A Trap in the Winawer

This morning I looked through a couple of games in Irving Chernev, The 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (1955). One of these was Booth--Fazekas, London 1940. The somewhat unusual manner of trapping Black's queen was fresh in my memory two hours later when I had the opportunity in a similar position. Naturally, I was curious whether this sort of trap appears often. It is not terribly common, but with so many games recorded daily in online play, it happens often enough. My annotations give a sense of the frequency.

Booth -- Fazekas [C18]
London, 1940

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Qc7 7.Nf3 Nc6

Third most popular move.
7...Ne7 is most common.

8.Bd3

Black to move

8...cxd4

This capture does not get played by masters, but there are 23 games between lesser players in ChessBase Mega 2020. Also, there are 123 games in Lichess database, including several players of Black rated over 2300.

8...c4 9.Be2 seems appropos.

9.cxd4 Nxd4??

Loses the knight. ChessBase Mega has 18 games with this error; Lichess has 67.

10.Nxd4 Qc3+

White to move

Black has forked knight and rook and White can only defend one of them.

11.Qd2

Naturally, there are a number of games where White played Bd2, opting to give up the knight.

11...Qxa1? 12.c3!

The rook was poison. Five games in ChessBase Mega 2020 go this far. The highest rated Black player is 2153. Four games on Lichess--all players over 2000 on that site. Black appears to have resigned here as the queen is trapped. A game on Lichess continued 12...Qxc1+ 13.Qxc1 and then Black gave up.

1-0

In my game, my opponent did not blunder the knight. I still trapped the queen, but with less advantage. Alas, I moved the knight to the wrong square and let the queen back out.

Stripes -- Internet Opponent [C17]
Live Chess Chess.com, 22.09.2022

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.Nf3

5.a3 was Booth -- Fazekas.

5...a6

A rare move: 145 games on Lichess; 16 in ChessBase Mega 2020

6.a3 cxd4

6...Bxc3+ 7.bxc3

7.Nxd4 Bxc3+ 8.bxc3 Qc7

22 games between Lichess (20) and ChessBase (2) have reached this position.

9.Bd3

This move was a novelty in the position, but played in recognition of the trap.

9...Qxc3+

White to move

The position differs in particular ways from the London miniature. Compare the two diagrams.

10.Qd2!=

Booth's Qd2 gave a clear advantage

10...Qxa1??

10...Qxd2+ 11.Bxd2=

11.c3!

The queen is trapped.

11...Nc6 12.Nc2??

Lets the queen escape.

12.Nb3+-

Black to move

12...Qa2-+

I could have resigned here, but it was a rapid game and I was able to make some threats. My opponent needed several moves to get the queen back with its compatriots. In the end, facing a desperate check, my opponent moved the king to the wrong square handing me a mate in three. I did not fail a second time in this game.

Tactical Ideas: Updated List

Seven years ago, I posted "Tactical Motifs: A List," which contains several lists of varied length from text and internet sources. It had been my intent to develop a "glossary of tactics" to be published along with exercises that I had been using for several years with my students. Over the past three months, I have been poking away at creating this glossary, which also includes a small set of checkmate patterns, as part of a new self-published book. The impetus to finish it was my desire for a workbook that I could give the students in my chess camp next month.

For the book, Checkmate and Tactics (2019), I found an example of every tactic listed. For the checkmate patterns, I mostly used smaller partial diagrams, but a few are illustrated from games.

An example:

Trapped piece:
A piece that is vulnerable to capture because it has no way to retreat out of danger is trapped. Aggressive play grabbing material often leads to getting one’s own piece trapped, as in Spassky,B.–Fischer,R., Reykjavik 1972, the first game of their World Championship Match.

White to move

Fischer had grabbed a pawn with 29…Bxh2. Spassky’s 30.g3 trapped the bishop. Black gained two pawns for the bishop, but it was not enough. Black went on to win the game.

