newsgroups: rec.games.chess
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!mzabel
- From: mzabel@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Mark A Zabel)
- Subject: Nimzoindian Replies and Note to Peter B.
- Message-ID: <1992Dec29.173810.7010@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>
- Sender: news@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
- Nntp-Posting-Host: top.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
- Organization: The Ohio State University
- Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 17:38:10 GMT
- Lines: 98
-
- I just wanted to say thanks to those who took the
- time to write me about the Nimzo - namely Bruce, Howard,
- and Yuri. Your comments were quite helpful to me.
- I've been getting good positions with it, but so far
- I've only been able to use it in speed games.
-
- The note to Peter B. refers to analysis of F-SII
- game 2. I'm working on the endgame analysis of that
- again, and will post it soon. I fully expect holes to
- be shot into my analysis, but then that's the point of
- posting it! I hope others found this endgame as
- interesting as I did.
-
- Finally, to break up the monotony of this post I'd
- like to present a game from a book which has become one
- of my all-time favorites; 'Chess Secrets I Learned From
- the Masters' by Edward Lasker. Appropriately, it's a
- Nimzo. Here follows Lasker's comments and notes
- (though I've changed the notation to algebraic).
-
- "The Marshall Club Championship gave me a last opportunity
- of playing a serious game with Frank Marshall. Although
- almost twenty years had passed since we played our match
- for the U.S. championship, a certain comptetive spirit had
- survived which made every game we played,so to speak, a
- continuation of our match. I had observed that Marshall
- was playing the Nimzovitch Defense against the Queen's
- Gambit quite frequently, and I had prepared a method of
- development which seemed to me to give White lasting
- pressure on Black's center Pawn, similar to Rubinstein's
- Fianchetto line:
-
- White: Ed Lasker
- Black: Fr Marshall
-
- 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.g3 0-0 5.Bg2 d5 6.cd ed
- 7.Bg5 c5
- My Bishop move had attacked the Queen's Pawn. Marshall's
- reply indirectly defended it, because after 8.Bxf6 Qxf6
- 9.Bxd5? my Queen's Pawn would be loose.
- 8.a3 Bxc3+ 9.bxc3 cd 10.cd Nc6
- Again defending the Queen's Pawn by counter-attacking
- my own.
- 11.Bxf6 Qxf6 12.e3 Re8!
- For the third time Marshall defends his center Pawn
- indirectly by a developing move.
- 13.Ne2 Bg4 14.0-0
- An interesting continuation; perhaps more in the spirit of
- the strategy I had pursued so far , would have been 14.Ra2,
- again threatening 15.Bxd5. If then Bf3, I could have castled,
- with the threat of Bxf3 and Nf4, whereupon the weakness of Black's
- center Pawn might have become a serious problem.
- However, I felt it was worth changing my strategy and let
- Marshall rid himself of his weak Pawn at the expense of an
- ending in which I would play with a well placed Bishop against
- the Knight.
- 14....Bxe2 15.Qxe2 Nxd4 16.Qd1 Nc6 17.Qxd5 Rad8 18.Qb5 Re7
- 19.Rac1 Rc7 20.Rc4 g6 21.Bd5!
- Shutting Black's Rook off from my second rank, investing the
- King's Bishop's Pawn, and comtemplating the sacrifice of the
- Queen's Rook's Pawn with an attendant surprise combination.
- 21....Qd6 22.Rd1 Qxa3
- Safer would have been Qe7, and had he suspected the sequel,
- Marshall would probably have chosen that move, although
- 23.Qb3 Rcd7 24.Rf4 would have given me a strong initiative.
- 23.Rxc6!! Rxd5
- If instead, bxc6, I would have secured an advantage with
- 24.Bxf7+ Kxf7 25.Qc4+ Ke8 26.Qg8+ etc, or 25....Ke7
- 26.Qh4+, or 25....Rd5 26.Rxd5 etc.
- 24.Rd1xd5 Qa1+
- Marshall interposed this move in order to guard himself
- against a Queen check in the long diagonal after I force his
- King to g7 with Rd8+.
- Against the immediate Rxc6 I had prepared the following
- beautiful finish:
- 25.Qxb7 Qa1+ 26.Kg2 Rc1 27.Rd8+ Kg7 28.Qb8 Rg1+ 29.Kh3 Qf1+
- 30.Kh4 Qc4+ 31.f4 Qc5 32.g4 f6 33.Rc8! Rb1 34.Rc7+ Kh6
- 35.Qf8+!! Qxf8 36.g5+ fxg5+ 37.fxg5 checkmate. But such
- things never actually happen in a game.
- 25.Kg2 Rxc6 26.Rd8+ Kg7 27.Qb4!
- The main point of the combination. The threat is Qf8+ and
- then Qh8+ winning Black's Queen. Marshall places the Queen
- on a protected square, at the same timekeeping the long
- diagonal guarded against a check with my Queen, but there is
- another, final fine point which he had not taken into
- consideration.
- 27....Qc3 28.Qf8+ Kf6 29.Rd6+!! Kg5
- If Rxd6, of course, the Queen is lost. But now follows
- mate in five moves:
- 30.h4+ Kh5 31.Rd5+ f5 32.Rxf5+ gxf5 33.Qxf5+ Kh6
- 34.Qg5 checkmate!"
-
- A really nice game! I especially like the note after
- Black's 24th move. To be honest, though, I don't exactly
- think that this proves the fianchetto line is best against
- the Nimzo. Maybe Kasparov thinks so!
-
- -Mark
-