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Mikhail Chigorin vs Max Judd
"Simply Irresistible" (game of the day Nov-08-2011)
6th American Chess Congress, New York (1889), New York, NY USA, rd 25, Apr-24
King's Gambit: Declined. Classical Variation (C30)  ·  1-0

ANALYSIS [x]

FEN COPIED

Annotations by Wilhelm Steinitz.      [129 more games annotated by Steinitz]

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sac: 38.Rxg6 PGN: download | view | print Help: general | java-troubleshooting

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Kibitzer's Corner
Jan-11-08  spike4321: 37.Rxg6! looks like a winner.
Jul-17-09  Knight13: Judd must've had too high of a confidence that White wasn't gonna succeed in the kingside attack. Otherwise he would've countered with ...d5.
Jan-21-10
Premium Chessgames Member
  Richard Taylor: Yes - 37 Rxg6 looks good.
Sep-02-10
Premium Chessgames Member
  GrahamClayton: In the annotation to 23.f6, a better continuation may be 24.♕h7+ ♔f7 25.♕g6+ ♔g8 26.♖h5, with Black in a total bind, and White threatening Rg1-g3-h3.
Nov-08-11
Premium Chessgames Member
  al wazir: 38. h4 is also winning. For example, 38...Bxg7 39. Nxg7 Kxg7 40. h5, or 38...Bxh4 (38...Nxh4 is worse) 39. Nxh4 Nxh4 40. Rh3 Ng6 41. Rxg6 fxg6 42. Rh8+ Kxg7 43. Rxd8.
Nov-08-11  Garech: Nice game; I agree with Steinitz in that black should have aimed for 0-0-0 at the correct time. As well as that, after 7.f5, which is a little dubious, ...g6 should definitely have been prepared and played at the appropriate moment to break down the white pawns. Cheers,

-Garech

Nov-08-11  psmith: On 37. Rxg6 -- For what it's worth, Fritz 5.32 gives 37. Reg1 as its first choice and gives quite a few other moves, all winning, ahead of 37. Rxg6 (which is of course winning too).
Nov-08-11  hedgeh0g: <Nice game; I agree with Steinitz in that black should have aimed for 0-0-0 at the correct time. As well as that, after 7.f5, which is a little dubious, ...g6 should definitely have been prepared and played at the appropriate moment to break down the white pawns.>

These positions are all about tempi: at move 6, Black has an important choice to make: should he play the immediate ...Bg4 and allow Na4, or should he save his bishop and allow f5? Unfortunately, he doesn't have time to do both.

7.f5! is the best test of Black's previous move, as it prevents the annoying pin which gives Black total control over d4 as well as giving White a strong bind in the centre. Since the Black DSB is locked out of the kingside, ...g6 at some point could be quite dangerous, since the white bishop is unopposed and can freely exploit the holes on the kingside.

Black also has a dilemma in that his king isn't really safe anywhere on the board because of White's space advantage. The immediate 14...0-0-0, for instance, might be answered by 15.Qe3!, planning to answer 15...Kb8?! with 16.b5! and keeping the option open of playing Qa7 at some point. On the other hand, b5 is already threatened, so Black either needs to castle or move his rook off the a-file.

A well-played game by White.

Nov-08-11  kevin86: Despite black ingenious move on his 24th turn,white's irrestable attack couldn't be halted.
Nov-08-11  Chessmensch: As is usually the case in these situations, the move that Steinitz describes as "ingenious" (24...Qh6) was found by both Deep Rybka 4 and Deep Fritz 12 in about a hundreth of a second (faster than I could move my eye to look at the finding).
Nov-08-11  sfm: Steinitz is being polite about 23.f6??, it is simply a major blunder, allowing Black to fight on.

After his suggestion 23.Bg5,f6 24.Bd2 Black can safely resign, instead of playing e.g. 24.-,Bb6 25.g5,fxg 26.Nxg5.

Real great game!

Nov-08-11  psmith: <Chessmensch> For all that, it is ingenious! That, after all, is a human term applied to human behavior.
Nov-08-11  Marmot PFL: The way white chooses also wins easily enough.
Oct-11-13  tranquilsimplicity: Rxg6 is a beautiful exchange sacrifice to wind up the game.

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