The list in Checkmates and Tactics, sans the checkmate patterns.

Battery
Breakthrough
Clearance
Decoy
Deflection
Desperado
Destroying the pawn shield
Discovery
Double attack
Double check
Fork
Greek gift
Interference
Intermezzo (Zwischenzug)
Key Squares
Lucena position
Opposition
Outflanking
Pin
Philidor Position
Removing the guard
Simplification
Skewer
Square of the pawn
Stalemate
Tableau
Tempo
Trapped piece
Undefended/Underdefended piece
Understanding threats
Windmill
X-ray
Zugzwang

One from Greco

The oldest English language book that presents games from Gioachino Greco (c.1600 - c. 1634) is Francis Beale, The Royall Art of Chesse-Play (London 1656). This book contains 94 games attributed to Greco, as well as examples of Fool's Mate and Scholar's mate. This number of 94 exceeds the 77 Greco games that one can find in databases and at sites such as chessgames.com because the variations were reduced to those Angelo Lewis considered the main games. Angelo Lewis (1839-1919) wrote under the pseudonym Professor Louis Hoffman. His The Games of Greco (London 1900) is the basis for those found in David Levy, and Kevin O'Connell, Oxford Encyclopedia of Chess Games, vol. 1, 1485-1866 (Oxford 1981), which in turn became the source when databases were created.

In between Beale and Hoffman, William Lewis (1787-1870) produced an edition of Greco's games, Gioachino Greco on the Games of Chess (London 1819), which was based on a French edition of Greco's games. In Lewis, Greco's games are 168 variations of 47 games.

In Beale's book, the games are called "Gambetts" and numbered with roman numerals. The first game in the book is also in Hoffman and the Oxford Encyclopedia, but the final move differs.


Gambett I (Greco) [C23]
Beale 1656

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Qe2 Qe7 4.f4 Bxg1 5.Rxg1 exf4 6.d4 Qh4+ 7.g3 fxg3 8.Rxg3 Nf6 9.Nc3 Nh5 10.Bxf7+ Kxf7 

White to move

11.Bg5 Nxg3 12.Qf3+ Kg6 13.Bxh4 Nh5 14.Qf5+ Kh6 15.Bg5#

15.Qg5# is given in ChessBase per Hoffman; Levy, and O'Connell; and Lewis.

1–0

This game is in Lewis 1819, 70; Hoffman 1900, 110; Levy, and O'Connell 1981, 4; and Beal 1656, 18-19.

My eBook, Essential Tactics: Building a Foundation for Chess Skill (2017), contains a composed position that I derived from the diagram position above.

White to move

My method in creating that book was to take positions from actual games and typical structures that might occur in games, and then strip away the extraneous pieces. I made such modifications necessary that in most cases there is one clearly best move, and often only one winning move (or drawing move in certain cases).

Stronger King

At the Eastern Washington Open last October, I lost to a former student on Sunday morning. My next loss in standard rated USCF tournament games came yesterday afternoon. In between, I played ten games. I was clearly worse at some point in nearly every game, but still managed eight wins and two draws.

This weekend is the 25th annual Dave Collyer Memorial chess tournament. It is Spokane's premier tournament--both largest and strongest. This year, four former winners--all masters--are competing. In the second round, I was paired against the fifth seed, the strongest non-master. He overlooked a nuance in a tactical sequence in the early middlegame that gave me a slight edge.

James Stripes (1845) -- Chris Kalina (2068) [D37]
25th Collyer Memorial Spokane Valley (2), 25.02.2017

White to move

After 21...Be4

22.Nd7! Bxd3 23.Nxb6 axb6

23...Bxf1 24.Nxc8 It was the vulnerable bishop on e7 that my opponent overlooked when he forced the trade of queens 24...Bf8 25.Kxf1+-

24.Rxd3±

My chess engine insists this position is equal, but most human players would favor White.

