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| Jan-22-13 | | MountainMatt: If there was a day between Monday and Tuesday, this would be the puzzle for that day. |
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| Jan-22-13 | | tbentley: 27. Rd5! winning two pawns. Black has nothing better than 27...Qc7 28. Qxc5 Qxc5 29. Rxc5 and black cannot avoid losing the a pawn. Rats! I picked white's 21st best move according to Rybka. I actually chose 27. Qxf8+!? Kxf7 28. Rxf7+ Kg8 29. Rc7+?! Rf8 30. Rxc8. 27. Qxf7+?!, which I considered but hadn't worked out yet, is only white's 16th best move according to Rybka (only a 7.13 pawn advantage after 15 ply), after moves like 27. b4 Qxd7 28. Qxd7. Even after 27. Rd1? Rybka gives white a 1.70 pawn advantage at 15 ply. |
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Jan-22-13
 | | FSR: <Once> has set the stage. There were probably lots of spectators looking on, some of whom had bet on the game. 27.Bxf7+ is a brutal win, so Cochrane decided to play to the gallery with 27.Qxf8+. |
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| Jan-22-13 | | morfishine: <FSR> Or, after so many gin and tonics, White simply overlooked 27.Bxf7+ |
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Jan-22-13
| | FSR: <morf> Or Cochrane bumped Black's rook, so he had to take it. |
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| Jan-22-13 | | jonnyjack: It seems like there are a lot of ways to win in this one... |
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| Jan-22-13 | | bengalcat47: I am reminded of Chernev's notes to the game between Chekhover and Rudakovsky, in Chernev's book The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played. White won that game by forcing the win of the Queen for a Rook. There a reference is made to the "more brilliant" line that would've resulted in mate. As Chernev points out "The reason the master didn't see the shorter line is because he was not looking for it in the first place! The move with which he wins is the one whose effects he saw earlier and analyzed thoroughly before starting his final combination."
As Chernev explains the moral is this: Play the move that forces the win in the simplest way. Here Cochrane saw that his temporary Queen sac would result in him coming out a Rook ahead. One is my favorite quotes is from Thoreau: "Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify! Simplify!" |
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| Jan-22-13 | | Once: Irving Chernev, writing in 1965, had a very different perspective to John Cochrane playing 110 years earlier. In this game, Cochrane had a choice between two simple and straightforward mates. The slightly longer route he chose allowed black no counterplay and no sub variations to consider. So it's hardly a choice between an easy win and a more complicated brilliancy. It's a choice between two easy wins. And that becomes a matter of style and not something that we need to lose sleep over. |
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| Jan-22-13 | | Kikoman: <27. Bxf7+ Rxf7 28. Qxf7+ Kh8 29. Qf8+#> and that's it. ^^ |
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| Jan-22-13 | | pescau: <Once: While he's waiting, he'll be looking at the different mates available to him.> Sparkling brillancy.
Cheers.
P. |
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| Jan-22-13 | | Dr. J: <OhioChessFan> That was an utterly uncalled-for insult that comes right up to the border of being a posting-guideline violation |
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| Jan-22-13 | | Patriot: The argument of whether the player decided to go with 27.Qxf8+ for beauty over the more efficient 27.Bxf7+ is something we may never know for sure. I can only tell you that 27.Qxf8+ is the first winning idea I had after assessing the position--it made sense. And since it is a forced mate, why look for a faster mate? And isn't the act of searching for a faster mate inefficient during a game? Maybe 27.Qxf8+ is the first winning line white saw and so it was played. The idea that the most efficient line is the only correct one doesn't apply on these problems. They don't say "white to mate in 3 moves". |
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Jan-22-13
| | FSR: <Once: Irving Chernev, writing in 1965, had a very different perspective to John Cochrane playing 110 years earlier. In this game, Cochrane had a choice between two simple and straightforward mates. The slightly longer route he chose allowed black no counterplay and no sub variations to consider. So it's hardly a choice between an easy win and a more complicated brilliancy. It's a choice between two easy wins.> We're surely beating a dead horse here. (Could Cochrane have imagined that, 159 years later, we'd be speculating on his thought processes in this offhand game?) That said, Chernev's explanation seems insufficient. Cochrane was very strong. According to Chessmetrics, his peak "rating," in 1843, was 2571, at which time he was the strongest player on Earth. http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/... It took me (far from the strongest player on Earth, although standards are surely higher these days) five seconds to analyze all the "variations" arising from 27.Bxf7+, and I'm sure it would have been no more difficult for Cochrane. The line gives Black no counterplay, and the "variations" are trivial. There's no way that Cochrane played 27.Qxf8+ because he was worried that 27.Bxf7+ was too complicated. Either he played 27.Qxf8+ because he was "playing to the gallery," or, as <Patriot> suggests, because it was the first move that entered his head. If you see a simple forced mate, there's no need to look further. |
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| Jan-22-13 | | morfishine: Might as well keep beating a dead horse: Whatever one happened to see first, whether 27.Bxf7+ or 27.Qxf8+, it doesn't matter because as <Patriot> mentioned, once one finds a forced win, further searching stops. Once I saw 27.Bxf7+ forced mate, I didn't bother looking further, hence I never considered 27.Qxf8+ |
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| Jan-22-13 | | Marmot PFL: I don't see how chessmetrics can say that Cochrane was #1. He lost about 10 straight games to Staunton starting about 1840 and ended up -30 or so lifetime. |
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| Jan-22-13 | | gofer: <Once>
<And let's not even start to worry about whether one move was more correct than the
other.>
I couldn't agree more, except that the following caught my eye... <Bartimaeus: <OhioChessFan: Leave it to a blind guy to not care about aesthetics.>> Now I wasn't going to walk into this discussion, but I did immediately have to Google
"Bartimaeus" and not only learnt something new today, but was also very amused by
the juxtaposition...
