Checkmate Pattern: Two Pigs

The pattern that I call Two Pigs is usually referred to as the “Blind Swine Mate”. It is an unfortunate and illogical term that violates an unsourced quote credited to Dawid Markelowicz Janowsky (1868-1927). The unsourced quote has been in circulation at least since 1953, the original publishing date of The Art of Attack in Chess.

“The pair of rooks which “grunt out check” on the seventh rank but cannot get a sight of mate were once nicknamed ‘blind swine’ by Janowski” (Victor Vukovic, The Art of Attack in Chess [1993], 73).

If they are blind, they do not find checkmate.

I knew less about the history of this pattern name when I created my self-published A Checklist of Checkmates twenty years ago. The contents of page 15:

Edward Winter often has written about the appalling number of unsourced quotes in chess literature.* Regarding the Janowsky quote, see Chess Notes 3494, 3525, and 5160 (scroll down). The last of these was prompted by my correspondence with Winter, noting two instances when Janowsky had two rooks on the seventh rank and could manage only a draw. Although the quote is unsourced, one can imagine Janowsky grumbling about pigs that cannot see checkmate. However, in the game that I cited in A Checklist of Checkmates, his blind pigs saved an otherwise lost game.

Such was my idea in a blitz game yesterday, when blind to the advantage that I had, I set up a draw that was not forced until my opponent returned the favor.

White to move

39.Rff7??

39.Rc8+ Kd7 40.Rg8+- was the winning line.

39...b1Q??

After 39...Rxe4+, Black still gets a queen, while White's blind swine cannot force a draw.

40.Rfe7+ and the game was quickly drawn by repetition as Black cannot escape endless checks.

In another online game in July, I was on the receiving end of the Two Pigs checkmate, except that in this case another piece (knight or king) was needed, and so the pattern is not the same.

White to move

29.a6

This desperate try failed. 

29.Rxd5 was another possibility that fails.

29...b6 30.Rc1 Rg2+ 31.Kh1

31.Kf1 Ne3+ 32.Ke1 Rbe2#

This is a pattern that Raf Mesotten, The Checkmate Pattens Manual (2022) calls Vukovic's Mate (45-49). It appears to be an instructive book, but like every other book on the subject, it passes on common attributions grounded in bad history and unsourced quotes (see "Pillsbury's Mate"). To Mesotten's credit, he notes clearly that his sources for the pattern names were chessgames.com, Wikipedia, and Chess Tempo (7).

31...Rxh2+ 32.Kg1 Rbg2+ and I resigned as a knight-assisted "Ladder mate" was coming.

The Two Pigs Mate pattern appears in this game played on Internet Chess Club in 2001.

White to move

21.O-O?

White is much worse, but castling here gives Black a forced mate in three, which I promptly executed.

21...Rgxg2+ 22.Kh1 Rxh2+ 23.Kg1 Rcg2#

*I also have some articles on the topic and related topics, such as "Plagiarism and Related Crimes".

Two Donner Quotes

On Friday, 16 May, someone shared on Facebook a quote by J. H. Donner concerning the difficulty of converting a winning position into a win. Donner's words were that he "cannot stand" such positions, while he "loves" all other types of chess positions, even "a bad position". The statement comes from an article, "On the Justice of Chess", that he wrote in 1950 and that was reprinted in The King: Chess Pieces (2006), 17-20.

The shared quote inspired me somewhat two days after I read it on Facebook. While going through a long and difficult game that I won, my opponent and I were examining a position that had occurred one-third of the way through the game. I was clearly worse. "You should have resigned," Mark said. My position was quite bleak. I was down an exchange plus pawn and my pieces had no play.

Black to move

Havrilla -- Stripes 2025

Perhaps it was about this time that I walked over to the wall charts to see Mark's rating. It was close to mine (ten points lower). We were both low-A Class. I've been A-Class long enough to know that anyone at such a level probably has defects in their game.

My position was clearly worse, but my opponent still had some work to perform. A resignable position in my view is one where I could turn the board around, take my opponent's side, and defeat Magnus Carlsen, or Stockfish, or Carlsen and Stockfish working together.

Donner's assertion, which I could no longer find where I'd remembered seeing it on Facebook, was made in the context of two games he played against Borislav Milic in a match between Yugoslavia and the Netherlands. Although Donner reached a clearly superior position in both games, he managed only half a point.

Black to move

Donner -- Milic 1950

In comments on the position above, he wrote, "Decent players resign in such a position. Black did not and managed a draw" (19).

Knowing that my opponent was quite strong, but not so strong that a few errors might led me swindle a draw from my nearly hopeless position, I opted to play on.

Twelve moves after the position that Mark and I were examining postgame when he thought that I should resign, I snatched an important pawn with 33…Nxa4.

White to move

Havrilla -- Stripes 2025

My game remained objectively worse, but at least my pieces had some play. While discussing the game afterwards with some others at the tournament, I described my knight as a fly buzzing in my opponent's face. I expressed some empathy for the difficulty of contending with such irritation.

The game continued, 34.Rc8 Bc5+ 35.Kg2 Rxc8 36.Bxc8 Nxc3 37.Rc1 Ne2 38.Rf1 b6

White to move

Havrilla -- Stripes 2025

I began to feel that a draw was a real possibility. After 39.Kf3 Nd4+ 40.Kg4 a4! I was certain that I could hold the game.

Neither of us played the best moves from this difficult position, but after another twenty moves, I was clearly winning. My opponent was also desperately short of time.

White to move

Havrilla -- Stripes 2025

Five moves later, my pawn was sitting a2, I had my queen near to hand, and my opponent's clock expired.

