Baby Shoes for Sale. Never Worn.
As the well-known legend goes, Ernest Hemingway once won a bet that he could write a short story which would have just six words. You see this story as the title of this article. It is a perfect story indeed: it has a beginning, a middle and an end!
And just like any good story it shows a wide range of human emotions: hope, joy, tragedy, agony...
Yes, I remember, this is a chess web site, so the point I am trying to make is 'short' doesn't mean inferior. Sometimes a short chess game can be similar to that Hemingway story. We can see how a chess player anticipates a great battle, he gets his pieces out ready to strike, but... Here comes the tragedy! An unexpected move of his opponent instantly finishes the game!
Besides their aesthetic value, such games are usually very instructive. By learning from somebody else's mistakes we are trying to make sure that such debacles are not going to happen in our own games. Today our guide is the great World Champion Alexander Alekhine who was famous for his sharp style. Try to guess how he beat his opponents in the following short games of his: