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We go to London of a distant past – 1862 – to talk about one of the games that got me hooked to Chess ten years ago. John M Taylor demonstrates the importance of openings when playing a master and how a seemingly innocuous move can set in motion a chain of events. Taylor plays white and the position stands thus after a couple of moves, very much neutral at the moment.
Taylor’s opponent, whose name I couldn’t find (good for him), went for the freebie – the pawn at e4. Taylor’s offer to cancel knight for knight with Nc3 seemed a bit too good for his opponent and he took his knight back to c5. Most others would have cancelled it at that stage and protected the e-pawn, happy with the one pawn advantage arising out of the Boden-Kieseritzky variation of Petrov’s defence.
Moving away from the book
Taylor went on to take out the central solitary pawn to make the game even. While several moves had presented themselves to his opponent to push the oncoming knight back, he went for the blunder of the game – f6.
Black's last voluntary move – f6
Opening your f pawn with a Queen and two knights ready to ride in can only be bad for you. Taylor announced a forced mate in a maximum of 8 moves from this position. 6. Qh5 check met with 6. … g3.
A questionable 6. … Ke7 instead would lead to a mate in seven moves (instead of 8) as shown below.
Alternate Sad Ending
In the actual game, he went for g3. The remaining moves of the game were forced, showing the power of the two knight combination. Black’s King was forced to take a walk right upto b3. The finishing touch was provided by the Queen with it going back to d1 to end the game.
The Eight Moves: 6. Qh5+ g6 7. Bf7+ Ke7 8. Nd5+ Kd6 9. Nc4+ Kc6 10. Nb4+ Kb5 11. a4+ Kxb4 12. c3+ Kb3 13. Qd1# 1-0
Midway through White's Dinner
The End
Had Taylor’s opponent known the opening, he would not have gone on to remove his knight from the line of attack giving a free hand to the white pieces. As you can see, one wrong move, f6, led to a chain of 8 forced moves and curtains for Black – a chain of moves longer than the game itself was at that stage.
(Images created using Tarrasch Chess GUI available at www.triplehappy.com )
