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Later Kibitzing> |
Jan-13-07
 | | Sneaky: Black missed an interesting swindle even when the game was hopeless 27...Bh3(!)
and now
28.gxh3 Qxg5 and Black isn't in such bad shape anymore however White is still really winning if he's alert, for 28.Rxh3!! Qxg2+ 29.Kc3 Qxh3 30.Qe4 
click for larger viewand there is no defense, e.g. 30...f6 31.Rh1  |
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May-05-07
 | | FSR: Thanks for including this game of mine. I published it in Chess Informant, which voted 18.Nxd6! the 8th-9th most important TN in volume 32. My first name is Frederick -- see http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMa... In my opinion, 27...Bh3 isn't much of a resource. 28.gxh3 Qg5 (not a capture, contrary to what Sneaky indicates) 29.Qxg5 hxg5 30.Rag1 would leave White up a piece and pawn in an easily-won ending. Maybe I'm missing something, but Sneaky's 28.Rxh3 Qxg2+ 29.Kc3 Qxh3 30.Qe4 seems worse, e.g. 30...g6 (Sneaky obviously meant this, since 30...f6 is impossible) 31.Rh1 Rae8 32.Rxh3 Rxe4 33.Bxe4 Kg7 and White will have to work harder to win than he does in the 28.gxh3 line. Other possibilities, again seemingly less clear than 28.gxh3 is, are 31.Bd4+ Kh7 32.Qd5 Qe6 and 31.Qd5 Qe6 (not 31...Rd8 32.Bd4+! Nxd4 33.Qe5+ and 34.Rxh3) 32.Rxh6+ Kg7 33.Rxg6+ Qxg6 34.Bxg6 Kxg6. |
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May-06-07
| | FSR: Never mind. I see what Sneaky is talking about. If 28.gxh3? Qxc5! is what Sneaky meant (not 28...Qg5??). So he's right that 27...Bh3!? is an interesting try and that 28.Rxh3! is correct. Nice find! In all these years, no one (including Nunn, who annotates the game in all three editions of his book Beating the Sicilian) has suggested 27...Bh3!? as a possibility before. |
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| Dec-25-07 | | ForeverYoung: Nice display of tactical play by Mr. Rhine!! One could almost see those shots against the king coming after 17 Qh5. |
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Feb-19-08
| | FSR: By the way, the event was "Master Challenge III" played in Forest Park, Illinois. |
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| Jul-26-09 | | muwatalli: well played game by FSR |
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| Oct-01-09 | | WhiteRook48: why did white play 32 Qg6+ |
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| Oct-01-09 | | chillowack: FSR, do you remember what Sprenkle's rating was?
Some of his moves look pretty bad, and he never develops his queenside. Not to take anything away from your play, of course. |
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Oct-27-09
| | FSR: <WhiteRook48> Time pressure. I obviously didn't have to repeat moves once with 28.Qg6+, and wish now for aesthetic reasons that I hadn't. 28.Rf1+ looked like it won, and I was thinking, "Hmm. Rf1+ looks like a forced win. I could repeat moves once with 28.Qg6+ Kg8 29.Qh7+ first to gain time on the clock, but it doesn't look like I need to. Is there any reason to?" I then looked frantically at my clock, realized I'd wasted a couple of minutes thinking about this, and decided I'd better throw in the check before I flagged while deciding whether to do so. <chillowack> 2322, as I recall. Sprenkle was a strong player (considerably stronger than I was at the time), and certainly understood the importance of developing his queen-side. It's just that as the game developed, he was defending against my threats and didn't have a chance to do so. After my 23.Qf2?! (23.Qf4! was more accurate), Nc6! 24.Kd2 Ne5! (instead of his 24...Qd6?) to exchange off one of my bishops would have come close to equalizing, for example 25.Rh1 Nxd3! The game is annotated by me in Chess Informant, Volume 32, and by John Nunn (based on my analysis) in all three editions of his book "Beating the Sicilian." |
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Oct-27-09
| | FSR: <chillowack> As for the strength of Sprenkle's moves, you can debate how strong Nimzowitsch's 2...Nf6!? is, but apart from that Sprenkle's only possible mistakes were 19...Qxh2 (maybe 19...Nf8!? is better, transposing to the later game Short vs Minic, 1985 after 20.Qf7+ Kh8 21.Qf4) and the aforementioned 24...Qd6 (24...Ne5!). |
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| Apr-26-11 | | theagenbiteofinwit: Were you in law school when this game was played? |
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| Jun-27-11 | | SimonWebbsTiger: The things one finds flicking through Informators. :o) FSR annotated the game in 32/217 and as noted won a fluffy toy for 18. Nd6!N |
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Jun-27-11
| | FSR: <theagenbiteofinwit> No, I was in college. I didn't play in law school. |
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Jun-27-11
 | | perfidious: <FSR: <theagenbiteofinwit> No, I was in college. I didn't play in law school.> Did you have any wacko law professors, such as John Grisham alludes to in A Time to Kill? |
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Jun-27-11
| | FSR: Certainly some were characters, but I wouldn't call any of them "wackos." |
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| Sep-05-11 | | solskytz: <WhiteRook48>
Good question (though 2 years ago)
Personally I liked, after 32. Qg6+ Kg8, the idea 33. Rh1, intending 34. Rh8+ and 35. Qh7 mate. Many roads lead to Rome... |
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| Sep-27-11 | | Shams: <FSR> At what point were you out of your preparation? |
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| Sep-27-11 | | Shams: <FSR: Certainly some were characters, but I wouldn't call any of them "wackos."> Hypo: you call one of your law professors a "wacko" and then the Governor appoints him to the bench. Could you run afoul of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct? RULE 8.2. Judicial and Legal Officials
(a) A lawyer shall not make a statement the lawyer knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to its truth or falsity concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge, adjudicative officer, public legal officer, or <of a candidate for election or appointment to judicial or legal office>... http://www.law.cornell.edu/ethics/i... |
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Sep-29-11
| | FSR: <solskytz: ... Personally I liked, after 32. Qg6+ Kg8, the idea 33. Rh1, intending 34. Rh8+ and 35. Qh7 mate. Many roads lead to Rome...> Dunno about that. 33.Rh1 Bf5! looks like 0-1.