In Donner's first game with Milic, he spent an hour on this position.

Black to move

Milic -- Donner 1950

Stockfish 17 favors the move that he played, 22...Rg8, but he suggested several others as better, writing without the benefit of computer analysis in 1950. Nonetheless, his advantage began to slip away and the clock also had become an issue by the time Milic had a clear advantage.

This loss and the draw that followed led Donner to offer what became an inspirational quote for me after Mark's postgame comment.

I love all positions. Give me a difficult positional game, I'll play it. Give me a bad position, I'll defend it. Openings, endgames, complicated positions and dull, drawn positions, I love them all and will give them my best efforts. But totally winning positions I cannot stand. (19)

Later in the same paragraph is the statement that I used as an epigraph last week while annotating an ending where imperfect play on both sides gave me drawing chances that I missed, followed by my opponent missing his winning chances, and eventually the draw falling into my lap (see "Comedy of Errors"): "It is much better, in fact, to play an objectively less correct game but to be able to win once you've got a winning position" (19).

Tough Choices

Reading is central to my life. Last night, I finished John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat (1935) and placed an order for In Dubious Battle (1936). I am working through all of Steinbeck's books in order of publication. Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857), which I started appropriately on 1 April, is slower going.

I also read chess books and usually more than one at a time. I bought the first edition of Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual (2003) within a year of its first publication and later acquired the second edition on my Kindle app, a second copy of the first edition in Chessbase format, and the fifth edition. Dvoretsky's book has served as an indispensable endgame resource and frequently the first of my many endgame books that I open when I want to understand something. As I wrote in late-April, the chapter on rook endings is part of my regular work at present (see "Working through Dvoretsky").

After racing through 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018) in 74 days from December to March, the sequel, 300 Most Important Tactical Chess Positions (2020) has on a table in the living room, on my desk, or in a chess bag as I am beginning a slower process of working through it.

Some newer books are offering me tough choices or distractions from focus.

Think Like a Super-GM (2022) by Michael Adams and Philip Hurtado joined my chess book collection on 1 May. I took it with me on a trip that weekend (see "Think Like a Super-GM"). When I returned home, I set up the second position on the dining room table, looked at it some with neither a note pad nor discipline and focus. I had to remove it from the table in preparation for hosting a family get together on Mother's Day.

I remain a subscriber and occasional reader of Chess Informant, which now serves class players as well as it served masters in the days before ready access to recent games that came with the internet. I referenced an opening article from CI 162 in "When preparation meets opportunity", showing a game where I beat a player gambling with the Budapest.

At Spring Break Chess Camp, Jim Maki was using a lot of challenging checkmate problems with the young players. In a conversation about sources for such exercises after one of the sessions, I immediately remembered Anthology of Chess Problems, 2nd ed. (2021), a reissue of the anthology published in the 1990s by Milan Velimirovic and Marjan Kovacevic. I took it to camp the next day to show Maki, and brought it again to the youth tournament that Saturday when Maki and I were working the analysis table. It was with me during chess lessons with young players the following week. The mate in twos that begin the book are challenging enough to keep me busy far longer than I am likely to invest in the effort.

Two days ago, another book arrived that I bought not only because the topic is interesting, but also because I really liked the cover art by Kallia Kleisarchaki.

Cyrus Lakdawala takes on the task of ranking chess players past and present in The Greatest (2025). No one will agree with his rankings, of course, because the topic remains more interesting so long as chess enthusiasts enjoy arguing with any and every list ever constructed.

Naturally, I immediately found fault with his chronology that begins with Philidor. Giulio Cesare Polerio's innovations and Gioachino Greco's improvements on those innovations remain underappreciated in chess history. Nonetheless, I find no fault either with his top four, nor with the sequence he offers. I also find his defense of the arrangement logical and compelling. Numbers five and six were the focus of Chess Skills for two months in 2021. 

After his "Classical Era Top Tier List", Lakdawala lists twenty criteria that informed his list. The Greatest will be earning more of my attention in the coming days and weeks and I work through at least some of the 80 games that Lakdawala selected to develop the theme of chess greatness.

From time to time, I am still also working through P.H. Clarke, 100 Soviet Chess Miniatures (1963). It might be how I take my coffee in the morning if not for always playing at least two words games with my wife on our iPads--Scrabble and Words with Friends.

Tactics Training

These days, it seems that I spend more time doing puzzles online (chessdotcom mostly, but also Lichess and Chess Tempo) than working with positions in books. Still, for serious improvement in tactical vision and calculation, books are superior.

After racing through Thomas Engqvist, 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018) in less than three months, I’m more highly motivated to keep 300 Most Important Tactical Chess Positions (2020) near the center of my chess activities through the rest of 2025. Four of the first five positions in the book have forcing continuations that run deep enough that I anticipate some challenge working through the book. Difficulty makes the enterprise worthwhile.

Today’s position arose in Mason,J.—Winawer,S., Vienna 1882. Engqvist’s analysis is instructive. At least three problems for players at different levels can be extracted from Mason’s combination.

Engqvist's position is before Mason's 40.Rxg5 (see photograph). If Black refuses the rook sacrifice, 40...Qf8 41.Rg6 controls the sixth rank. Then, 41...Rxf5

White to move

42.Qxf5! Qxf5 43.Rg7+ Nd7 44.Rxd7+ Kc8 45.Rxb8+ (only move) 45...Kxb8 46.Rb7+ and whichever way Black's king steps, Black's queen is coming off the board and White has a winning endgame.

After the line played in the game (40.Rxg5 hxg5 41.Qh7+ Nd7 42.Bxd7 Qg8--this position appeared as a exercise on chessgames.com in 2003--43.Rb7+ Kxb7), there is a more basic exercise position.

