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By Larry Parr
Chess Life Editor 1984 - 1988
Author
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The Most Famous Resignations ever
(part 2 - continued from last week)
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To the blare of
trumpets, the judges – which is to say, myself – have declared a tie for
fifth. Both winners come from the
seventh category of resignations, given in Chess Beat 4.1: “I’m Resigning Because I’m in No Mood to Be a
Gentleman.” Negative immortality
threatens, and the loser decides to resign before all of the beautiful crushers
get played.
In the long line of Hastings tournaments,
none has equaled the first edition, which was held in 1895.
America’s unknown Harry Nelson Pillsbury won first prize in a field
that included every great master of the day, including Lasker, Steinitz,
Tchigorin and Siegbert Tarrasch. Along
with Carlsbad 1911, this tournament produced an extraordinary number of
oft-anthologized great games. Steinitz
garnered the First Brilliancy Prize ahead of a half dozen other immortal efforts
thanks to this extraordinary conception:
W: Wilhelm Steinitz B: Curt von Bardeleben Hastings, 1895 Giuoco Piano
1.
e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bc4 Bc5 4. c3 Nf6
5. d4 exd4 6. cxd4 Bb4+
7. Nc3 d5 8. exd5 Nxd5 9. 0-0 Be6 10.
Bg5 Be7 11. Bxd5 Bxd5
12. Nxd5 Qxd5 13. Bxe7 Nxe7 14.
Re1 f6 15. Qe2 Qd7
16. Rac1 c6? 17. d5! cxd5 18.
Nd4 Kf7 19. Ne6 Rhc8
20. Qg4
With
this move, Steinitz may have seen the grand combination and mate that follows.
20. ... g6
21. Ng5+ Ke8 22. Rxe7+!!
Notice how White’s pieces are either all
or mostly en prise during this combination.
22. ... Kf8
23. Rf7+
The Black Queen is inviolate because of ...
Rxc1+, forcing mate.
23. ... Kg8
24. Rg7+ Kh8 25. Rxh7+
The Oxford Companion to Chess
describes what happened next: “[Bardeleben]
was a careful man in chess and in dress, but for such a meticulous person he had
a surprising number of withdrawals from tournaments and matches; at the great
Hastings tournament of 1895 Steinitz won a brilliancy prize for his game against
Bardeleben who, at the culmination of his opponent’s combination, left the
room and lost on time rather than resign..
Up to that point he had scored six wins and three draws but this reversal
so upset him that only with difficulty was he persuaded not to abandon the
competition. Scoring only 4 ˝
points in the next eleven rounds, he shared seventh place with [Richard]
Teichmann.”
After Bardeleben resigned on time, Steinitz
demonstrated the remainder of the combination:
25. ... Kg8 26. Rg7+ Kh8
27. Qh4+ Kxg7 28. Qh7+ Kf8 29.
Qh8+ Ke7 30. Qg7+ Ke8 31. Qg8+ Ke7 32.
Qf7+ Kd8 33. Qf8+ Qe8
34. Nf7+ Kd7 35. Qd6, mate. The
irony is that by walking away from the chess board, Bardeleben became famous not
only for losing a wonderful brilliancy but also for committing one of the most
famous resignations in chess history. Indeed,
The Oxford Companion includes the above game in its entry for Bardeleben
rather than for Steinitz!
In the 1963-64 U. S. Championship, Bobby
Fischer scored 11 – 0 against a field that included several grandmasters as
well as other players who were grandmasters in everything but the title.
This result, along with his six-zip match victories over Bent Larsen and
Mark Taimanov, is unique in chess history.
Fischer’s 21-move win in round three
against Robert Byrne, who had the nickname of “invincible” because of his
super-solid play in those days, garnered the brilliancy prize.
K. F. Kirby, the then editor of the South African Chess Quarterly,
described his feelings about what many regard as the finest miniature in the
long history of chess: “The Byrne
game was quite fabulous, and I cannot call to mind anything to parallel it.
After White’s eleventh move I should adjudicate his position as
slightly superior, and at worst completely safe.
To turn this into a mating position in eleven more moves is more
witchcraft than chess!” Yet
Byrne’s resignation in this game is arguably the best known
element in the legend of this famed brilliancy.
GM Robert Byrne
- GM Robert Fischer U. S. Championship, 1963-64.
1. d4
Nf6 2. c4 g6
3. g3 c6 4. Bg2 d5
5. cxd5 cxd5 6. Nc3 Bg7 7. e3
0-0 8. Nge2 Nc6
9. 0-0 b6 10. b3 Ba6
11. Ba3 Re8 12. Qd2 e5!!
Fischer isolates his d-pawn voluntarily.
Pregame homework? Fischer’s answer to Stewart Reuben in Chess:
“Did we seriously think that he spent his time analyzing to death such
arid variations for White?”