<Shams: <FSR> At what point were you out of your preparation?> After 18...Qxd6 I was already on my own. |
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Sep-29-11
| | FSR: <Shams> Interesting hypothetical, although in Illinois the governor does not appoint anyone to the bench. (I went to Columbia, so my professors most likely would be candidates for appointment in New York, if anywhere, rather than Illinois. One of my law professors, the brilliant Gerry Lynch, is now on the Second Circuit. I would be delighted if he were appointed to the Supreme Court.) The language "a candidate for . . . appointment to judicial or legal office" seems to imply some sort of organized process and the lawyer's knowledge (or, at a minimum, ability to know) of it. For example, in Illinois there is a committee that assesses the qualifications of those seeking appointment to the federal district court, and makes recommendations to Illinois' two senators, who then make recommendations to the president (at least when a Democrat is the president; I greatly doubt that Bush cared what Senators Durbin and Obama thought). The names of those seeking such appointment are public knowledge. So if one's law professor had been announced as being one of the persons who was seeking to be appointed to the district court, and one called him a "wacko" thereafter, that could be problematic. That raises a couple of further issues. First, is calling someone a "wacko" a factual statement that could run afoul of this rule? Note that in the analogous context of defamation law, even calling someone a "liar" is not, without more, actionable defamation. Second, to what extent do the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct apply to law students, as distinguished from lawyers? That brings another issue to my mind. When you asked if any of my law professors were wackos, were you trying to entrap me? :-) |
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| Sep-29-11 | | qqdos: <FSR> Sprenkle's errors (after 23...Nc6!) include 24...Qd6?? and 27...Rd8?? Your moves 26.Bc5!! and 28.Rxh6+!! were excellent. Your admirers should read Eric Schiller's 1994 book on The Aggressive Nimzowitsch Sicilian, p.128 and Grigory Bogdanovich's 2009 book "Play 2...Nf6!", p.197. The latter thinks 22...Nd8? is bad and that the only try is 22...Qxg2 when the decisive riposte is 23.Rc1! He will have no truck with either 23.Rf2 or 23.Qh5 because his move "gives White a significant advantage in all variations"! My one regret, is that your discovery 30 years ago has dashed our (my) fading hopes that (B29) may yet be resurrected. I will continue the search! |
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| Nov-23-11 | | Sprenk: Boy oh boy, I can never escape this game! 19...Qxh2 was a TN at the time, and I remember looking at the position after 21...Rg8 more than once in my home analysis, though not deeply. In fact, I think I defended that position once before in a tournament game against my friend Stephen Dowd, but he quickly took a wrong turn. It's a wild position, and I was happy to play wild positions at that time in my life (still don't mind them). My feeling was it was a matter of who could coordinate their pieces first. Fred played very well though, and I had to rethink the line. I looked quite extensively at the line after the game, but I always got the sense that White was getting the best of it, so I gave up the Nimzo-Sicilian (or the "Boneyard Gambit," as Steve Dowd and I labeled it.) and started playing main lines. Never looked back--but then the FSR game was published in Informant, was voted a top innovation, and then I opened up Nunn's Beating the Sicilian one day to see . . . That wasn't the "fame" I was looking for. Maybe computer analysis can save 2...Nf6 for Black, but I doubt it. If nothing else, White can simply play 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3, where Black either has to play a bad line (3...d5) or allow a transposition back to main line Sicilians after 3...Nc6 4. d4 (4. Bb5 is also a good form of the 3. Bb5 anti-Sicilian line) cxd4 5. Nxd4 |
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| Nov-30-11 | | qqdos: <Sprenk> apologies if unwittingly I revived unwelcome memories - absolutely no offence intended. But it is great to have the comments of both participants on this landmark game! As a devotee of wild positions, bravo and as a long-suffering student of the "Boneyard Gambit", may I ask if you have the salient moves of your game with Steve Dowd to share with us. All the best! |
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| Dec-07-11 | | qqdos: It is perhaps instructive to take a look at Unzicker vs O Sarapu, 1970 where <FSR> on Nov-27-05 explained the genesis of his innovation 18.Nxd6! (in the instant game) and pays tribute to earlier analysis of this move by David Levy. He also leaves us with a glimmer of hope that after 24.Kd2, instead of 24...Qd6? 24...Ne5! 25.Rh1 Nxd3! "comes close to equalizing" - presumably 26.cxd3 Qc7=. Schiller in his book (see above) suggests 25.Bxh7 Rd8+! 26.Bd3 also looks "drawish". Do we wait for the fat lady? |
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Jan-22-12
 | | Fusilli: I was wondering if Black can ever create significant threats in this line. In Short vs Minic, 1985, black got really annoying. <FSR>'s handling of the White side seems very dangerous for Black. Was Short not aware of the novelty from four years earlier? Altogether, nice game, <FSR>, fully worthy of the Chess Informant! |
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Kibitzing
sac: 29.Rh8+