A Postcard From Capablanca

A Postcard From Capablanca

The Planet Greenpawn

A Postcard From Capablanca


As you all know I am an avid collector of Postcards.
Title here

Recently I paid £100 for a mixed bundle of 1914-18
postcards from E-Bay. Look what was amongst them.
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and written neatly on the back was...
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This throws new light on the Marshall Gambit and
I am now thinking that sometime pre-1916 Alekhine
showed Frank Marshall the pawn sac that later bore
Marshall’s name, possibly at St. Petersburg in 1914.

Now in true chess hacks tradition I suppose I should
reprint for the 100th millionth time the famous game.
Jose Capablanca v Frank Marshall, New York 1918.

Nah...instead let us instead have a look at:

Marshall - Capablanca New York 1909


What happens if Marshall had taken the Bishop on move 25.


red pawns

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Ok try this one. You will see the idea right away, but getting
the move order correct is the tricky part, good luck with that.

White to play and checkmate Black in 7 moves.


Composed by V. L. Pypa (date unknown)

I was going to put the solution at the bottom of the page
but I am suddenly bored doing that. (everyone does that)

If I thought I could get away with it I’d start this column with
the solution to a puzzle you are about to see just to be different.

And if I was clever enough to do it I would have the PGN thingy
showing your games going backwards starting off with the mate.

***The Solution***


red pawns

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We would think it would be Chess. Checkers only uses 32 of the 64 squares.
But Blindfold Chess is ‘apparently’ easier to play than Blindfold Checkers

I was reading recently about Timur Gareyev who played 48
games at Blindfold Chess. Winning 35, losing 6 and drawing 7,
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Timur pictured by ChessBase during the Blidfoild Simul.

The record for Blindfold Checkers is 25 games set in 2007
by the Dutch Checkers Grand Master Ton Teunsis Sijbrands.

BCM in January 1985 said Pillsbury tried multiple games at Blindfold Checkers
and failed. Their explanation is that the uniformity of the ’draughtsmen’ makes it
hard to reach distinctive positions. That got me thinking. (I’m always thinking.)

Why not get in touch with Timur Gareyev and tell him to have a go at the
Checkers Blindfold record. (assuming of course Timur can play Checkers)
and he thinks of Chess pieces instead of Checker pieces or Draughtsmen.

If he thinks of 12 Knights for each side it should not be too difficult for him.



We look at one of the games. Note that Gareyev took Black in some of them.

T Brownscombe - T. Gareyev, Blindfold World Record Las Vegas 2016


The mate in eight moves I mentioned if White takes the Knight.


red doom

For this weeks theme we go back to 1972 and the Fischer - Spassky Match.

Game 16. Spassky (Black) has just played 57...Re5-e1.


This joke threat of Rh1 mate was of course spotted by Fischer who played
58.Kh3 and the game was agreed a draw a few moves later.....Now read on.

whuppingboy - MWoods RHP 2011

White to play and get mated in one move.


White chose the right square but moved the wrong piece.

40. Rg4+ looks OK and safe White played 40.g4

40....Rh3 checkmate.

rabnes - johnny50 RHP 2016

Black to play and get mated in one move.


Black chose the right square but moved the wrong piece.

64....Kg5 looks OK and safe. Black played 64...g5


65. Rh8 Checkmate.

This one is good, and by that I mean, this is funny. If we cannot
laugh at each others chess lemons what else is there to laugh at?.

alisog - virgiltavi RHP 2016



The thread accompanying this blog is Thread 172159

Posted to The Planet Greenpawn

Show Comments (2)
Comments (2)

  • Posted 2552 days 20 hours and 18 minutes ago
    Standard membersigrun
    Hi Jeff, I've been looking for Aagaard-Skempris but can't find it anywhere except on here fae 2009. Skembris hasn't played since 2007!!! mysterious
  • Posted 2577 days 21 hours and 17 minutes ago | Edited
    Subscribermoonbus
    fun blog. Thanks gp.
    Last Post
    23 Mar '24
    Posts
    467
    Blog since
    06 Jul '10

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