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Isaak Mazel vs Mikhail Botvinnik
11th USSR Championship Semifinal (1938), Leningrad URS, rd 7, May-28
English Opening: Anglo-Indian Defense. Flohr-Mikenas-Carls Variation (A19)  ·  0-1

ANALYSIS [x]

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Kibitzer's Corner
Dec-13-03  karnak64: My father would have been so pleased with this game.

His tactical arsenal consisted exclusively of two tricks: either going for a quick mate on f2 (f7), or going for the fork on c2 (c7). This little beauty -- okay, that's in the eye of the beholder -- cleverly blends them both.

Jul-19-04  gmann: White blunders as early as the 4th move! The proper continuation is obviously 4.e5. I suspect that Botvinnik went in for the kill when he sensed that his opponent was stepping carelessly out of the book.
Jan-02-07  ChessDude33: <gmann> I wouldn't go as far as calling white's fourth move a blunder. It doesn't lose material and it is not really the sole cause of the catastrophe.
Jan-02-07  Jole: If white plays Qe2 to avoid the mate Nd3+ is better than Nc2+ where white is forced to exchange queen for Knight as Kd1 is answered by QB3#
May-01-10  Atking: 7.h3 first may help white latter plan 7...Nh6 8.cxd exd 9.Qb3 cNb4 10,a3 c4 11.Qa4+ Bd7 or b5!? then 12.Qd1
Jul-23-14
Premium Chessgames Member
  alexmagnus: Semifinal of WHAT?
Jul-23-14
Premium Chessgames Member
  alexmagnus: Ah, see from collections, of the USSR chship.
Aug-13-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  fredthebear: Here is Mato Jelic's video link of this miniature: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...
Aug-13-21  gary11201: Mazel didn't have mazel here! ("mazel", I believe, means "good luck" in Hebrew or perhaps Yiddish.
Jul-08-23  generror: This looks like a nice trap to add to my French Sicilian repertoire, although even at my level people rarely let a knight oogle at their f-square for so long.

At least this game shows you that the standards of Soviet chess improved vastly in the following 20 years :) Imagine such a game in a 1950s Soviet semifinal...

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