White to move

The discovery (44.Bc8+) is Engqvist's theme for this exercise, and the interference is an important aspect of why it works. Posters on chessgames.com and Engqvist valorize Mason's technique bringing home the full point for the resulting ending of queen and bishop vs. two rooks.

The Superiority of Books

For beginning students, the sequencing in such books as Sergey Ivashchenko, Manual of Chess Combinations (1997) and Susan Polgar, A World Champion’s Guide to Chess (2015) will lead to much more rapid growth in tactics skill than random positions online. Of course, with certain membership levels, chessdotcom and Chess Tempo allow training with particular themes and rating levels, so these can be tweaked with appropriate guidance.

For players who know basic patterns, but need work on strengthening calculation skills and assessing resulting positions after a combination, such books as Mark Dvoretsky, Secrets of Chess Tactics (1992), Paata Gaprindashvili, Imagination in Chess (2004), and Cyrus Lakdawala, Tactical Training (2021) offer abundant exercises.

Yakov Nieshtadt, Improve Your Chess Tactics (2012) is highly regarded for its organizational scheme and definitions, while Yuri Averbakh, Chess Tactics for Advanced Players (1992) articulates a notion of contacts that should be more common in chess literature.

300 Most Important Chess Positions

A Book Review

If you follow Chess Skills, then you know that I've been working through Thomas Engqvist, 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018) at a pace far more accelerated than recommended by the author. When I announced this 60 day effort in December, I noted, “failure may be expected”. I worked through the last four positions this morning, the 74th day.

I heartily recommend this book. Studying five positions per week, as the author suggests, improves retention, and likely long-term benefits from study. Having raced through the book, I will be reviewing and deepening my study of many positions in the book over the coming months.

Engqvist’s 300 positions are selected from classical games, recent master practice, and compositions. Engqvist also includes some of his own most instructive losses. He is guided by a library of chess books, many years of playing, and experience coaching. The core idea of deep study of a limited number of positions developed from the way he was coached by Robert Danielsson while a young player. He studied positions from Ludek Pachman’s books on the middlegame and endgame.

Alekhine builds his gun

In the introduction, Engqvist makes a case for careful, disciplined study and focus on a limited number of positions per week. This contrasts markedly with Jeremy Silman's recollection that as a young chess player, he went through "200 to 500 games a day, every day" ("Studying Master Games and Berkmaster's First Over-the-Board Tournament Battle"). Silman claims that he absorbed tactical patterns and positional concepts in this manner. Engqvist advocates reflection and review with intent to "understand, grasp and assimilate the most important idea(s)" (9). He asserts that studying too many positions at once lead you to forget what you have learned. At the core of this learning process, he writes, is "to gain a deeper appreciation of the inner qualities of the pieces, their movements and their actual value in any specific position" (emphasis in original, 9).

By way of illustration, he offers this composition by Paul Rudolf von Bilguer from 1843.

White to move

This position appears in the introduction and as number 281 in the text. Both Ludek Pachman and André Chéron advocate 1.Qe6 and consider the position a draw, but tablebases show that it is a win. There is much to attempt to absorb in the tablebase moves that Engqvist annotates (274-276), but he notes that sometimes the queen works best when it does no more than a rook can do (9). 1.Qc7! is the only winning move. The queen's demotion explains the first move, but subsequent moves draw on the full mobility of the queen, leading Engqvist to marvel at "how the attacker uses the queen over practically the whole board" (276).

The positions that he chooses are interesting, challenging, instructive, and practical. Most of them were tested with chess players who subscribed to an email course where they were presented five positions per week. Rarely is a single move or short sequence the solution that one must find while examining the position. Only a few offer long computer solutions as in the Bilguer study. A considerable number of positions feature equal or near equal positions from games where strong moves and persistent maneuvers eventually provoked error.

Many of the positions are suitable for training with a study partner. Engqvist recommends playing both sides with another person, or against the computer. Teaching the position to someone else improves retention he notes, and in my experience also depth of understanding. My young students often vex me with moves that were not anticipated in master commentary or computer analysis. The positions in this book are excellent resources for coaches. The day that I acquired this book in February 2019, I took it to a lesson with my top student. We looked at six endgames and then the first position in the book (see "A New Book and a Morphy Game"). The next few weeks, this student and I will be playing some of the rook and queen endings.

Emphasis is on positional concepts, rather than tactical operations. The author notes that this emphasis distinguishes his book from Lev Alburt, Chess Training Pocket Book: 300 Most Important Positions and Ideas (1997), which emphasizes tactics. Alburt also limits the number of endgames. He states that becoming a "strong player" requires knowledge of 12 key pawn endings, not hundreds (9). These 12 are in his Pocket Book. Alburt's book is the second one that I list in "Ten Books to Achieve 1800+".

Some positions in 300 Most Important Chess Positions are surprising, such as White’s second move in the English Opening, Sicilian Reversed.

White to move

But this position is placed alongside others (both English Opening and Sicilian Defense) with references to several games played by top players. There is plenty of study material in these games. I might also note that Engqvist’s opening choices reflected in the positions chosen offer more variety than those in another collection of 300 positions that I’ve spent time working through: Rashid Ziyatdinov, GM-RAM: Essential Grandmaster Knowledge (2000). Ziyatdinov’s positions stem from games where 1.e4 is the overwhelming choice.

