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Arthur Johnston vs Henry Hosmer
2nd American Chess Congress, Cleveland (1871), Cleveland, OH USA, Dec-??
Scotch Game: General (C44)  ·  0-1

ANALYSIS [x]

FEN COPIED

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Kibitzer's Corner
Mar-07-19  shankartr2018: I am unable to download the pgn ..
getting only a diagram of the final posiion. Pl guide : shankartr2002@yahoo.co.in
Mar-07-19  whiteshark: click http://www.chessgames.com/pgn/johns...
May-20-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  Joshka: Anyone know where this Congress was played in Cleveland?? thanks in advance Bruce
May-27-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  Honza Cervenka: Why 16...0-0(?) instead of obvious 16...0-0-0, and why not simply 17.Bxd7?
Jul-05-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  Dionysius1: In answer to your 2nd question, with a bit of thinking and checking with SF, it looks like White is broken and 17.Bxd7 Be6 18. Bxe6 Qxe6 just accelerates the disease.

White's Qside is all tangled up and Black threatens to create a passed d pawn. White's R has to stay on the 5th because the g5 pawn is weak.

19.cd doesn't seem to help - it just accentuates the contrast between the Black and White mobilities. Does ANYTHING help?

Aug-26-22  korger: <Honza Cervenka> I'd like to offer an explanation to those perplexing moves you pointed out. The authoritative source for this game seems to be the Book of the Second American Chess Congress, available on-line at https://www.google.com/books/editio..., where this game is listed as Game No 30. White's and Black's 16th moves are given, in descriptive notation of course, as

16. R-KB5 Castles

Suppose that Black actually castled long, which is the obvious move, but they forgot to record this fact. With this change Black's 16th and White's 17th moves are no longer blunders, and the game progresses like given here, up until move 21, which was given as

21. P-QR3 QR-B

In the version having 16...O-O this was transcribed as 21...Rac8, but with 16...O-O-O this also makes sense, and now it becomes 21...Rdf8. The game then continues with the same moves, although the position is different.

The full score with this change is then

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Ng5 Nh6 5. Bc4 Bc5 6. Qh5 Qf6 7. O-O d6 8. h3 Ne5 9. Bb3 Qg6 10. Qh4 f6 11. f4 fxg5 12. fxg5 Nhf7 13. Kh2 Be6 14. Ba4+ Nd7 15. c3 Bc4 16. Rf5 O-O-O 17. Bd1 Nfe5 18. b3 Bd3 19. Bb2 dxc3 20. Nxc3 c6 21. a3 Rdf8 22. b4 Bb6 23. Bg4 Nxg4+ 24. hxg4 Bc7 25. Qf2 d5+ 26. Kh1 dxe4 27. Qxa7 Rxf5 28. gxf5 Qh5+ 0-1,

which otherwise agrees with the tournament book. I've also checked this with a computer, and it makes perfect sense--in fact, Black's play was impeccable in this version.

Could we accept this reasoning as evidence that the score had a transcription error, and accept the proposed change as the correct version?

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