<Nice one, centurion. Like it, like it.> |
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Jan-22-13
 | | gawain: I failed to see this right away. But there were not very many moves to try, so I made my way to the solution Qxf8# eventually. |
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| Jan-22-13 | | Dr. J: <Dr. J: <OhioChessFan> That was an utterly uncalled-for insult that comes right up to the border of being a posting-guideline violation> I completely retract this comment, with apologies. I did not get the reference. |
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Jan-22-13
 | | OhioChessFan: <OhioChessFan: Leave it to a blind guy to not care about aesthetics.> <gofer: Now I wasn't going to walk into this discussion, but I did immediately have to Google "Bartimaeus" and not only learnt something new today, but was also very amused by the juxtaposition... > I wondered if anyone would get it, didn't care much, most of the time people don't, surprised people don't google such statements that don't quite fit, maybe it's not worth the trouble, whatever. <Dr. J: I completely retract this comment, with apologies. I did not get the reference.> No problem, I understand it was pretty obscure and thought it might be misunderstood. |
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| Jan-22-13 | | Abdel Irada: <<•>Of context and perspective<•>> First, a note to all those lambasting <OhioChessFan> about his "utterly uncalled-for insult that comes right up to the border of being a posting-guideline violation": Do you know who Bartimaeus was? Do you understand why the poster Bartimaeus isn't nearly as exercised about this "insult" as you profess to be? A good rule: Investigate first, castigate second if at all. To <Once>: You mustn't have read Douglas Adams lately, or you'd remember that if there's one thing in the universe we can't afford to have, it is a sense of perspective. Now: Jynnan tonnyx all round! |
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| Jan-22-13 | | JimNorCal: I guess qxf8 is a win...but bxf7+ is mate in 3 (or less). So...there is little question which is stronger.
Was it Dr Olland who died of heart failure in a won position? |
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Jan-22-13
 | | Phony Benoni: <JimNorCal>: Olland vs A Hamming, 1933. |
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Jan-22-13
 | | PawnSac: < FSR: <Once> has set the stage. There were probably lots of spectators looking on, some of whom had bet on the game. 27.Bxf7+ is a brutal win, so Cochrane decided to play to the gallery with 27.Qxf8+. morfishine: <FSR> Or, after so many gin and tonics, White simply overlooked 27.Bxf7+ > The game was probably played in a pub where chess players hung out. No doubt you're right about the gin and tonics, but it WAS the Romantic era for chess, and ya can't blame a guy for being somewhat of a sensationalist. I mean, the scuttlebutt the next night would be "you should have been here last night when Cochrane won with a queen sacrifice!" I mean after all guys, lets be sensible here! Sac your queen and then mate, and half the room will buy you drinks! LOL |
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| Jan-22-13 | | Abdel Irada: <The game was probably played in a pub where chess players hung out.> Most of what you say after this is very plausible, but I suspect that, during the Raj, Cochrane et al. didn't play in pubs. The game would, I surmise, have been played in the parlor (or perhaps on the veranda) of a luxurious colonial bungalow with, as <Once> says, plenty of gin-and-tonic and post-prandial cigars, and spectators would probably have included the other inmates of the bungalow as well as perhaps a friend or two of the respective players. Well, at least that's the image engraved on *my* visual cortex. Others may envision a different scene. |
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| Jan-23-13 | | kevin86: White sacs the queen for a rook and uses a "windmill" procedure to regain it. The extra rook wins quickly. |
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sac: 27.Qxf8+