50 games every chessplayer should know

by Johannes Fischer
3/14/2017 – Recent trends in book publishing indicate how demanding life has become. A whole series of thick books tell you about "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", "1001 TV Series You Must Watch Before You Die", "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" or "1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die". But what about chess? And why not start small, e.g. with "50 chessgames every chessplayer should know"?

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Admittedly, selecting 50 great games from the history of chess might indeed be a bit too modest. After all, the ChessBase Mega Database contains no less than 6.8 million games, and if you want to give every official World Champion from Wilhelm Steinitz to Magnus Carlsen their due by showing only two games of each you already have 32 games - without taking players such as Morphy, Anderssen, Tarrasch, Schlechter, Rubinstein, Nimzowitsch, Boguljubov, Fine, Reshevsky, Bronstein, Najdorf, Keres, Geller, Stein, Portisch, Kortschnoi, Judit Polgar and many others into account. Not to mention contemporary players such as Aronian, Nakamura, Giri, Karjakin or So.

Therefore, a list with "50 games which every chessplayer should know" is necessarily incomplete and the selection very much a matter of taste and open to debate. But this should be okay if one does not aspire to present the 50 "absolutely best" or "most important" games of all times. In fact, it should be more important that the games are interesting, beautiful, historically important and entertaining - and after all, you can always add to the list.

So, let's begin with an entertaining classic that shows the power of the pawns. The game was played in 1834 and was the 16th game of a match between Louis Charles Mahé de Labourdonnais from France and Alexander McDonnell from Ireland, back then arguably the world's best players. It was part of a series of six matches Labourdonnais and McDonnell played from June to October 1834 in the Westminster Club in London and in the course of this series they played 85 games against each other. Labourdonnais won the marathon with 45 wins, 27 losses and 13 draws. The following game was particularly remarkable and is still a pleasure to watch.

 
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MoveNResultEloPlayers
1.e41,151,31554%2422---
1.d4936,81255%2434---
1.Nf3277,85656%2441---
1.c4180,05456%2443---
1.g319,55956%2427---
1.b313,85854%2427---
1.f45,77347%2377---
1.Nc33,65750%2385---
1.b41,71548%2378---
1.a31,15654%2402---
1.e31,04248%2408---
1.d391950%2376---
1.g464246%2360---
1.h442953%2373---
1.c340350%2418---
1.h324456%2408---
1.a49459%2484---
1.f38247%2435---
1.Nh38165%2503---
1.Na33559%2475---
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nxc6 Opening theory in 1834 was not what it is today. Today White usually plays 5.Nb5 - the move in the game strengthens the black pawns - and in the game this proves to be fatal for White. bxc6 6.Bc4 Nf6 7.Bg5 Be7 8.Qe2 d5 9.Bxf6 Bxf6 10.Bb3 0-0 11.0-0 a5 12.exd5 cxd5 13.Rd1 d4 14.c4?
Not a good decision. White creates a passed pawn on the c-file but Black gets a passed pawn on the d-file - and the d-pawn turns out to be stronger. Probably White thought he would be able to block the black pawns. 14...Qb6 15.Bc2 Bb7 Of course, Black cannot take on b2. 16.Nd2 Rae8 17.Ne4 Bd8 18.c5 Qc6 19.f3 Be7 20.Rac1 f5!
A dynamic continuation. Black gives an exchange to set his pawns in motion. 21.Qc4+ Kh8 22.Ba4 Qh6 23.Bxe8?! According to Kasparov 23.Nd6 was a better move. In volume 1 of his "Predecessors" series he gives the following line which is based on engine analysis: Bxd6 24.Bxe8 Bc7 25.c6 e4 26.cxb7 Qxh2+ 27.Kf1 exf3 28.gxf3 Bg3 29.Qxd4 Rxe8 30.Rc3 h5 31.f4 h4 32.b8Q Rxb8 33.Rd2 Qh1+ 34.Ke2 Qe1+ 35.Kd3 Qf1+ 36.Kc2 Bxf4 37.Qf2 Qxf2 38.Rxf2 g5 39.Rxf4 gxf4 40.Rh3 Kg7 41.Rxh4 Rb4 and Black will win the endgame. 23...fxe4 24.c6 exf3
Black suddenly has three passed pawns and a mating attack. 25.Rc2 After 25.cxb7 Qe3+ 26.Kh1 fxg2+ 27.Kxg2 Rf2+ 28.Kg1 Rc2+ 29.Kh1 Qf3+ 30.Kg1 Qg2# White is mated. 25...Qe3+ 26.Kh1 Bc8 27.Bd7 f2 Threatening 28…Qe1+ 30.Qf1 Qxd1 31.Qxd1 f1Q+. 28.Rf1 d3 29.Rc3 Bxd7 30.cxd7 After 30.Rxd3 wins with Be6! 30...e4 Black calmly protects the pawn on d3. White is an exchange up but cannot stop the passed pawns. 31.Qc8 Bd8 32.Qc4 The engines have a lot of fun analyzing the tactical opportunities that are caused by the passed pawns and the weak back ranks of Black and White. Here is one sample line: 32.Qc5 Qxc5 33.Rxc5 e3 34.Re5 e2 35.Rxf2 Kg8 36.Re8 e1Q+ 37.Rxe1 Rxf2 and Black wins. 32...Qe1 33.Rc1 d2 34.Qc5 Rg8 35.Rd1 e3 36.Qc3 Qxd1 This queen sacrifice prepares the final triumph of the pawns. 37.Rxd1 e2
Queen and rook are helpless against the passed pawns. White resigned.
0–1
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
McDonnell,A-De Labourdonnais,L-0–11834B32Match Labourdonnais-McDonnell16

