Chess Blog

Continuing with our theme in Beginners may take heart from these games, we bring three more games where a player rated much lower than his opponent shows that how you play over the board is more important than what elo rating you hold.

At the time the first game (Fouts-Firman, Philadelphia, 2003) was played, White’s elo rating was about 800 points less than Black’s. But that did not daunt him and he kept on seizing the initiative at every step. White had to capitualate ultimately under the relentless pressure.

The figure below shows the position after 20 moves.

The following position was reached after 14 moves in the game (Spielmann-Van den Bosch, 1935). Johannes Van den Bosch is relatively unknown whereas you must have heard of Rudolf Spielmann as one of the best chess tacticians ever. But here the master tactician gets outsmarted pretty thoroughly!

White resigned as he has no adequate defense to the threat of 23. … Bh3#. Both 23. Qb3+ Be6+ and 23. Kg2 Qe2+ 24. Kg1 Be6 lead to mate.

The next game (Tarrasch-Yates, Hamburg, 1910) had a piquant background. It seems that Dr. Tarrasch, a stalwart of his time, objected to the entry of Yates in that tournament considering him to be below par in comparison to other participants. Yates had only one win in that tournament but he possibly kept it in reserve as a fitting reply to his redoubtable opponent!

The position after 18 moves stands as below.

White resigned as he cannot avoid losing his Bishop and the game.

The final position:

Do you still have doubt in yourself?