An instructive sequence of positions that I found highly motivating began with Bologan,V.--Frolov,A., Moscow 1991, a Sicilian Defense, then in a variation continued with Anand,V.--Illescas Cordoba,M., Linares 1992 and reference to Karpov,A.--Kasparov,G., Moscow 1985.  It continued with Bologan--Frolov for two more positions, then Marin,M.--Korneev,O., Capo d'Orso 2008 takes us through moves 2-4 through three positions in the English Opening, Sicilian Reversed.

The first position in the book is slightly less surprising, but with two book moves played by Adolf Anderssen and Paul Morphy, as well as many other players before and since, Engqvist’s preference for Morphy’s choice provokes reflection.

White to move

9.Nc3 and 9.d5 both get played by masters today. Adolf Anderssen favored 9.d5 and won many games from this position. Paul Morphy showed, Engqvist suggests, that 9.Nc3 is a better developing move.

As I consider Morphy’s 9.Nc3 in the Evans Gambit or Mihai Marin’s view that after 1.c4 e5, 2.g3 is the most precise, I am reminded of my tendency to blitz out opening moves by rote and only begin thinking after an inaccuracy. Engqvist’s positions from very early in the game should help me to develop better habits. Thinking should begin before the first move, even if positions at move 10 are well-studied.

There are positions in this book that I have used with students for many years and there are positions that are wholly new to me. There are many positions with several pages of analysis and variations. There are positions that should be drawn, but one player was able to present sufficient difficulties to provoke error.

Ziyatdinov advocates memorizing the 56 games from which he draws the middlegame positions; Engqvist is more selective in games that he suggests the student commit to memory. Schulten -- Morphy, New York 1857, a King's Gambit that Morphy won in 21 moves, appears in both and I'm close to having it in my long-term memory. I have not yet started the effort to memorize Karpov,A.--Unzicker,W., Nice 1974, which is another suggestion of Engqvist's.

One position that I studied in early January led me to improve my move order in a position that I frequently reach while playing against the Caro-Kann.

Several endgame positions that I played against Stockfish before or after reading Engqvist's notes drove me to dig into some of the volumes in Yuri Averbakh's eight-volume series.

Engqvist's analysis is fresh, lucid, and thought-provoking. Many of his memorable phrases guide me when they should--appropriate moments during play. For example, "Nimzowitsch tried to make his opponent tired and careless by doing nothing" (230). In Duras -- Nimzowitsch, San Sebastian 1912, more than twenty moves of rooks and kings were played in a completely equal endgame. Only when Duras erred did Nimzowitsch move a pawn.

I reflected on this lesson while playing online a completely drawn ending of bishop and knight versus bishop, and then nine moves prior to a draw by the 50-move rule, my opponent allowed a small combination that allowed me to win his bishop. That game, then, became my first opportunity to checkmate with bishop and knight that did not result from a deliberate underpromotion. Because of Engqvist's choice of positions, I had recently practiced that checkmate, too (see "Recognizing Known Positions").

300 Most Important Chess Positions was on my shelf nearly six years, serving as occasional study material and reference for finding positions suitable for some of my students. Now that I've been through every position, I will use it more actively.

I have a to do list that developed as I was going through the book. The list includes studying Jose Capablanca's analysis of a couple of his games in My Chess Career (1920), the only Capablanca authored book that I did not wholly read in 2021. Engqvist brought to my attention a game that Richard Reti analyzes in Master of the Chessboard (1930), which I intend to study. Some of Engqvist's analysis draws from Victor Bologan, Victor Bologan: Selected Games 1985-2004 (2007), and I added it to my library. The long rook endgames and queen endings are games worth reviewing periodically until I absorb their lessons.

Another task presented to me after racing through this book is that Engqvist has also published 300 Most Important Tactical Chess Positions (2020), 300 Most Important Chess Exercises (2022), and Chess Lessons from a Champion Coach (2023). Any or all of these books would be worth my time. Perhaps I'll continue to ignore Engqvist's advice on pacing, and race through his tactics book in the near future.

Playing Drawn Endgames

Do you play out a position that is technically drawn? Twelve years ago, here on Chess Skills, I inquired about an endgame that I was watching live. Levon Aronian made Fabiano Caruana play 36 moves in a dead drawn rook and bishop vs. rook ending. Some research showed that Aronian had won such endings in previous games. When time is short and one side faces no dangers, it makes sense to press and force the opponent to prove their skills in maintaining equality.

Thomas Engqvist makes this point in 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018) with several examples. First is Duras,O. -- Nimzowitsch,A., San Sebastian 1912.

Black to move

Engqvist writes:

Nimzowitsch tried to make his opponent tired and careless by doing nothing. As a matter of fact there is nothing Black can do. By playing in this "innocent" manner Nimzowitsch managed to fool his opponent. (230-231)

After 24 moves of seemingly pointless shuffling, the players reached this position.

Black to move

Duras erred with 57.Rg5. Nimzowitsch seized the moment with 57...f5 and Duras resigned ten moves later.

Engqvist adds Flohr,S. -- Vidmar,M., Nottingham 1936, where he notes, "In practice it's not easy to defend these kinds of endings and even famous masters and grandmasters make mistakes that eventually lead to a loss" (238). Vidmar resigned 16 moves after his critical error.

Then, in Chigorin,M. -- Tarrasch,S., Budapest 1896, Tarrasch offered a draw in this position.

White to move

"Chigorin correctly declined since White cannot lose anyway", Engqvist observes (240).

After 30.Kf4 Kf8 31.f3 Kg8 32.Ra7 Kf8 33.g4 hxg4 34.fxg4

Black to move

34...Ra1??

34...Kg8 was necessary. Engines need considerable search depth to perceive the error here, but Chigorin appeared to understand the moment.