13. dxe5 Nxe5
14. Rfd1?!
Wrote Fischer in My 60 Memorable Games,
“Add another to those melancholy case histories entitled ‘the wrong
Rook.’” The correct move is 14.
Rad1!, leaving the King Rook to guard f2, though Fischer claims that 14. ...
Qc8! will “keep the pressure.”
14. ... Nd3
15. Qc2 Nxf2! 16. Kxf2 Ng4+
17. Kg1 Nxe3 18. Qd2 Nxg2!!
GM Byrne called this move “dazzling.”
19. Kg2 d4!
No matter how often one plays over this
game, one is still stunned by how quickly White comes unstuck after a single
subtle mistake at move 14. After
all, the guy with the first move is supposed to have some leeway for piddling
error. GM Arthur Bisguier has said
that he believes other famous positions would yield surprisingly speedy wins if
we could but find “perfect” lines of play as Fischer does in this game.
Black’s ability to punish White’s conservative opening play also
hints that in the ultimate calculus of chess, the first move may not be
decisive.
20. Nxd4 Bb7+
21. Kf1 Qd7!
Who should resign here?
At this point tournament commentators GM Nicolas Rossolimo and IM James
Sherwin believed that White had a won game.
“Fischer has nothing at all for his piece,” declared Rossolimo, one
of the finest tacticians who ever lived, before a large audience.
Whereupon, White resigned!
What
everyone except Fischer and Byrne missed was 22. Qf2 Qh3+
23. Kg1 Re1+!! 24. Rxe1
Bxd4. Fischer’s reaction was to call the resignation “[a]
bitter disappointment” because he had “hoped” to play the Rook sacrifice
of 23. ... Re1+!!. As for Byrne
(and unlike Bardeleben), he seemed a bit contrite in his later annotations over
denying Fischer a chance to display the purple point.
Honorable mention for fifth prize goes to
Alekhine-Asztalos (Kecskemet, 1927), a first brilliancy prize game in which
Black was blinded by two lightning bolts, 40. Rxg7+ and 42. Nxf7!!, and resigned
in a probable lost position with, nonetheless, plenty of play left.
“Paris is well worth a
mass,” said Henry IV, king of France and Navarre.
So, too, the world championship of chess is worth some dark nights of the
soul – or at least another dozen moves by the beleaguered party.
On December 19, 1987, in Seville, Spain,
after White’s 64th move, Anatoly Karpov resigned game 24 of his
world title match against champion Garry Kasparov.
Kasparov thereby kept the crown on a 12 – 12 tie.
Karpov’s surrender was a classic No mas! Roberto Duran
resignation in which the loser was
ahead on points on even the opponent’s scoring card.
Wrote GM Raymond Keene, “Karpov’s resignation was theoretically
justified but in practice he could have waited to set ... stalemate traps.
His decision indicates just how demoralised he must have felt.”
Exclaimed GM Larry Evans, “Karpov’s resignation of a position in
which many traps still remained is one of the most shocking climaxes in chess
history. Unlike Spassky-Fischer
(Reykjavik, 1972; Game 21), Karpov went into the final game of the match with a
one-point lead rather than, as in the case of Spassky’s resignation, a
three-point deficit. Unlike
Botvinnik-Bronstein (Moscow, 1951; Game 23), there was no ulterior political
motive for Karpov’s surrender as there probably was for Bronstein’s
resignation.”
The position of Kasparov-Karpov was
adjourned with Kasparov sealing his 42nd move.
When asked months later by this writer and GM Evans about whether the
position was a win for White with best play, Kasparov responded, “I don’t
know. I have studied the position
for hours and hours – alone and with friends.
I still cannot give an answer. Let’s
just say that White has good, practical chances to win.”
After Kasparov played 64. Kh2-g2 in the position below, Karpov tendered
his famous resignation
GM Garry Kasparov - GM Anatoly Karpov Seville, 1987 ( Game 24)
The winning line is by no means
elementary. For example,
64. .... Qc8
65. Bf3 Qc5
66. Be4 Qc8
(one of
the lurking stalemate traps is
67. Bxg6? Qc6+
68. Kh2 Nxg6 69. Qxg6 Qg2+! 70. Kxg2)
The analysis continues with
67. Kh2
Qc5
68.
Bd3 Qb4
69. Bxg6 Nxg6
70. Qxg6
Qxh4
71. Kg2! Qg4
72.
Qxg4 hxg4
73. f3 gxf3+
74. Kxf3 Kg7
75. Ke4 Kg6
76.
Kd3 .......
(but not 76. Kd4? Kf5!)
76. ...
Kg5
77. Kc4 Kg4
78.
Kc5
when White wins.
(The article
continues in the next issue, with the final part.)
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