During Paul Morphy’s famous European adventures in 1858, he made several stops at the infamous Cafe de la Regence in Paris, France.  The cafe had always been an important centerpiece in chess history, as most of the previous greats had played there at one time or another.  Francois-Andre Danican Philidor, Legall de Kremeur, and Adolf Anderssen  are just a few names to play at the famous cafe.  It has also been documented that Benjamin Franklin, a noted chess enthusiast, played there on occasion while serving as American ambassador to France during the Revolutionary War.

One of Morphy’s encounters at the cafe involved him playing eight of the strong cafe regulars in a blindfold simul in the presence of approximately 250 chess fans.  After ten hours of play, Morphy had amazingly won six games, drawn two, and lost zero.   It was reported that Morphy never took a break and did not even appear fatigued at the conclusion of play.  One of his games from this event is presented below, as annotated by Johann Jakob Lowenthal.

SOURCE: Harper’s Weekly – November 13th, 1858

The 1915 triangle match in Atlantic City, New Jersey (USA) was contested between Frank J. Marshall (United States champion), Sydney T. Sharp (Pennsylvania state champion), and Wilbur L. Moorman of Lynchburg, VA (USA).  The format consisted of each contestant playing the other two players twice each.  The final results were as follows:

Marshall – 3 wins, 1 loss
Sharpe – 2 wins, 2 losses
Moorman – 1 win, 3 losses

Oddly enough, Moorman’s only win was actually over Marshall (giving him his only loss).  Today, we give you one of the games from that match that is not in any database of which I have ever been able to locate.  Included are the limited annotations (after white’s 2nd, 23rd, and 29th moves) as originally published.

SOURCE: Washington Post – August 22nd, 1915

Here is a classic game from the 1883 London International tournament between legendary chess greats James Mason of Ireland and Henry Edward Bird of England.   In this game, Bird would play a Sicilian Defense against his ooponent’s king’s pawn opening, but severely neglected his kingside defenses and Mason would eventually take advantage.

The game notes below are from Mason himself.

SOURCE: Brooklyn Chess Chronicle 1884 – Vol.2 No.5 Page 75

Now that the Bobby Fischer had defeated Boris Spassky in a rematch of their legendary encounter in 1972 Reykjavik, the burning question was whether or not he would play again.  His belief that he was still the true world champion did not bode well for the possibility of him going through the normal FIDE qualification process to earn a shot at the recognized champion, Garry Kasparov.

Another question was whether or not his level of play against Spassky, after a 20-year hiatus from competitive chess, was good enough for him to even sit at the table with someone of Kasparov’s caliber.  Many grandmasters pointed out that Fischer’s play steadily improved during the course of the match and that he showed flashes of his previous brilliance, but that he was not yet ready to challenge the top grandmasters of the time.  Implications were made that his uncharacteristically conservative play was intentional and that he played just well enough to win, without revealing any theories or novelties that he had devised over the last twenty years.

When asked about the possibility of his next match, Fischer replied “It depends on the offer, the money, and how it pleases me.  My plans are open now.”  This opened the proverbial flood gates for all types of speculation.  The Yugoslav business man who financed the Spassky rematch, Jezdimir Vasiljevic, had made mention of attempting to arrange a match for the official world title between Fischer and Kasparov.  Another report had a match being negotiated between Fischer and the world’s top ranked female, Judit Polgar.

We of course know that none of these matches ever occurred and that Fischer unfortunately never played competitive chess again.  But for one brief moment in 1992, the world was blessed with the artistry and brilliance of Bobby Fischer for one last time.  Robert James Fischer passed away on January 17th, 2008 at the site of his greatest achievement in Reykjavik, Iceland.  He was appropriately enough, 64 years of age.  Rest in peace Bobby, the chess world is eternally in your debt.

November 5th, 1992

Bobby Fischer won the 30th game in the match with his old nemesis Boris Spassky in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.  The win additionally sealed the match for Fischer by the score of 10 games to 5, as well as the winner’s purse of $3.35 million dollars.  The return match of their classic 1972 encounter began in Sveti Stefan on September 2nd and moved to Belgrade on September 30th, lasting just over two months and 30 games.