35.Kf5 Rf1+ 36.Kg6 Rf4 37.g5 fxg5 38.hxg5

In this position, I recognized that White will be able to reach a Lucena position, although that took another ten moves.

My own insistence on playing on when there is the sliver of a chance of eventual victory developed as a consequence of reading Jacob Aagaard, Excelling at Technical Chess (2004) almost twenty years ago. Yesterday, I faced an opponent in online play who pressed when he had a slight edge in a technically drawn ending. I erred. He missed his chance. And then, he took the game almost to stalemate, even offering me opportunities to fall apart in an elementary pawn ending.

White to move

Stripes,J. -- Johnson,F. [A04]
Live Chess Chess.com, 19.02.2025

28.Ra1!= Rxa1 29.Rxa1 Ra8 30.Ke3?!

An inaccuracy

30.Ra6 Rb8 31.Rxa7 Rxb3 32.Rxe7 Rc3 33.Re8+ Kg7 34.Rd8 Rxc4 35.Rxd6=

30...Kf8 31.Ra6 c5

31...Rb8 32.Ra3 a5 33.Kf4 would be more difficult for White.

White to move

32.d5?

32.dxc5 dxc5 33.Kd3=

32...Ke8

32...f5 should win.

33.Kd3 Kd7 34.Kc3

34.g4 is White's best chance. It seems that both of us missed the strength of f7-f5.

34...e6?

34...f5!

I have survived my first error and the game is again drawn with best play.

35.e4 f5 36.dxe6+ Kxe6 37.exf5+ gxf5

White to move

38.Kd3??

38.b4= cxb4+ 39.Kxb4 Rb8+ 40.Kc3 Rg8! 41.c5! Rxg3+ 42.Kd2 Ke5 43.cxd6 Rg7 44.Ke3 Rd7 45.Kf3
38.h5!=

38...h5-+ 39.Ke3 Ke5 40.Ra5

Black to move

40... a6??

Spoils the win.

40...Rb8-+ 41.Ra3 a5
40...Rg8-+

41.b4!=

The rest of the game was played well by both sides and a draw was the appropriate result. I never had winning chances, but there were opportunities for me to go wrong, so my opponent pressed.

41...Rc8 42.bxc5 Rxc5 43.Rxa6 Rxc4 44.Ra5+ d5

White to move

45.Ra8 Rc3+ 46.Kf2 d4 47.Re8+ Kd5 48.Rf8 Ke4

White to move

49.Re8+ Kd5 50.Rf8 Ke5 51.Re8+ Kf6 52.Rh8 Kg6 53.Rg8+ Kf7 54.Rg5 Kf6 55.Rxh5 Rc2+ 56.Kf3 d3 57.Rh6+ Ke5 58.Rh8 d2 59.Rd8 Rc3+

White to move

60.Ke2 Rxg3 61.Rxd2

61.Kxd2 f4 62.Re8+ Kf5 63.Ke2=

61...Rg2+ 62.Ke1 Rxd2 63.Kxd2

And now, in a drawn pawn ending, my opponent goes to remove my pawn, and then makes me show that I know where to place my king.

63...Kf4 64.Ke2 Kg4 65.h5 Kxh5 66.Kf3 Kg5 67.Kg3 f4+ 68.Kf3 Kf5 69.Kf2 Ke5 70.Kf3 Kf5 71.Kf2 Ke4 72.Ke2 f3+ 73.Kf2 Kf4 74.Kf1 Ke3 75.Ke1 Ke4 76.Kf2 Kf4 77.Kf1 Kg4 78.Kf2 Kf4 Game drawn by repetition ½-½

Having lost all four prior encounters against Atlanta coach and chess expert Frank Johnson, I'm very happy with the draw. My work on rook endings with Engqvist's book and Jesus de la Villa, 100 Endgames You Must Know, 4th. ed. (2015) made a difference in navigating difficulties, but did not prevent all errors.

60 Days, 300 Positions: Day Twenty-four

In defiance of Thomas Engqvist's clear advice in 300 Most Important Positions (2018), I remain on track to complete the book in 60 days. Engqvist suggests five positions per week with review of the previous week's in addition to five new positions. The idea is to "assimilate the knowledge to be gained" and be able to use it for a lifetime. He warns, "If you study too many positions and gloss over them too quickly you run an increased risk of eventually losing your discipline and then forget what you once endeavoured to learn" (7-8).

There is no question that I am glossing over many positions, while I spend many hours with others. Accordingly, I am keeping track of positions or other resources that I intend to return to after concluding the 60 day sprint. Assuming that I remain on track, I will finish my first complete read of the book in the last week of February. More than likely, I will go through it again in the near future.

Today, I am running a youth chess tournament. Such an activity cuts into my study time. I will have the book with me and endeavor to work through with some attention positions 56-60. I am working from the front of the book and also from the middle. I have been through 60 endgame positions (151-210).

Books beget books. As I am reading Engqvist's text and studying positions, I am driven to some of his sources. Three positions in the section on development were taken from a game that Victor Bologan analyzes in Victor Bologan: Selected Games 1985-2004 (2007). That book was added to my personal library earlier this month and I am reading the biographical narrative with the intent to study some of the games at another time.

In the summer of 2023, I added to my library seven of the eight volumes of Comprehensive Chess Endings, edited by Yuri Averbakh. It is no surprise that Engqvist draws some positions and analysis from these books. There is more in each of them that I could be studying. When Engqvist draws a position from one of the volumes, I find myself looking at other positions nearby. 

Other books that have been referenced are among those I have occasionally dipped into and intend to again, such as Anatoly Karpov, How to Play the English Opening and Jose Capablanca, My Chess Career. Richard Reti, Masters of the Chessboard analyzes a game that Engqvist brought to my attention. On chessgames.com, Raymond Keene claims he earned many victories against the structure Black adopted in that game thanks to having studied Reti’s analysis.

