Schlage -- Ahues 1921: Historical Inquiry

A substantial number of chess endgame books present a position said to have been from a drawn game between Willi Schlage (1888-1940) with White and Carl Oscar Ahues (1883-1968). The game was played in Berlin in 1921, but no event is listed. Nor has a complete game score appeared. Schlage missed a win, as later pointed out by Ilya Maizelis.

White to move

From this position, Schlage started well, but his second move demonstrated that he did not discover the critical idea.

1.Ke6 Kc3 2.Kd6 

Maizelis pointed out that 2.Kd5! would have won.

2...Kd4 3.Kc6 Ke5 4.Kb7 Kd6 5.Kxa7 Kc7 1/2-1/2

As this ending appears in Mark Dvoretsky, Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual (2003), the position is on one of my pawn ending flash cards. Many of my students have tried to find the solution and then had it shown to them. When I encountered it this morning in Paul Keres, Practical Chess Endings (1974), I wanted to know more about the game. Searching for a game score took me down a rabbit hole of book after book. If no game can be found, then perhaps I can trace the analysis back to first publication.

It certainly did not originate with Jesus de la Villa, 100 Endgames You Must Know Workbook (2019) that a Wikipedia editor referenced. To the credit of the Wikipedia editors, Keres is also credited with presenting this ending.

Keres does not credit Maizelis, but Dvoretsky does. Chess Informant's Encyclopedia of Chess Endings: Pawn Endings (1982) has the position as number 65 and credits Maizelis with the solution.

My next step is the inquiry was Pawn Endings (1974) by Yuri Averbakh and Ilya Maizelis. An editor added to the text: "Maizelis was the first to point out the correct solution. so position No. 78 must be credited to him. Rabinovich indicated this in the first edition of his book, Chess Endgames, 1927" (26).

Happily, Mongoose Press brought out an English edition of the second edition (1938) of Rabinovich's text: Ilya Rabinovich, The Russian Endgame Handbook, trans James Marfia (2012). Rabinovich credits "I.M.", which he calls a pseudonym, with mentioning in the Soviet magazine 64 (1925, No. 6) that White's king "should move according to the most twisted, broken route" (as quoted by Rabinovich). Perhaps someone has access to old copies of 64 and can read Russian. I still have questions.