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| Sep-05-09 | | Once: I have a theory (actually I have many and most of them are rubbish) ... that really good players know how to handle rooks. Deceptively simple beasts, rooks. They thunder up and down ranks and files like behemoths - the incredible hulk on one side and the Thing from the fantastic four on the other. But rooks' big problem is that they struggle to get into the game. Those flashy upstarts, the knights, can get going straight away. 1. Nf3 or 1. Nc3 and we're in business. Even black can join in the fun with 1...Nc6 or 1...Nf6 against everything. Bishops and queens can slip into the battle after just the move of a pawn. But poor rooks spent much of the opening staring at a pawn's bottom. And one of their own pawns at that. Which can be very frustrating for an uber-powerful superhero. Good players also seem to activate their rooks faster than the rest of us. They play "mysterious" rook moves like Re1 and Rd1, long before anything interesting seems to be happening on those files. And their f pawns seem to disappear with amazing rapidity, so that castling leaves a rook on a half open f file. Look at the games of Morphy and Kasparov for expert handling of rooks. The much underrated Rubinstein gives us a masterclass in rook handling today. 15...Bxg6 opens the f file so that castling is both an aggressive (Rf8) and defensive (Kg8) move. Then 19...Rxf3 gives the Ra8 an express elevator to the white kingside and also destroys the rook's arch enemy - a Nf3. By contrast, white's rooks never really get going. The Ra1 twiddles his giant green thumbs all the game. And by the time that the Rf1 decides that it's clobbering time (23. Rfe1) it is way way too late. When I find myself in the early part of the game wondering what to do, I try to resist the temptation to move pawns (cos they can never go backwards) or to shift the minor pieces for a second time. Instead, I look to the big guys in the corners. Park a rook on the same file as the enemy king or queen, or on a file that is likely to get opened some time. Then when the action starts, the heavies are in position to do some damage. |
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| Sep-05-09 | | anjyplayer: My sources told me the match was fixed. |
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| Sep-05-09 | | ounos: <RookFile: The way Rubinstein slapped Alekhine around in this game was incredible.>
He was aiming the fly, it temporarily landed on Alekhine. He apologized afterwards and all. |
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| Sep-05-09 | | Sem: <Once> Some great kibitzing. Thanks. |
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Sep-05-09
 | | maxi: Rubinstein was only a figment of the fly's imagination. A sad loss for chess. |
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| Sep-05-09 | | kevin86: Rubinstein was under-rated. And Alekhine could have a bad day. The bottle is NEVER the inly answer for Alex's defeats. |
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| Sep-05-09 | | AnalyzeThis: There was no way that Alekhine saw 15...fxg6!! coming. Fantastic move, the move of the game. I bet that white would have been ok with the other capture. |
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| Sep-05-09 | | fhl: nice game |
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| Sep-05-09 | | WhiteRook48: an ouch to Alekhine |
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| Sep-05-09 | | taliakarpovia: Schlehter and after Rubinstein..Sometimes they taught lasker what also chess is..:))) even to young alekhine.. |
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| Sep-05-09 | | hope62: To Once.... yes what you says is exactly what Purdy says about how to master opennings and early middlegames. that is. The key are the rooks!!!! |
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| Sep-06-09 | | rigel1503: Again to Once: What you say about rooks is very insightful. When I played over games from Horowitz's book "Golden Treasury of Chess" the great combos and sacrifices so often involved the ability to rapidly bring the rooks into play and instinctively know the files where they will be most effective. Two rooks are nominally equal to queen, and often beginners ignore them. It's the equivalent of playing with an extra queen if you know how to use them in the opening and middle game. |