Despite Engqvist's ideas about how his book should be utilized, I am enjoying and finding productive my accelerated study. Among the benefits are that I am playing fewer games online and playing somewhat more consistently. In this position from this morning, I missed an easy tactic. But it was one of only a few inaccuracies and I did a good job of depriving my opponent of any play--a theme I saw in several master games from which positions the past few days were extracted.

White to move

26.Nxg6+ should have been easy to spot, and a couple of moves later I was courting that opportunity. Even so, after 26.Qf6+, I remained fully in control and my knight is far better than Black's bishop.

Eight moves later, my position had improved while my opponent seemed to be moving backwards.

Black to move

Black attempted to bring some pieces into battle with 34.f6. My reply was not the computer's preference, but was aimed at bringing both rooks into play. Only one was needed as Black collapsed quickly.

35.Ra4 e5? 36.gxf6+ Rxf6 37.Qxe5+ Be6 38.Rxa6 Rf5 39.Ra7+ and Black resigned.

60 Days, 300 Positions: Day Two

Thomas Engqvist urges review as an integral aspect of the process of learning 300 chess positions. Today, I reviewed the first five positions in 300 Most Important Chess Positions (2018). Three of these appear among those in Rashid Ziyatdinov, GM-RAM: Essential Grandmaster Knowledge (2000), a book I labored part-way through more than a decade ago.

All five positions are derived from four games played by Paul Morphy. One, from a game against his father, is a position I had not studied prior to working through the first part of the book in February 2019, although I have a position from the game in my collection of exercises for students, Checkmates and Tactics (2019).

As noted yesterday, I wrote about the first position in the book shortly after it arrived in the mail. I noted there that two moves—both played by Morphy at different times—differ only slightly in their merits, but Morphy’s move in the reference game has been the dominant choice of masters. As both moves are playable, judgement is necessary. Engqvist’s observation that “one should avoid unproductive one-move threats” (14) is worth reviewing.

Positions 4 and 5 both derive from Schulten — Morphy, New York 1857, game 7 in GM-RAM. I have memories of attempting to imitate Morphy’s play in this game against a student in a blitz or rapid event a week or two after we had studied the game together. I remember his laugh as we found ourselves in the same opening. He won the tournament, but I won that game. Morphy’s play inspired my plans, but my young student avoided Schulten’s errors. That student achieved an expert rating as a high school student when he won the Spokane Falls Open in August 2019.

Both Engqvist and Ziyatdinov urged memorizing this game. Engqvist writes, “learn this model game by heart” (16). I had it lodged in my short-term memory when I was working through it with Ziyatdinov’s book about the time that I studied it with my young student, but I cannot completely reconstruct it from memory this morning.

Schulten, J. — Morphy, P.
New York 1857

1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5 3.exd5 e4!

I recall studying the opening stats and learning that 3…exf4 appears to score better. Nonetheless, I nearly always play 3…e4 here. I have had the position after 3.exd5 at least 426 times in online play. Black has won five games more than White. I've been White more often as the King's Gambit is an opening I play with some regularity. The first time that I played 3...e4 was in 2007 in a 15 minute game with a three second increment. I won in 45 moves.

My recollection of the game begins to falter here. I remember the next move, but with some uncertainty.

4.Nc3 Nf6

At first, I wrote Bb4 without sight of the board. I corrected the notation after checking the game score in 300 Most Important Chess Positions.

5.d3 Bb4

Of course, the timing of the bishop move is important, as here it pins the knight.

6.Bd2

Black to move

This is position 4 in Engqvist’s book. It does not appear in Ziyatdinov as a key position.

6…e3!

I played 6...exd3 in that 2007 game, which preceded my study of Morphy's game. I played 6...e3 for the first time in 2016. winning that game in 48 moves.

7.Bxe3 O-O 8.Bxd2 Bxc3

I still struggle with Morphy’s choice here, as it is not clear to me how the exchange of bishop for knight implements the principle of development.

9.bxc3

Why not Bxc3? This was the move played against me in 2016. According to the engines, bxc3 appears slightly better that capturing with the bishop.

9…Re8+ 10.Be2

This game is one of several Morphy games that merit study because of his effective use of pins. When my memory of this game gets me to point, I always remember Morphy’s moves when I’m able to recall Schulten’s.

10…Bg4 11.c4

Would Schulten have been better off here with 11.Nf3? Stockfish 16 favors 11.Kf2.

Black to move

Position number 5 in Engqvist is position number 150 in Ziyatdinov.

11…c6! 12.dxc6??

I identified this move as Schulten’s critical error when I first studied this game in detail, and capturing this pawn was one of my own errors in one of the worst tournament games I have played (see "Knowing Better"). In that game, my opponent played 3...c6!? and things went downhill quickly for me.

12…Nxc6-+ 13.Kf1

This position is number 151 in Ziyatdinov and I had it once doing tactics training on Chess.com.

13…Rxe2!

Morphy’s exchange sacrifice that maintains one of the pins on e2 is reminiscent of the Opera Game.

14.Nxe2 Nd4 15.Qb1

It is difficult to find a move for Schulten here that makes sense. The position is resignable. 

15…Bxe2+ 16.Kf2 Ng4+ 17.Kg1

Black to move

Morphy has a forced mate in seven.

17...Nf3+ 18.gxf3 Qd4+ 19.Kg2 Qf2+ 20.Kh3 Qxf3 21.Kh4

Philip W. Sergeant, Morphy's Games of Chess (1957 [1916]), 229 ends the game score here, giving the moves to mate as a comment. Other books and some databases carry the game all the way to mate.