24...Rd5 25.Rfd1 Rxd3 26.Bxd3 Nd5 27.Bg3 Bf6 28.e4 Ne7 29.e5

This move was a little hasty on my part.

29.Ba6  does more to improve my pieces relative to those of my opponent. I thought that I was trapping the bishop and moved instantly. Later, this bishop won the game in poetic recall of my round five game during the Spokane Chess Club's Winter Championship. A piece that seemed to be inactive became the star in the ending. See "Perseverance".

29...Bg5 30.f4 Bh6 31.Ba6 Rb8 32.Rd4 Nd5

White to move

We have reached the critical position where the middlegame must be played with clear understanding of what may go down in the endgame. Or perhaps, this is already the endgame because I determined that is was time to activate my king. Studying this position, I reasoned that my king was stronger than my opponent's king. My plan was to post my king on f3, protecting my f-pawn, so that my dark-squared bishop was free to harass Kalina's vulnerable b-pawns.

I failed to anticipate how Black could bring his king to the queenside the capture my light-squared bishop, and hence underestimated his next move.

33.Kf2?

33.Bc4 or another move of this bishop leaves me with an edge.

33...b5 34.Kf3 Kf8 35.Be1

35.Bf2 was hard to find, but protects the other bishop.

35...Ke8 36.Bxb4?

36.Bf2 maintains equality.

36...Rb6 37.Bc8 Nxb4

37...Bxf4 38.Ke4 Rb8 39.Ba6 Bxh2 is even better for Black.

38.Rxb4 Kd8 39.Bxe6 fxe6 40.a4 g6 41.g4 Kc7

I offered a draw a move or two before this point. Chris said, "maybe later", and played on.

White to move

42.Rxb5

I was too optimistic about being able to eliminate Black's e- and g-pawns.

42.axb5 leaves me with more options for counterplay.

42...Rxb5 43.axb5–+ Bf8 44.Ke4 Bc5 45.f5 Kd7?

My opponent pursues a plan that demonstrated his king to be stronger than mine, but this move could have squandered the win if I had calculated correctly later on.

45...Kb6–+

46.Kf4 Ke7

46...Be7–+

47.h4 Kf7 48.h5 Bb6

White to move

I spent a bit of time trying to find the draw. Of course, if I can leave my opponent with only the h-pawn, the draw is elementary. Understanding that, he labored to prevent it. That was the reasoning behind his move 45. In this position, I think I found the correct idea, but then three moves in, the lines crossed in my head and I fell short.

49.fxe6+ Kxe6 50.hxg6 hxg6 51.Kg5 Kf7

White to move

52.e6+??

52.Kh6 was necessary Be3+ 53.g5 Bd4 54.e6+ Kxe6 55.Kxg6=

52...Kg7–+ 53.Kf4 Kf6 54.e7 Kxe7 55.Kg5 Kf7 56.Kh6 Kf6 57.b3 g5 58.Kh5 Be3 59.b4 Ke5 60.b6 Kf4 61.b7 Ba7 62.b5 Bb8 63.b6 Bd6 0–1

It was hard for my unbeaten streak to come to an end. It was also hard to squander first an advantage, and then miss a draw. Even so, if I play today as well as I did in this game, I should at least finish the event with a far better performance than last year's Collyer (see "Bishop versus Knight").

Rescue

Lesson of the Week

Spring Break is next week and the 2014 Washington State Elementary Chess Championship is at the end of break. Most school chess clubs are coming to an end for the year.

This week's lesson is a position from the recent Candidates Tournament, which was won by Viswanathan Anand. Former World Champion Anand earned a rematch against Magnus Carlsen. Another former world champion, Vladimir Kramnik, had the strongest tie-breaks of the three who shared third place. He defeated his nemesis, Veselin Topalov, in round thirteen after losing to him in round six. Our problem position comes from Kramnik's win.

It appears that Kramnik's bishop is trapped.

White to move