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| Sep-06-09 | | Once: I think the trickiest thing about rooks is the preparation. Getting the pieces off the back rank is part of rook activation. Who was it who said "castling is a rook move"? And then those funny little Re1 or Rd1 moves, often a long time before the combination strikes. Quiet, deadly, subtle. <rigel1503> Don't know the Horowitz book - do you recommend it? |
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Sep-07-09
| | maxi: Do you care to explain, <kevin86:
The bottle is NEVER the inly answer for Alex's defeats.> |
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Sep-09-09
| | maxi: I agree that the move 15...fxg6! was imaginative, but all that Black has achieved so far is equality. White has a sound development plan in ♘df3, ♕e2, ♖d1 and ♘d4. White cannot allow the rook sacrifice, so he has to play carefully there, but the position is even. |
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| Oct-22-09 | | fischerstein: What the heck?? 13Qe1?? 14Nh2?? Alekhine MUST have been drunk, those are beginner level blunders. also, the way he practically ignores black's attack later on is extremely unlike a sober Alekhine. Or, maybe he just didn't give a F$#k about this game. |
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Feb-05-11
 | | Penguincw: Rubinstein's other victory against Alekhine with the black pieces : Alekhine vs Rubinstein, 1910 |
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| Dec-20-11 | | optimal play: In the accompanying annotations by Savielly Tartakower he notes at move 12.h3 "The most reasonable course here is 12.Re1, guarding the e-pawn." That's exactly what Alekhine played against Levenfish the year before Alekhine vs Levenfish, 1911 That game ended in a draw after 45 moves, however in this game he plays h3 before bringing his Queen across to e1 and doesn't move his rook until it's too late. Maybe Alekhine had an idea to improve on that previous game but it certainly backfired against the best player in the world in 1912. |
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| Dec-20-11 | | visayanbraindoctor: 
click for larger view19...Rxf3
click for larger viewTypical thematic sac that weakens the pawn structure protecting the King, which we just saw recurring in Carlsen vs Nakamura, 2011 |
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| Dec-20-11 | | Garech: Great game from Rubinstein - how many of us would have immediately played 15.hxg6 -capturing towards the centre and opening up the h file instead? Cheers,
-Garech |
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Dec-20-11
| | Penguincw: I like these old games. Just enough annotation. Not too much (e.g. N Davies vs The World, 2008) and not too little (e.g. NN vs Lucena, 1497). |
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| Nov-27-13 | | Karpova: Garry Kasparov: <The game is important mainly because it clearly demonstrates that, thanks to his chess genius, Rubinstein was capable of blazing completely new trails.> Source: 'On my Great Predecessors Part I', Everyman, 2003, p. 203 |
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| Oct-23-14 | | Cheapo by the Dozen: <Gregor Samsa Mendel>'s comment from a decade ago looks correct. ... Qh5 will threaten both ... Nf2++/Qh8# and ... Nf4+ winning the queen. If White has cleared the f-pawn so as to allow Qh2, then ... Nf4+/Qxh2 still leaves Black with a material-winning double check. To avert ALL of that, White would need to try something like 28 Rf1 Qh5
29 f4 N(h3)xf4+
30 Qh2 Qxh2+
31 Kxh2 Nd3+
Black has 5 pawns for the exchange in that line; and probably there's some variation for him that's substantially better yet. |
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| Nov-28-14 | | MindCtrol9: This is a really good concept of what position is which was the key to win this game.What excellent moves by Akiba R.looking for squares to place his pieces.This is what I call a Master.Every player has good and bad days, but this one was special beating Alekhine so easy in this game.Like I have said before:the players from the past were stronger no matter what anybody thinks against.One of the reasons is less madness in their minds. |
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| Jun-02-15 | | scheidt: Rubinstein can play along like a strong club player and then do one or tow moves beyond the level of a strong club player. Such simplicity requires to see the depth of such moves and also to play so such moves can exist. For this, it takes a grandmaster. In this game Alekine 14 Nh2 appears to be sound strategy by prior play, yet Rubenstein's 14 Bg6 and fxg6 takes strategy to a deeper level. |
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sac: 19...Rxf3