Both 21...Nh6 and 21...Ne3 finish the job. My students rarely find 21...Nh6 and then 22.h3 Nf5+ 23.Kg5 Qh5#.

Poor Development

Konstantin Sakaev and Konstantin Landa, The Complete Manual of Positional Chess: Opening and Middlegame (2016) begins with development. They state, "everyone is aware of the rule [rapid development], but when it comes to practical play, one often sees players struck by 'amnesia'" (18). The first three examples show Mikhail Tal exploiting this amnesia when it afflicts normally strong players.

Wolfgang Uhlmann, the victim in the first example, annotated the game for Chess Informant 12. Tal's annotations appear in Life and Games of Mikhail Tal (1997). Prior to the game, Tal prepared a surprise for Uhlmann: his fifth move, which had appeared in some previous games and had been recommended by Alekhine.

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 c5 4.Ngf3 Nc6 5.Bb5

The surprise! Uhlmann gives the move !? and the same annotation to his reply, which Tal reports that took more than twenty minutes off Uhlmann's clock (437).

Black to move

5...dxe5

Sakaev and Landa assert that this move is dubious.

6.Nxe4 Bd7 7.Bg5!

Tal, Uhlmann, and the authors of The Complete Manual of Positional Chess all agree on the excellence of this move, developing with tempo.

Other examples of amnesia recently came up in my reading and play. Leonid Stein fell to a beautiful attack by the relatively unknown Leonid Remeyuk in the 1959 Ukranian Championship. The game is annotated in P.H. Clarke, 100 Soviet Chess Miniatures (1963).

White to move

White played 10.Bxb5+ and Stein resigned nine moves later.

Clarke writes, "White is so indignant at the sight of the text move, which disdains the principle he himself has been so careful to keep, that he there and then determines to punish the offender" (78).

Another example was selected yesterday by my advanced students in an after school chess club. They started by looking for Adolf Anderssen's final assault in his first game against Howard Staunton at the 1851 London tournament.

White to move

Staunton's problems began early.

1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.Nf3 e6 4.Nxd4 Bc5

4...a6 or a knight move is normal today.

5.Nc3 a6

5...Qb6 would at least apply some pressure on the knight.

6.Be3 Ba7 7.Bd3

White's lead in development should be abundantly clear. I tried to tell the students that Staunton had taken a journey through time on the T.A.R.D.I.S., met Ilya Kan, and learned some of Kan's ideas in the Sicilian Defense, but did not absorb the lessons well. They did not believe my story, finding time travel unlikely.

Black to move

In a rapid game this morning, I was presented with the opportunity to apply the lessons from these games.

White to move

15.Nxd5 Nxd5 16.Bg3?

And I blew it immediately. 16.Nxe6 rips open the center and defends the attacked bishop. Black's best response would have been 16...Nxf4, when White has several winning lines.

16...g5?? 17.Bh5

Again, Nxe6 is best, but this time my move is good enough to secure a decisive advantage.

17...Bg7 18.Nxe6! Qf6

White to move

I did not always find the best move with such a smorgasbord of winning choices, but I punished Black for poor development nonetheless. 

Greco’s Study Method

This position appears in Checkmates and Tactics (2019), a book that consists of exercises that I have used with scholastic players since 2006. It is doubtful that my creation of this exercise from a game credited to Gioachino Greco is original. The small selection of games credited to Greco that are found in ChessBase, chessgames.com, and other aggregations are well-enough known that others undoubtedly have put this position before their students.

White to move

Digging deeper into Greco’s output through Professor Hoffman, The Games of Greco (1900) and William Lewis, Gioachino Greco and the Game of Chess (1819), shows that Greco had improved upon Black’s play in some variations on the game that led to this position.

Those improvements were the subject of my chess lesson with some students earlier this month. Greco’s variations in this and other games lead one to suspect that he methodically sought to improve the defense in the short miniatures by which he is principally remembered. But, as I have noted in prior posts, these variations—better games—are absent from databases, although present in the books by Lewis and Hoffman.

Further study since presenting the lesson to my students has revealed that the exercise in Checkmates and Tactics was presented to Giacomo Buoncompagno, the Duke of Sora, by “an exceptional player” (more than likely Giulio Cesare Polerio). A Spanish manuscript kept in the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence dated in the last quarter of the sixteenth century presents the position and a comment about its presentation to the duke. Two Italian manuscripts (Elegantia and Regole) from the same time period offer the game, but only Riccardiana has the story.

The sixteen move game, thus, should be considered the work of Polerio, not Greco. It would take much time and travel to examine these manuscripts, but others have done so. Their work has been compiled into a useful table: "Openings and Games of the Classical Era of Modern Chess," in Peter J. Monté, The Classical Era of Modern Chess (2014), 439-530; the game in question here appears on 503.

At some point in Rome, Greco had access to some manuscripts containing Polerio’s work and made copies. In his 1620 manuscript dedicated to an unnamed cardinal of Casa Orsini, Greco wrote that Black had an alternate defense in this game. Improvements to Black’s play appear in four manuscripts a few years later—Grenoble (1624), Paris (1625), Orleans (undated), and Godolphin (undated, but possibly 1623).

As I have repeatedly emphasized on Chess Skills, Greco's games are poorly known because his best work does not appear in databases. In this case, Greco is credited with a composition by Polerio that he criticized and improved in his own work.

Here, then, is Greco's main (best) game from this opening with Polerio's and Greco's other work as variations.

