Painful as it is to concede, we have to admit that chess makes an uneasy fit with this season of generosity and gift-giving.
The only “gifts” I ever wanted to give my opponent were an unpleasant opening surprise, a backward pawn and a blocked-in bishop and a sound thrashing at the end. Not exactly in the spirit of peace on earth and goodwill to men.
Our game has even attached a painful barb to the very concept of sacrifice. In real life, a sacrifice is what you do for other people; in chess, a sacrifice is what you do to other people, with the expectation that you will be the actual beneficiary a few moves down the line.
By that measure, may we present as a holiday gift to our loyal readers perhaps the most “generous” game ever played. Uzbek-born Grigory Serper does not play much over the board these days, though he regularly contributes excellent and informative columns to Chess.com. Before coming to the U.S. in 1995, Serper in a St. Petersburg tournament conducted one of the most amazing sacrificial pyrotechnics displays you will ever see. In the course of this 48-move King’s Indian, Serper generously offers up to onetime Greek national champion Ioannis Nikolaidis a knight, a bishop, a second bishop, an exchange, a knight (with check), a rook, and finally the White queen — twice.
The first two sacs may be the best, giving White a pawn phalanx that sets up all the subsequent play — 17. Nd5! cxd5 18. exd5 f5 19. d6 Qc6 20. Bb5!! axb5 21. axb5, when White stays on top after 21…Qb7 22. c6 Rxa1 23. cxb7 Rxf1+ 24. Kxf1 Bxb7 25. Nd3.
What’s remarkable amid the cascade of sacrifices that follow is how the computers agree that Serper keeps finding the only move that preserves White’s advantage. After 28. Rxf7! exf2+ 29. Kf1! (Kf2?? Qxc5+ and Black gets the mating attack) Qe8 30. Rf7+ Qxf7, Nikolaidis has a rook, bishop and knight for a pawn — and is busted.
White’s queen offers herself up on Move 41 to allow the last passed pawn to advance, and Black — now down a queen for two minor pieces — finally calls it quits after 47. Kxf2 Be3+ 48. Ke1!, with the material deficit too much to overcome.
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Actually, there is one classic instance of (unintentional) chess generosity that is not self-interested: the agonizing tragedy of resigning a won game. The fine Australian GM and writer Ian Rogers in fact has just come out with “Oops! I Resigned Again!” (Russell Enterprises, 160 pp., $19.95), featuring 100 positions and puzzles where a player with a winning advantage misguidedly tipped his king in surrender.
The author admits there is healthy heaping of Schadenfreude in watching even the greats so badly misjudge a position: “Resigning unnecessarily is the chess equivalent of slipping on a banana peel — one person’s misfortune, but inherently humorous to observers. Deriving joy from another chessplayer’s heartbreak and embarrassment may not be an honorable character trait, but they brought it on themselves, didn’t they?”
There’s a can’t-turn-your-head-away car crash quality to many of these positions, and in a few you might even pick up a tactical swindling tip or two. Take the position from today’s diagram, played by two German masters (the identity of Black is uncertain) in 1920.
White has sacrificed major material, but finds the devastating 1. Qxf6! that produces Black’s immediate resignation — Carl Ahues threatens mate on the move on g7 and 1…gxf6 loses obviously to 2. Rg3+ Qg4 3. Rxg4+ Kh8 4. Bxf6 mate.
But if we throw the red challenge flag we find on “further review” that Black actually could have won with the unlikely 1…Qg4!, guarding the mate threat on g7 and threatening mate on g2. After both 2. hxg4 and 2. f3, the rook’s killer check on g3 is nullified and Black can safely take the queen. Then it would be White who could honorably resign.
As the great player and wit Savielly Tartakower sagely remarked: No one ever won by resigning.
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Breaking…There was a massive upset in just-concluded FIDE Rapid World Championships, as rising Kazakh junior star GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov won a blitz playoff against Russian GM Ian Nepomniachtchi to take the crown from Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, who up until this week held the world championship belts to classical chess, rapid and blitz. Abdusattorov, just 17, defeated both Carlsen and American No.1 GM Fabiano Caruana on his run to the title in Warsaw.
Russian GM Alexandra Kosteniuk, a onetime women’s classical world champion, claimed her first women’s rapid world title, ahead of IM Bibisara Assaubayeva, another promising junior Kazakh star, who took silver. WGM Valentina Gunina of Russia claimed the bronze.
Serper-Nikolaidis, St. Petersburg Open, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1993
1. c4 g6 2. e4 Bg7 3. d4 d6 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. Nge2 Nbd7 6. Ng3 c6 7. Be2 a6 8. Be3 h5 9. f3 b5 10. c5 dxc5 11. dxc5 Qc7 12. O-O h4 13. Nh1 Nh5 14. Qd2 e5 15. Nf2 Nf8 16. a4 b4 17. Nd5 cxd5 18. exd5 f5 19. d6 Qc6 20. Bb5 axb5 21. axb5 Qxb5 22. Rxa8 Qc6 23. Rfa1 f4 24. R1a7 Nd7 25. Rxc8+ Qxc8 26. Qd5 fxe3 27. Qe6+ Kf8 28. Rxd7 exf2+ 29. Kf1 Qe8 30. Rf7+ Qxf7 31. Qc8+ Qe8 32. d7 Kf7 33. dxe8=Q+ Rxe8 34. Qb7+ Re7 35. c6 e4 36. c7 e3 37. Qd5+ Kf6 38. Qd6+ Kf7 39. Qd5+ Kf6 40. Qd6+ Kf7 41. Qxe7+ Kxe7 42. c8=Q Bh6 43. Qc5+ Ke8 44. Qb5+ Kd8 45. Qb6+ Kd7 46. Qxg6 e2+ 47. Kxf2 Be3+ 48. Ke1 Black resigns.
• David R. Sands can be reached at 202/636-3178 or by email at [email protected].
