When Magnus Carlsen sacrificed his queen against the Russian challenger Sergey Karjakin last month in New York, it won him not only the world title match, but it was the most brilliant final move of any world chess championship in history. It will be hard to match.
Chess players are always attracted to queen sacrifices. They symbolize victory of mind over matter, a desire to do more with less. Some queen sacrifices are models of efficiency and lead to checkmates; others take advantage of positional deficiencies and bring mysterious twists into chess. Some are waiting to be discovered, stay behind the curtain and never show up. It is always special when these sacrifices are played in games of strong players.
The man in the Barong Tagalog, a ceremonial Philippine shirt, is Wesley So. He won the Grand Chess Tour (GCT) that made him $295,000 richer. According to the former world champion Kramnik, So played the best chess of the year and could be a serious challenger to Carlsen in the future. In the final GCT tournament last month in London, Wesley was prepared to sacrifice his queen. It led to a spectacular smothered mate, but Veselin Topalov spoiled it a decided to lose differently.
Carlsen and So now compete at the Tata Steel Chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee. Lots of nice memories are connected with the Dutch coastal town. In 1975 I won the Leo van Kijk prize for the most spectacular game, offered there for the first time. In the game against the eventual winner Lajos Portisch I sacrificed my queen for a mere bishop. But another queen sacrifice was secretly brewing in the mind of Jan Timman. Well, perhaps not so secretly since we discussed it at the hotel bar, but not in great detail. Timman even mentioned it in the tournament book I wrote about the event. Six months later his sacrifice appeared in our game.
Berry Withuis, a Dutch organizer and journalist, immediately asked: “Do you know Nezhmedtinov’s queen sacrifice?”
I thought he meant Rashid Nezhmedtinov’s brilliant masterpiece against Lev Polugaevsky, played in Sochi in 1958. It was one of the best games of the last century and it appeared on a menacing painting of a Russian artist G. Satonina (Nezhmedtinov on the right).
“A different one,” said Withuis and made it sound as if Nezhmedtinov created queen sacrifices every day. He summed it up in a question he asked one day of the legendary grandmaster David Bronstein: “Is the queen stronger than two light pieces?”
The former challenger for the world title took the question seriously. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I will tell you later.”
That evening Bronstein played a simultaneous exhibition in Amsterdam and whenever he could, he sacrificed his queen for two minor pieces. “Now I know,” he told Withuis afterwards. “The queen is stronger.”
In Nezhmedtinov’s game the queen lost, but it was foggy and unclear. Bobby Fischer had a chance, but didn’t go there and the computers had later shown that White may equalize at best. It did not deter Nezhmedtinov. He wowed that given a chance, he would sacrifice the queen again.
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Images from London Chess Classic and SachInfo
– Part two to follow shortly –
Original column here – Copyright Huffington Post
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