Greco, Gioachino
Analysis, London? c.1623

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4

4.Nc3 c6 5.Bc4 h6 6.d4 d6 7.h4 Bg7 is the sequence in Polerio's mss--see move 15.

4...Bg7 5.d4 d6 6.Nc3 c6 7.h4 h6 8.hxg5 hxg5 9.Rxh8 Bxh8

The last move in Primo, an undated Greco manuscript (likely 1619). Greco notes that Black remains with a pawn up.

10.Ne5

Several posters on chessgames.com have noted that this move is an error, giving Black a clear advantage

10...dxe5 11.Qh5 Qf6 12.dxe5 Qg7

12...Qg6 offers Black chances, too, but the text is better.

13.e6 Nf6

13...Bxe6 is suggested on chessgames.com

14.exf7+

This position appears as a diagram in Lewis 1819

Black to move

Having inherited this miniature from Polerio's writings, Greco sought to improve Black's defensive efforts. He offers two better moves for Black--Ke7 and Kd8 and carries each forward with a plausible line.

a) 14...Ke7

14...Kf8?? leads to the diagram at the top of the article.

15.Bxf4 Nxh5
15...gxf4 16.Qc5# appears in Polerio's manuscripts.
15...Ke7 is still possible 16.Bxg5+-.

16.Bd6# Is the line in the databases and the main game in Hoffman and Lewis.

15.Qe2 Be6

Black has better moves, such as Bg4, but most of Greco's line offers the best moves for both sides.

16.Bxe6 Kxe6

So far, Black is slightly better, but White has active play against a vulnerable king.

17.Qc4+ Ke7 18.Qb4+ Kxf7 19.Qxb7+ Nbd7 20.Qxa8

Three of Greco's extant manuscripts end here, as do Lewis and Hoffman. David Levy & Kevin O'Connell, Oxford Encyclopedia of Chess Games, Vol. 1 1485-1866 (1981) makes the contents of Hoffman accessible in algebraic notation. Francis Beale, The Royall Art of Chesse-Play (1656) also ends here.

Perhaps Greco thought that the win of the rook was sufficient for the line. However, he extended analysis five moves longer in what became one of his more obscure manuscripts. According to Monté, the manuscript was believed to have been dedicated to Sir Francis Godolphin. Tassilo von der Lasa acquired it in 1856 and still had it in 1897, but after his death, its whereabouts became unknown until Alessandro Sanvito found it in a collection in Poland.

Black to move

20...Qh6 21.Qxa7 Qh1+ 22.Ke2 Qxg2+ 23.Qf2 Qxf2+

23...f3+ Black is slightly better.

24.Kxf2

Only now White is better, although what Greco thought is not clear. As the Godolphin manuscript would likely have been created in London, and is the most length analysis, a date of 1623 seems plausible.

With such a game, modern chess players armed with the latest Stockfish might still find faults in his analysis, but it should be clear that his strength exceeds the conclusions that are drawn when we associate him with Polerio's unacknowledged work.

Variation b is more clearly dated to 1624.

 

b) 14...Kd8

In this line, Greco's analysis is less precise. Although 14...Ke7 appears to give Black an advantage, with best play 14...Kd8 is equal.

White to move

15.Qxg5

A nice deflection!

15...Qxg5 16.f8Q+ Kd7?

An error.

16...Kc7=

17.Qxh8

17.Bxf4!! Stockfish 17...Qxf4 18.Rd1+ Nd5 19.Qxf4

17...Qxg2 18.Qxf6 f3

White to move

Black has threats, but White has a forced mate. Neither side plays the best moves in the conclusion of this variation.

19.Qf7+

19.Be6+!

19...Kd6

19...Kd8 is more stubborn.

20.Bf4+

20.e5+ Kc5 21.Be3+ Kb4 22.a3+ Ka5 23.b4# appears in Antonius van der Linde, De Kerkvaders der Schaakgemeente (1875).

20...Kc5 21.Na4+ Kb4

21...Kd4 22.c3+ Kxe4 23.Nc5# variation in Greco

22.Bd2+ Kxa4 23.b3+ Ka3 24.Qe7+ Kb2 25.Qe5+ Ka3

25...Kxc2 26.Rc1# variation in Greco

26.Bc1+ Kb4 27.c3#

This line and variations appears in two Paris manuscripts: Grenoble (1624) and Paris (1625), as well as the undated Orleans manuscript that appears to be copied from the Paris ms. While less precise, I could see extracting some checkmate exercises for my students from this variation.

Mate in Two

This problem took me far longer to solve than I care to admit, but represents a rare success among those I've attempted in a book new to my shelves.

White to move

The problem was composed by George Edward Carpenter (1844-1924) and appears in Anthology of Chess Problems, 2nd ed. (2021) by Milan Velimirović and Marjan Kovačević. Chess Informant brought it out 25 years after the original.

The first problem in the book was familiar to me as I had seen it before. I found it and others from Bonus Socius (a fourteenth century manuscript) in H.J.R. Murray, A History of Chess (1913) after one of these ancient puzzles appeared in another book.

White to move

Neither of the two medieval problems that begin the anthology gave me difficulty, but then I struggled. In some cases, I looked at the correct answer, but failed to examine it carefully enough. The exercises in the anthology are doing little to build my self-confidence, but offer plenty of delight when I peek at the solution.

In particular, this one composed by Joseph Plachutta (1827-1883), which appeared in Deutsche Schachzeitung in 1868. Short of examining every legal move, I doubt I could have found the key. Now that I have seen the answer, however, I appreciate the beauty of the composer's idea.

White to move

Anthology of Chess Problems gathers 2345 compositions that all lead to checkmate in two to five moves.