Canal - Capablanca, Budapest 1929

There was one other game that made a deep impression on me in Chernev's Logical Chess: Move By Move.  In Canal-Capablanca, Budapest 1929, it sure looked like Capa was in trouble.  (And indeed FireBird suggests a moment or two where White may have missed an opportunity for advantage.)

Chernev is silent on White's big mistake:

Canal-Capablanca, Budapest 1929

After 31...Ra1

White to move

Black's next couple moves are fairly easy to predict: ...a3, ...a2, ...Rook moves somewhere (with check or attack), and ...a1=Q.  

How can White interfere with this plan? 

von Scheve - Teichmann, Berlin 1907

I suppose it would be appropriate to answer the question in the previous post: it was awfully hard!

Most beginner's books are full of errors like these--by no means does this mean that Logical Chess: Move By Move is a bad book. As Frederick Rhine noted in the previous comments, it wouldn't be surprising for a GM to make the same mistake.  (Chernev's error on move 8 is crude enough for me to notice without a computer, or for an alert beginner to catch.)

Resignation in a drawn position is fairly rare (I confess that I did it against NM William Aramil in 2001.)

Chess is hard!

Jerry Neugarten, the chair of the Illinois Chess Association's Youth Chess Committee, is putting the finishing touches on the ICA's guide to curricula and study resources for young players.  I pulled out my copy of Irving Chernev's Logical Chess: Move by Move, a classic collection of annotated games for beginners, to see whether it belongs on the list.  It does indeed: it's a fun and instructive read.

But my silicon friend discovered something amazing in the final position of the very first game.  Can you discover it, too, using wetware alone?

 von Scheve - Teichmann, Berlin 1907

Position after 17...Bxf2

White to play resigned

Chernev explains White's resignation: "Black's threat was 18...Qh3+ 19.Nh2 Qxh2#."  ("#" is the abbreviation for "checkmate".)  "As 18.Rxf2 runs into 18...Nxf2#, there was no escape."

NEVER TRUST ANYTHING YOU READ IN A CHESS BOOK!  (This goes double for blogs written by patzers.)  99.9% of the time, the book will be right and you'll discover why your challenge was wrong.  But every so often, you'll discover something cool.