Leading 9 games to 5 and needing only one victory to clinch the match, Fischer had to settle for hard fought draws in the previous three games, as Spassky was not going down without a fight.  Fischer had the Black pieces in game 30 and answered his opponent’s queen’s pawn opening with his trusty King’s Indian defense.  Spassky chose the route of the Saemisch attack with 5.f3 and Fischer countered with the Panno variation by playing 6…Nc6 and 7…a6.

Fischer played aggressively and removed his king’s best defender with 9…Nd7 from his post in an effort to free the king’s bishop and press the attack.  After 15.h5 cxd4 16.Nxd4 Nc5, Fischer had achieved an ideal post for his king’s knight, severely hampering the movement of Spassky’s pieces.

Spassky tried to open up the g-file with a knight sacrifice, but after 18.Nf5 gxf5 19.gxf5, but the plan was not sound.  Fischer replied with 19…Bxd5 20.exd5 and picked off another pawn with 20…Bxb2.  Spassky now had a losing position and resigned seven moves later after 27…Kg7.  Fischer’s comeback was complete, but where would he go from here?

Next week, we’ll do a post-mortem on the match and give some quotes from the players themselves and hear the opinions of some of the other grandmasters who were intently watching this match.

What Is The Greatest Rivalry In The History Of Chess?

The most recent poll has closed and the chess rivalry between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov was convincingly voted the best.  There were 55 votes in all and the winner received 44% of the votes.  Our choices must have been very thorough, as there were no other rivalries mentioned outside of what we had listed.  The final voting was as follows:

Kasparov-Karpov – 24 votes,     Fischer-Spassky – 12 votes

Steinitz-Zukertort – 6 votes,     Karpov-Korchnoi – 6 votes

Botvinnik-Smyslov – 4 votes,     Bourdonnais-McDonnell – 2 votes

Lasker-Steinitz – 1 vote,     Spassky-Petrosian – 0 votes

Kramnik-Topalov – 0 votes,     Other – 0 votes

There will be a new poll posted over the weekend.  Feel free to contribute further conversation on this topic right here.  As a bonus, we give you the 24th and final game from their 1987 match in Seville, Spain.  Kasparov needed an outright win to force a match tie and retain his world championship title.  We hope you enjoy it.

Boris Spassky bounced back to win game 26 of his 1992 match with Bobby Fischer, just one day after being thoroughly dominated by the American in the previous game.  Knowing that his back was against the wall, as Fischer only needs one more game to take home the $3.35 million dollar winner’s prize, Spassky came up with arguably his best performance of the match thus far.  Fischer tried his King’s Indian Defense that moved ever so slightly into a Benoni Defense.

Spassky’s early pawn chains and powerful bishops hampered Fischer at every turn.   Spassky’s space advantage became evident after 18.g5 forced 18…Nf7 and Fischer’s knight had nowhere to maneuver.  With Spassky’s kingside defenses impenetrable, Fischer attempted to load up on the b-file for a queenside attack to no avail.  Spassky continued his kingside pressure with 29.h5 and 30.h6 and suffocated black’s kingside defenses.

Fischer attempted a hasty trade-off of queens and the last remaining rooks to give himself some breathing room with 33.Ng5 Rxb1 34.Qxb1 Qxb1 35.Bxb1, but Spassky expertly used the advantage of his twin bishops and maneuvered his king into Fischer’s back yard.  They battled on until move 58 when Fischer finally resigned.  Fischer now leads the match by a score of 9-5.

Aron Nimzowitsch (1886-1935) was born in Russia, but later made his home in Copenhagen, Denmark.  He was considered one of the original “hypermodern” players, whose beliefs are that controlling the center squares is more important than actually occupying them.  Chess Praxis and My System are two books written by Nimzowitsch that are still considered by many to be the foremost instructionals on the game of chess.

The Nimzo-Indian Defense was named after him and is still often used among today’s grandmasters.  Several of the French Defense variations are also named after him.  His most notable tournament victories were Copenhagen 1923, Dresden 1926, and Karlsbad 1929.  Nimzowitsch had an opportunity to challenge Jose Raul Capablanca for the world title 1925, but was unable to come up with the necessary finances for the match.

Here is one of his classic battles with fellow hypermodernist Richard Reti in Berlin 1928: