Column 2245 for release August 3
Sunday, August 09, 2015
Hint and Explanation:
Sacrifice and Mate
Bobby Fischer was astoundingly precocious — as he proved in 1958, at the age of 15, when he won the U.S. championship, besting the legendary champion Sammy Reshevsky, one of the world’s strongest players, in his own den.
A few months later, he played five world-class Soviet grandmasters equal. It was his first international tournament.
Shortly after, he was awarded the grandmaster title, the youngest ever to receive it.
In late 1961 and early 1962, at barely 18 years of age, Fischer, his ingenue growing pains as a player largely behind him, ascended the chess stage in full battle regalia.
In two successive tournaments, in Bled, Yugoslavia, and Stockholm, Sweden, an extraordinarily gifted and intimidating group of Soviet grandmasters — who had roamed and ruled the chess landscape with unchallenged abandon — were abruptly brought to their knees.
At Bled, he defeated Mikhail Tal, a former world champion, as well as well as Tigran Petrosian, a future one.
With a combined score in both events of 6-2 against the Soviets, he had breached an apparently impregnable fortress.
Suddenly everything was different. An unstoppable presence had imposed its signature on the existing chess scene,
The Soviets, of course, were still a vital force, but the future indisputably belonged to the Brooklyn chess tsunami, Robert James Fischer.
Below is a win by Maxim Matlakov against Lu Shanglei from the China-Russia match in Ningbo, China.
Matlakov Lu
1. d4 d5
2. c4 e6
3. Nf3 Nf6
4. g3 g6
5. Bg2 Bg7
6. O-O O-O
7. Qc2 Nc6
8. Rd1 a5
9. a3 Ne7
10. Nc3 b6
11. Bf4 Bb7
12. cxd5 exd5
13. R(a)c1 Ne8
14. b4 axb4
15. axb4 Qd7
16. Qb3 h6
17. Ne5 Qe6
18. b5 g5
19. Bd2 Nd6
20. Nc6 Bxc6
21. bxc6 Ra5
22. e3 R(f)a8
23. Nb1 R(5)a6
24. Bb4 N(d)f5
25. Nc3 Rd8
26. Nb5 Rc8
27. Bh3 h5
28. Bxe7 g4
29. Bf1 Nxe7
30. Nxc7 Black resigns
Solution to Beginner’s Corner: 1. Qxg6ch! If ... hxg6 (other moves also lead to rapid mate) 2. h7 mate! (Vidit-Arteiev ’15).