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Louis Charles Mahe De La Bourdonnais vs Alexander McDonnell
La Bourdonnais - McDonnell 3rd Casual Match (1834), London ENG, rd 7
Queen's Gambit Accepted: Old Variation (D20)  ·  1-0

ANALYSIS [x]

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Kibitzer's Corner
Oct-08-04  Knight13: 14... Rg3 was better. 14... Be6? 15. Bxe6 fxe6 16 Kf2 is a force for black to exchange with Knight and Bishop. That's bad. 19. Rc1 might be better but if black plays 19... c6, then the move is wasted. 26. Re7! is also good, controlling the c7 square for the knight. But 26... Rd8?! wasn't good to me. 27. Nb7! is over for black, losing material. A note I would say about this game is that La Bourdonnais was a better attacker than MacDonnel was. Mayjor problem was 16. Kf2!, losing a rook for a knight. Good duel!
Oct-09-04
Premium Chessgames Member
  Chessical: <Knight 13> Your suggestion of <14...Rg3?> loses to 15.Bxf7+ Kf8 16.Nd5 Nc6 17.Nxc6 bxc6 18.Nxf6 gxf6 (18...Kxf7 19.Ne4+) 19.Rxf6

Macdonnell's problems seem to stem from his plan to grab the e pawn rather than develop.

Apr-23-06
Premium Chessgames Member
  Gypsy: <14.Ne5!> wins the game.
Aug-04-11  adbat: On move 11 white could have won the game with bishop and bf4 ,and is not compensation for Black.
Aug-04-11  sneaky pete: White actually played 10.Qd2 .. (correction submitted) so 11.Bxf4 .. was never possible.
Feb-01-12  Knight13: Do they really expect me to believe that Black, a master, actually missed 14. Ne5?
Jun-20-17
Premium Chessgames Member
  Jimmy720: Instead of 10.Qd2 La Bourdonnais missed 10.O-O! A sample line is 10.O-O Bxe3 11.fxe3 Rxe3 12.Ne5 Be6 13.Bxe6 fxe6 14.Qb3 Qc8 15.Kf2 Rxc3 16.bxc3 and White is dominating.
Jan-12-23  generror: One fascinating thing about the La Bourdonnais - McDonnell matches is how they both treated the Queen's Gambit. It was only played by La Bourdonnais (McDonnell always used <1.e4>), and they both began by playing the Old QGA variation, <2...dxc4 3.e3> up to <6.Nc3>.

Now, in the first 10 games, McDonnell then played <6...Be7>, and went on to lose *every single one* of these games. In this game, he finally switches to <6...Bd6>, and although he loses it, he would win the next two games (#9 and #11 of this match) and draw a third (match 4, game #2).

La Bourdonnais then switched to <3.e4> in the famous 4th game of the 4th match (La Bourdonnais vs McDonnell, 1834, the one with McConnell's positional queen sacrifice), lost again -- not least because of his response <4.d5?> to McDonnell's <3...e5>, which is still named after him --, and then abandoned the Queen's Gambit pretty much entirely. He only played it once more in the 6th match, winning against the McDonnell defense (La Bourdonnais vs McDonnell, 1834), despite using <4.d5?> again.

So one factor in La Bourdonnais' winning these matches may well be that he was much faster to adapt his opening to the opponent -- which makes sense, considering their style of play :)

Jan-12-23  generror: Correction: La Bourdonnais' <3...e5 4.d5?> has nothing to do with his losses because McDonnell played the equally bad <4...f5?> on both occasions.

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