At the time Paul Morphy was conquering the best European players in the late 1850s, William Steinitz came to Vienna to start his chess career. "I didn't play with the object to win directly, but to sacrifice a piece," he admitted. He played for tricks. Sacrifice after sacrifice, combination after combination earned him the nickname "the Austrian Morphy." His combinational craft is clearly visible in the following fragment:
Reiner-Steinitz, Vienna 1860
16...Qh4!! The queen sacrifice does the trick. It is also the shortest way to win. The queen deflects the rook from the square g1, threatening 17...Qh2 mate at the same time. 17.Rg2. After 17.Rxh4 Rg1 mates. 17...Qxh2+! 18.Rxh2 Rg1 mate.
What is a chess trick? In her book Judit Polgar Teaches Chess 1: How I beat Fischer's record, the all-time best woman attempts to define it:
"I see the trick as a basically simple (maximum two or three moves), but very well masked, tactical operation. It requires imagination, alertness, lack of preconceptions, and the ability to intuitively perceive the intimate dynamic nuances of the position. These qualities allow spotting, foreseeing or aiming to deliver a trick."
Polgar wrote the book, the first volume of her trilogy published by Quality Chess, together with the Romanian grandmaster Mihai Marin. It is conceived as a teaching manual based on her games and fragments. The first chapter of the book is called Tricks and in the first example Polgar uses a stunning deflection to win a friendly game against Jozsef Palkovi:
Palkovi-Polgar Judit, Budapest, 1989
1...Rh2+! and White resigned. After 2.Kxh2 exf2 and the pawn queens because black has two squares to promote it. Polgar admits: "I was labeled as a tricky player early on and have been regarded as tricky throughout my whole career. It was said that I was able to pull out tricks from nowhere." The late world champion Vassily Smyslov nicknamed her "Tal in a skirt." She enjoys being compared to the brilliant world champion Misha Tal.
Throughout his career, Tal created many great combinations and there are not enough books about his skills. The latest is The Magic of Tactics of Mikhail Tal by Karsten Muller and Raymund Stolze, published by New In Chess. It is the English version of the German book we liked in our review.
But Tal also made many unsound sacrifices. And somehow when nobody would bet a dime on his position, he turned it around with a wonderful trick.
This fragment brings another element: tricks are often possible only with the
opponent's help.
I had my own experience in three games against Drazen Marovic, the Croatian
grandmaster and editor of the Yugoslavian chess monthly Sahovski Glasnik.
It began during our student years.
"You only play for tricks," Marovic told me at the Student Olympiad in Krakow in 1964. And the Yugoslav master had his reasons. Our game finished with a queen sacrifice I had predicted before the game in a conversation with our coach, Frantisek Pithart. I was lucky because I would not have able to do it without Marovic's help.
At the Student Olympiad in Marianske Lazne in 1962 I played Marovic for the first time and he remembered the encounter as well. Throughout the competition I was in a creative mood. For example, I have conceived my signature game against Eduard Gufeld, winning the brilliancy prize. The game with Marovic was another tactical adventure. At that time Marovic selected the wrong path and the punches began to fall.
Caissa, the chess goddess, is just, fair and merciful to her subjects and what she takes away, she often gives back. I am sure that the sacrifice on e4 in the above game was fixed in Marovic's mind and that it reapeared during his game against Tigran Petrosian in Amsterdam in 1973:
In 1968, we played in the IBM tournament in Amsterdam. The outcome was important since I was able to finish first ahead of the legendary grandmaster David Bronstein. My victory in the game against Marovic came out of nowhere. He resigned in a position in which I had plenty of threats and we both thought it was not premature. We both missed that Marovic could have saved the game with a stunning trick.
Original column here – Copyright Huffington Post
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