Posted in Moves I could never play on July 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Even if shown it by Topalov prior to the tournament, as McShane claimed was the case back then, I still could not play this move. Unsurprisingly, long term exchange sacrifices are not my forte, only pawn sacrifices I can do if push comes to shove.
Great advert for English chess, and shows how immensely strong McShane was at his peak. A fogotten old favourite, still too above my level to grapple with.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1669470
M J M
Posted in Moves I could never play on July 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »
In the position below I would be more inclined to lament over being under the kosh than what I should play next. A sort of ‘Blast it! Just play anything and expect to sac back at some point‘, said under one’s breathe to oneself whilst lurching over the board, psychologically defeated. Which moves are better than others, that I don’t know. Defeat for white looks inevitable to me despite him being a piece up -I stand to be corrected of course.
Somehow connected to saccing back presumably. The link to this long forgotten game is below.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1010744
Analysis (suggested) can be found in the forgotten publication ‘The Mammoth Book of The World’s Greatest Chess Games’ by Burgess, Nunn, and Emms.
M J M
Posted in Moves I could never play on July 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Since I used to admire Spassky’s old trainer Tolusch, who has a game in Cafferty’s book on the Soviet Championships, where he drops almost everything on the queenside and has to walk his king up the board in the opening before resigning, I try to avoid doing it myself. Without extensive opening preparation, something club and county players like myself are rather shy of, I could not play the move below, and would assume Kd1 is the safer bet. The alternative is so committal, you would have to be very sure it works to play it.
As mentioned, without extensive opening preparation, how could you play that? Personally, I prefer the king to stay on the back rank if possible. The game is rather interesting though, showing capitalising on an out of play queen can be decisive. ‘Sax and violence’ they call that in the link below -good title.
For concrete analysis, it can be found in one of the many publications I have purchased over the years and also forgotten all about, that being ‘The Mammoth Book of The World’s Greatest Chess Games’ by Burgess, Nunn, and Emms.
M J M
A side note on how to read old Tom Sweby's columns
Not perhaps, but quintessentially, Old Tom Sweby is best thought of as a passionate devotee to the newspapers he wrote for. He was well read and knowledgeable of the Bedfordshire chess scene and well beyond, given that he was the president of the S.C.C.U. once upon a time. He was generally well-respected and rubbed shoulders with many, if not all, of those eminent within British chess circles. It would, however, be a critical mistake to see his column is primary source material entirely. That it is not. You will also find secondary source material quoted too, and the reliability of that is not quite as Tom hoped. Given that he wrote for decades, this is to some degree inevitable, and after all we are all prone to error whether we realize it or not. Thankfully, with regards to old Tom Sweby, they are infrequent and for the most part old Tom continued to document events and developments in the Bedfordshire league from the get go as best he could but, of course, everything lies open to interpretation. Despite this, and generally speaking. this does indeed make him informative and thus worth reading. Dare I say his columns constitute a narrative describing the latest developments, match reports and changing nature of the Beds league...he knew his audience and wrote according. This manifested itself over decades but brevity was always in play courtesy of the restictions imposed by writing a column. Should you wish to read a in instrumental figure of the Beds' league post WW2, you are quite welcome to peruse what has been posted here... . :-) I should, however, point out that as the decades wore on he gradually moved on away from narratives concerning the Bedfordshire league towards affairs both historical and international. The reasons for this are multifarous, old age was a predominante factor presumably, however, the bottom line is with regards to how the Bedfordshire chess scene developed post WW2: old Tom Sweby is your go to guy. He wrote more about chess in Bedforshire than anyone else did but given he was a Lutonian and writing for a Luton newspaper there is both bias and greater coverage of his hometown than the rest of the county.
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McCreadyandChess 