<27 Rh3 ch looks clearer to me.> Black can interpose with his Knight.

<Once Sergeant hangs a pawn>

At 10... Bb7, Sergeant must have known he was giving up a pawn. White's next move Qc2 is an obvious double attack on the c7 and h7 pawn.

11. Qc2 c5 12. Bh7 Kh8 13. Be4 Nd5 14. O-O Rc8 15. Qa4 Bc6 16. Qa3 f5 17. Bd5 Bd5 18. Rfd1 c4 19. Re1 Qc7

I don't think Sergeant hung a pawn as much as he sacked one for this type of position. He has a B vs N advantage with his B already placed in the long h1-a8 diagonal. Perhaps he was entertaining ideas of a rook lift Rf6, Rg6, then Knight jumps such as Nf6, Ne4 or Ng4.

Capa beats him to the punch. What Capa does in the next two moves is to clear his third rank of pieces in order for his Queen to slide across the whole board from a3 to h3.

20. e4! fe4 21. Ng5

White not only blocks the h1-a8 diagonal making the Black LSB useless, he places his Knight in an attacking position.

Capablanca was an advocate of the strength of the Queen and Knight pair. He knew that a Knight and a Queen near an opposing King spells trouble for the King. He achieves this N + Q attacking combo with 22. Qh3, which he prepared beforehand by clearing his third rank as explained above.

After this, he recruits his QR into the final attack 26. Rc3 still planning to slide it along his open 3rd rank. His 3rd rank acts almost like an open file for his Q and R.

One possible end. 27...Rxe6 28. Rh3+ Qh6 (what else?) 29. Rxh6+ gxh6 30. Rxe6 and the hanging Knight suddenly survives, giving Capa a one piece advantage. The attacking g7 pawn has been deflected to h6, and his Rook by recapturing on e6 defends the Knight on f6.

<http://www.craveonline.com/images/s...>

<http://www.gruemonkey.com/wp-conten...>

Wrestler Jesse "The Body" Ventura was elected governor of Minnesota, a few years back.

Wrestler Baron Von Raschke was elected president of the student body at the huge Minneapolis campus (45,000 students) of the U of M, Minneapolis, back in the 1980s.

<http://www.accelerator3359.com/Wres...>

<http://www.midatlanticwrestling.net...>

Some of the fun (or pain) of Chess is winning/losing these games.

It is possible that Black missed here:

click for larger view

White playing 13.Be4 considering only 13.Bd3 when 13...cxd4 gives Black some play for the pawn.

Allowing Bxh7+ in such positions is a known tactic to buy time (one tempo but it can be enough to steal the iniative in the centre.)

It can also be followed up with g6 - Kg7 - Rh8 ideas v a White castled position.

click for larger view

Such pawn sacs are in the arsenal of every blitz player and as if on cue...

Karpov vs Shirov, 2003

It can also be followed up with g6 - Kg7 - Rh8 ideas v a White castled position. >

Good point. I have seen such positions in my blitz games, and in such cases the Bxh7 gambit is definitely a sac (which I myself have made).

<Sally Simpson, perfidious> I think Sergeant committed an error but not becasue he did not see 13. Be4. His very next move 13...Nd5 indicates that he was planning to force an exchange of White's B on e4 with that Knight on d5. All he had to do was to move f5 and White would either have to exchange his Bishop for the Knight or retreat his Bishop with loss of tempo. In either case, Sergent probably thought that the advantage of his Bishop already on the long h1-a8 diagonal and with the possibility of recruiting a Rook into attacking the White King gave him adequate compensation for the sacked pawn. It turned out to be an error alright, but more of a positional misjudgement rather than an oversight.

The manner by which Capablanca refuted Sergeant's play is interesting and a lesson for those willing to learn. He did not hunker down with defensive moves trying to maintain his pawn advantage into the endgame. Instead Capa played to exploit the weaknesses around Black's King resulting from the loss of the a7 pawn.

It's easy to criticize this game as mediocre because:

One, Sergeant blundered away a pawn. No he did not. He sacked it for what he thought were positional advantages. The manner by which he sacked it is thematic. Kibitzers who remember this theme can actually apply it on their own games (especially blitz and rapid).