| Sep-15-04 | | Whitehat1963: Why on earth did Tartakower take so long to resign? And was this the first ever Dragon? |
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| Sep-15-04 | | suenteus po 147: Tartakower was following a well established motto: Never Resign! Reti was probably feeling very confident once Savielly's center pawn was off the board, and smug confidence can breed error, especially when an opponent refuses to resign a lost position. It is not until the pawn is queened (and all hope truly lost) that Tartakower knows there will be no errors. Before that, who knows? Reti might have blundered into stalemate. |
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| Sep-16-04 | | Whitehat1963: Oh, come on, I think even I, in my most stubborn mood, would have resigned right after 72. c4. |
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Sep-16-04
 | | offramp: Perhaps Tartakower thought Réti didn't know anything about pawn endings. |
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| Sep-16-04 | | Whitehat1963: Frankly, come to think of it, after 64. Kb5, it's so far beyond hopeless, that I suspect Tartakower was playing on for other reason, like spite, maybe. Did these two like each other? |
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Sep-16-04
| | offramp: I reckon Tartakower meant to play 20...♖xf5 with the continuation 21.♗xf5 ♗xf5 22.♖f3 ♗xh3 23.♕f2 ♗e6 24.♗xa7 d5 25.a3= and he accidentally transposed moves and got a bit of a cob on after that. |
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Jan-19-05
 | | Gypsy: Well, Leonard William Barden reports a much more exciting finnish to this game. In his <Batsford Chess Puzzless, puzzle #99>, he 'continues' the game thus: 39...Nxg4!? and <Reti won by 40.Rd6! Qxd6 41.Qxg4+ Kf7 42.Qxg7+ Kxg7 43.Nf5+ and 44.Nxd6>. Perhaps an artistic license, but a fine finnish nonetheless. To be exact, Barden starts with the position that would have occured after the 39...Nxg4!? and asks a trick question: <Reti (White, to move) can win a knight either by 40.Qxg4+ or 40.Nxg4. Which move should he play, and how should the game go?> Of course, both of these are bad moves, but Barden makes a bit of hash of it: <...40.Nxg4? fails to Qb6+ while 40.Qxg4+ Qxg4 41.Nxg4 Kf5 regains the piece.> What Barden misses is that <<> 40.Qxg4+?? Kh7! <>> destroys White completely and immediately! Instead, White would have had at least a draw, and quite likely a win, afer the <40.Qxg4+ Qxg4 41.Nxg4 Kxf5> -- and now 42.Re8. (Even when quoting, I changed Barden's numbering to correspond to the game and I also corrected an obvious typo.) |
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| Jan-20-05 | | euripides: There may be some confusion about the position because 41...Kf7 in Barden's preferred line, 40...Kh7 in <gypsy>'s refutation, and the proposed 42 Re8 all seem to be illegal. However, if the position is right and the 'right' moves are Kf6 and Kh6, then isn't 39...Nxg4 40 Qxg4+ Kh6 41 Rh2 checkmate ? Or if 40 Qxg4+ Kf6 41 Rf2+ White is winning. I agree, though, that White is also winning in the line where Black 'regains the piece' after 40 Qxg4+ Qxg4 41 Nxg4 Kf5 42 Rg2 where as far as I can see the K+P ending is won. |
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| Jan-20-05 | | euripides: <Gypsy> On reflection, perhaps your comments relate to the position after White's 38th move. Then the moves are all legal and your observations seem right. |
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Jan-20-05
| | Gypsy: <euripides> You are right; I messed up the numbering after all. The position given by Bardon is that after the game <38.Qf3> and then 38...Nxg4. All my move-numbers thus ought to be shifted down by one. An embarasing faux-pah! |
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| Jan-21-05 | | euripides: <gypsy> well your chess was bang on so the arithmetic doesn't matter too much. |
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Kibitzing
sac: 21.Rxf5