Historical Notes

Alexander McDonnell was born on May 22, 1798 in Belfast, Ireland, and died September 14, 1835 in London. According to the Oxford Companion to Chess by Kenneth Whyld and David Hooper McDonnell was „the son of a doctor, spent some years in the West Indies and later worked in London as secretary of the Committee of West Indies Merchants". About McDonnell's chess style the Oxford Companion writes: „On occasion McDonnell's combinative play could be brilliant and imaginative, but his opening play (…) and his technique were inferior. (…) Whereas Bourdonnais played fast and with ease, McDonnell concentrated at length about his moves and retired from a playing session exhausted, sometimes 'walking his room the greater part of the night in a dreadful state of excitement'. His contemporaries believed that this long period of stress hastened his death from Bright's disease. (...) Unlike his great rival, McDonnell died wealthy. Besides chess he was interested in political economy, on which he wrote half a dozen books or pamphlets.“

Louis-Charles Mahé de Labourdonnais was born in 1795 (some sources give 1797 as the year of his birth - the exact date is not known) in Réunion where his grandfather had been governor, and died on December 13, 1840, in London. According to the Oxford Companion his family sent him "to the Lycée Henri IV in Paris where, in 1814, he learnt chess". The game soon became his passion and he spent days and nights in the famous Café de la Régence playing chess.

Louis-Charles Mahé de Labourdonnais (Photo: Wikipedia)

In 1836 Labourdonnais founded Le Palamède, the world's first chess magazine, but then he suffered several blows of fate. In 1838 he had a stroke and later fell ill with dropsy. One year later, in 1839, Labourdonnais lost his job and his income as secretary of the Paris Chess Club when the club was disbanded. With no regular income he gradually drifted into poverty as he had spent or lost the family fortune by misspeculation in the beginning of the 1830s.

In November 1840 he again travelled to London to play games at odds and for money at Simpson's Divan but soon became too ill to do so. He died December 13, 1840. Like his rival McDonnell Labourdonnais was buried at the Kensal Green cemetery.

(To be continued...)


Johannes Fischer was born in 1963 in Hamburg and studied English and German literature in Frankfurt. He now lives as a writer and translator in Nürnberg. He is a FIDE-Master and regularly writes for KARL, a German chess magazine focusing on the links between culture and chess. On his own blog he regularly publishes notes on "Film, Literature and Chess".

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