<IMDONE4, (and the sorely beaten <CapablancaFan> too, while were at it)>

While there is no conclusive proof, there is a lot of evidence, which is why most modern chess historians have called this game a forgery (see below).

"The 100 Best Chess Games of the 20th Century" by GM Andy Soltis includes this game, but at the same time calls it a forgery. In Chess Life, Dec. 02, GM Larry Evans writes "Apparently Adams missed the win but Torre pointed out the brilliancy in their post-mortem analysis. Later he told Mexican friends it was not so imporant who had won or the authenticity of the record, only that it was a beautiful game.>.

Adams wrote a letter to Herman Helms, editor of the Bulletin, on Nov. 22, 1920, in which he discusses his friend Carlos Torre, tells him where to get a picture of him for publication, and writes "I am sending you herewith a copy of the only game that he could give me and I hope you will find it of interest." It is *not* the Adams-Torre game (see below). There is mention of a simultaneous exhibition by Torre and all sorts of other things, but there is no mention of the Adams-Torre game in the letter. This date of the letter is November 22 of 1920.

Chess historian Dale Brandreth writes the following:

<‘This letter is very significant because it drives the final nail in the coffin of one of the most famous games of all time, a game that simply never was. ... It seems obvious that the game could not have been played up to 22 November of that year without Adams mentioning it or sending it to Helms, so except for the faint possibility that it was played from 23 November to 31 December of 1920 – and then surely Adams would have sent it to Helms at that later date – there simply was no such remarkable game played until that time. When Torre sent the game to Helms in 1925, it was simply his reconstruction of the “game” including the post mortem analysis that comprised the beautiful final combination. The game actually sent to Helms, referred to in this letter, could not have been the game since it was so sensational that Helms would have immediately published it...

<‘While some authors (e.g. Fine in The World’s Great Chess Games, 1951, or Nigel Davies in The Power Chess Program, 1998) have presented this as an actual, serious encounter, there is strong, almost conclusive evidence that it was not. The author once casually queried Torre on it. After 57 years he could not quite recall the details, but what he said implied that from his viewpoint it really didn’t matter if it had been a skittles game or post-mortem analysis, so long as the combination was extremely original and beautiful. Torre’s friends, the late Alejandro Báez, and Pedro Busto Undiano, still living in Mexico City at this writing, knew him well when his memory was more reliable. Both of them assured this writer that the game in fact was never played; rather the whole idea had occurred to Torre after analyzing a skittles game. They said that Torre could find no better way to make the beautiful possibilities he saw known to the public than by inventing a game, so he decided to pretend he had lost it to his teacher Edward [sic – Edwin] Adams, for whom he had great affection.’>

White to move: 20 ?

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Position after 20 c4-c7!!

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The 'Praeceptor Germaniae seu Mundi' used this same game to illustrate a middle game theme - "the mate on the back rank: insufficient guard of the base" - in his "The Game of Chess", English translation, London 1934, pages 186-7 (diagram n. 289):

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Quoting from "The Game of Chess":

"In position n. 289 the win is quite problem-like. The play was 1... Kh8? 2. Bxe6 dxe6 3. Rd1 Qc7 4. Ba5! Qxa5 (if Qe7, then Rd8+ and the Queen must be given up for the Rook); 5. Qb4!! and Black's Queen is lost for, if 5... Qxb4, then 6. Rd8+ Qf8 7. Rxd8#; while, if 5... Qc7, then 6. Qf8#.

# 2.) There is no "smoking gun" ... absolute, historical evidence to prove that the game was a fake.