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Apr-03-09
 | | An Englishman: Good Evening:
Be this Bowdler who bowdlerized the Bard?!
Forsooth! A flagon of Rhenish upon
His whoreson, foolish, knavish, prating head! |
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| Apr-03-09 | | YetAnotherAmateur: I'd propose alternate lines here, but I keep on getting censored. |
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| Apr-03-09 | | mjmorri: I wonder how many players out there (including me!) would have played the spineless 15.Qxh8 instead of 15.Qg3 |
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| Apr-03-09 | | whiteshark: Be browdlery-minded! |
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| Apr-03-09 | | kevin86: Black is able to capture both rooks with the queen-while his own rooks are parked. White can mate with the queen and bishops-how brutal! |
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| Apr-03-09 | | Defiler: I think it takes a great confidence in the supremacy of your tactical ability over your opponents to attempt something like this. It looks great when it works but people don't seem to remember all the times it just loses. Amazing game though. |
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| Apr-03-09 | | WhiteRook48: the strength of white's attack is that of a bowlder |
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| Apr-03-09 | | Aas: Is'nt 23Qa3# prettier? |
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| Apr-03-09 | | chessman95: <Is'nt 23Qa3# prettier?> That loses the queen... lol |
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| Apr-03-09 | | chessman95: <<Is'nt 23Qa3# prettier?> That loses the queen... lol>
LOL!!!
Sorry I was half daydreaming when I said that... I was looking at 22.Qa3 instead of 23.Qa3 hehe |
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| Jun-08-09 | | WhiteRook48: splendid sacrifices |
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Aug-17-09
 | | OBIT: Steinitz once said, "A win by an unsound combination, however showy, fills me with artistic horror." Personally, I think this game beautifully exemplifies that. When Bowdler sacrificed both rooks, I rather doubt he had done much calculation. Most likely, he just crossed his fingers and took his shot at a combination that might go down in history. Reading Keene's post about Bowdler, a blind sacrifice that might lead to an immortal game was completely consistent with his personality. Now, I realize that may sound like sour grapes, but, as <ToTheDeath> points out on page 1, Black didn't defend this at all well and missed several better moves. In addition, Bowdler's attack doesn't strike me as a model of precision - at moves 13-15, why does he move the queen three straight times, ending up at g3, when he could have just played 13. Qg3 immediately? This queen maneuver only allowed his opponent time to give his king some breathing room, a luxury he definitely could have utilized better. However, a move that looks even better to me than 13. Qg3 is 13. e5!?, which also opens lines to the exposed king. The queen is in no rush to get to g3, as it may be better placed on f3, where it hits d5. Who knows, after 13. e5 or 13. Qg3, the two rook sac may actually be sound. As for Bowdler's decision not to grab the rook on move 15, I think that was easy. After 15. Qxh8? Qxg2+ 16. Ne2 N7f6, White will be forced to trade off one of his attacking pieces to free the trapped queen. |
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| Nov-17-12 | | RukiMotomiya: @ OBIT: Doesn't 13. Qg3 lose the mate? 13. Qg3 Qxg7+ 14. Qxg7 Nf6 and now the Queen must either take time to remove the Knight and allow Black to get it's Rooks into play or be unable to mate with Bd5+ and then be shaky attack-wise with a Queen, Bishop, 6 Pawns and maybe a Knight to a Bishop, Knight, two Rooks and 4 Pawns, which could be possibly played to a draw. |
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| Jan-20-13 | | FlintEastwood: Great game! But Qxg7 looks like a pretty terrible move. Down two rooks, no amount of pawns will compensate! It's mate or nothing. |
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| Feb-24-16 | | The Kings Domain: Oldie but goodie; the direct ancestor of "The Immortal Game". |
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| May-11-18 | | Tal1949: Such a shame that those Anderssen games have pages devoted yet this amazing game has only two... Some amazing stuff here- far more intrigue than the 'immortal game.' The real question is what sort of emotion was running through white during this game- clearly it was a casual game, but did white always just expect to win or was he just throwing out moves? 11. Nbc3 is not quite correct, but it is absolutely insane to face that over the board. I feel sorry for black! 15. Qg3 is also not quite correct, but I still love the strength to avoid trapping the queen in that h8 corner. 16. Nb5+ is stellar!
19. d4 is like honey poured from a pitcher. |
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| Jun-17-18 | | zanzibar: While researching some other thing I happened across a column with this thing, which got me wondering... 1) What source was used for this game?
2) What source was used to assign the date for this game? It might be interesting to backtrack the provenance of this game. (I can verify the game, but not the date) |
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| Jun-17-18 | | zanzibar: Everybody on the net gives it as 1788, but...
I first thought that was because everybody was copying <CG>... until I found <Tartakower - 500 Master Games> also gives 1788, but on what basis? https://books.google.com/books?id=_... Personally, I think it's because Philidor gives the game in his book, and naturally everybody assumes the Conway game was played at the same time as Bowdler's games with Philidor. But, Bowdler could have been saving the game's record, only too happy to share his "brilliancy" with Philidor during his London visit, etc. etc. (Note: Philidor (1835) doesn't give the date of this game, but does for other games- https://books.google.com/books?id=j...) |
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| Jun-18-18 | | zanzibar: OK, I did a rough write-up of my research into this game. The ride may be a bit bumpy, but I think there's a few interesting stops along the way.... https://zanchess.wordpress.com/2018... . |
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Feb-08-21
 | | mifralu: <zanzibar: Everybody on the net gives it as 1788, but...> Schach-Jahrbuch 1891 gives it as <1790>, and last move as
<23. Qa3#>
https://books.google.nl/books?id=TU... |
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| Jul-17-22 | | LoveThatJoker: Game ten of the 1869 book, "Chess Brilliants", by John Odin Howard Taylor. LTJ |
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| Jan-07-23 | | generror: As usual, it's of course totally unfair to analyze these chess games from its virtual infancy with today's God-like engines, but it's also fun to see how they hold up. And as many others, this one doesn't really hold up well: Stockfish would have taken the two rooks and won easily. But I'm quite sure that only very few people would have the accuracy required to not lose to Bowdler's (yes, *that* Bowdler!) attack, which nicely shows the power of the bishop pair. Human black players definitively should have played <10...Qf6>, which defuses White's attack with a rook up. But according to Stockfish, offering the second rook <11.Nbc3?> is a mistake; White should have locked out the queen via <11.c3! Qb2+ 12.Qe3>, although even then Black has a significant advantage. Black defends really well the following moves. His first misstep is <15...b6?> (<15...Ngf6> was accurate), but it's only after Bowdler's truly great <16.Nb5+!!> and his mistake <16...cxb5??> that Stockfish sees a White advantage; after <16...Kb8 17.Nxd5 a5 18.Bxg8 Ka7> (D), the king would have been relatively safe and Black still be up 4 points of material. 
click for larger viewAfter that, Black is quickly overwhelmed by Bowdler's play (again: yes, *that* Bowdler). Sure, all these annotations engine-based annotation are pretty theoretic. Stockfish plays on an inhuman, God-like level, and, much like in Anderssen vs Kieseritzky, 1851, taking that second rook probably was just one too much, at least for us mortals. I still think that both rook offers can not be called completely sound. This is definitively a highly interesting game, well above most other very early chess games. Mr. Bowdler might still be a Puritan twat, but obviously he was a Puritan twat who was @#$%ing good at chess :) |
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Sep-10-24
 | | John Saunders: The score of the game given in The Year-Book of Chess 1914 (editor MW Stevens, publisher Frank Hollings, 1915), page 294, gives the final move as 23 Qa3 and refers to the players as Dr. Bowdler and Lord Henry Seymour. (For info - I'm not suggesting that the score or game details be amended.) |
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| Feb-14-25 | | nnjuguna: worst game i've ever seen someone winnning |
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Mar-01-25
 | | keypusher: <generror>
< Mr. Bowdler might still be a Puritan twat, but obviously he was a Puritan twat who was @#$%ing good at chess > A stupid, thoughtless comment. What Bowdler did was put slightly edited versions of Shakespeare in the hands of women and children who otherwise would never have read him. <"More nauseous and more foolish cant was never chattered than that which would deride the memory or depreciate the merits of Bowdler. No man ever did better service to Shakespeare than the man who made it possible to put him into the hands of intelligent and imaginative children."> Algernon Charles Swinburne. |
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