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the artist of the chessboard's immortal game
Zukertort's legendary queen deflection sacrifice offer, image credit: ChessgameWHV, stylized on lunapic

the artist of the chessboard's immortal game

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ChrisBazzle
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My introduction to Johannes Zukertort can be found in my previous chess.com blog post here.

Here is the game for you to play through before I take a deep dive into the analysis, annotations, commentary, just as I did with the unforgettable Paulsen-Morphy game here.

Johannes Zukertort vs. Joseph Blackburne

London, 1883

  1. c4 e6

This is the English Opening.

  1. e3 Nf6
  2. Nf3 b6
  3. Be2 Bb7
  4. O-O d5
  5. d4 Bd6
  6. Nc3 O-O
  7. b3 Nbd7

Zukertort plans to fianchetto his dark-squared bishop, similar to how Blackburne fianchettoed his light-squared bishop.

  1. Bb2 Qe7
  2. Nb5 Ne4

Zukertort goes for black’s dark-squared bishop with his knight. Blackburne tries to dig his knight in at e4 as an outpost.

  1. Nxd6 cxd6

In capturing the white knight with his pawn instead of his queen, Blackburne temporarily suffers the doubled d pawns so he can seize the opened c file with his rooks.

  1. Nd2 Ndf6

Zukertort’s next plan to dislodge the knight from e4.

  1. f3 Nxd2
  2. Qxd2 dxc4

Blackburne undoubles his d pawns, opens up the c file, opens up the diagonal for his light-squared bishop, and gives his d and e pawns some room to move.

  1. Bxc4 d5
  2. Bd3 Rfc8

Zukertort couldn’t be too worried about retreating his bishop to d3 – now it’s pointing at h7.

  1. Rae1 Rc7

By sliding his rook across, Zukertort looks to be backing up his e pawn for a push. We can see Blackburne following his plan of doubling the rooks on the c file.

  1. e4 Rac8
  2. e5 Ne8

Zukertort locks up the pawns in the center and harasses the black knight. Little by little, he is building up for a kingside attack.

  1. f4 g6

Next, Zukertort looks to push his pawn to f5, so Blackburne responds accordingly.

  1. Re3 f5

Zukertort wants to move his rook across the third rank to join in the assault on the black king. Blackburne slips up here by moving his f pawn.

  1. exf6 Nxf6

With the en passant capture of the black pawn, white begins to break through. The white rook at e3 on the semi-open e file puts pressure on the white e pawn.

Then Blackburne makes another error by recapturing with his knight, instead of his queen. This game began as a positional battle, but things will escalate quickly.

  1. f5 Ne4

Strong play by Zukertort. If Blackburne had recaptured with his queen, instead of the knight, his e pawn would not be pinned – this pawn cannot capture the white pawn at f5 without the white rook capturing the black queen.

And if Blackburne had captured the white f pawn with his g pawn instead of moving Ne4, the white light-squared bishop could have recaptured the black pawn at f5 to put pressure on the e6 square, still using the power of the pin.

So in the actual game, black moves his knight to e4, to block the white rook at e3 from pinning the black e pawn. The black knight at e4 also threatens the white queen.

  1. Bxe4 dxe4

Zukertort uses his light-squared bishop to take out the defender. Now that Blackburne has lost his defending knights, his king will soon be vulnerable to Zukertort’s rooks, queen and dark-squared bishop on the long diagonal.

  1. fxg6 Rc2

Zukertort captures the pawn in front of the black king, to open up lines of attack. Blackburne, rather than recapturing the white pawn at g6, still tries to use his doubled rooks on the c file, by forking the white queen and bishop with his rook at c2.

As we will see, Blackburne’s placing his forces on the queenside to attempt some dynamic play will turn out to be quite ineffective.

  1. gxh7+ Kh8

Instead of immediately dealing with the fork, Zukertort does a move in between, a zwischenzug move, by taking another pawn in front of the black king with check.

While Blackburne was distracted by invading on c2 for the fork, thinking this was going to be a knockout punch, Zukertort stripped the black king of all his protecting pawns.

Blackburne does not choose to take the white pawn with his king because Zukertort could play Rh3+, with checkmate to follow.

So in the actual game, Blackburne uses the white pawn as an “umbrella” pawn to shield his king for now.

  1. d5+ e5

By moving the d pawn, Zukertort does a discovered check with his bishop that’s under attack in the black rook fork. But the white queen is defending the bishop. So Blackburne defends by blocking with his e pawn defended by the black queen.

  1. Qb4 R8c5

Zukertort makes an astonishing move, attacking the black queen with his undefended queen, a deflection sacrifice offer tactic.

Blackburne blocks the black queen with his rook.

If Blackburne captures the offered white queen, Qxb4, Zukertort can take the undefended black e pawn with his bishop, 29. Bxe5+, to start a checkmating sequence. If then Blackburne takes the white h pawn in front of his king, Kxh7, Zukertort could go 30. Rh3+.

The game could conclude as follows: 28. Qb4 Qxb4 29. Bxe5+ Kxh7 30. Rh3+ Kg6 31. Rf6+ Kg5 32. Rg3+ Kh5 33. Rf5+ Kh6 34. Bf4+ Kh7 35. Rh5#.

As it is, in the actual game, after 28. Qb4, Blackburne blocks the black queen with his rook, R8c5. The game goes on:

  1. Rf8+ Kxh7

Another deflection tactic with this rook check – Blackburne could not have taken the white rook (Qxf8) without being checkmated, as follows: 29. Rf8+ Qxf8 30. Bxe5+ Kxh7 31. Qxe4+ Kh6 32. Rh3+ Kg5 33. Rg3+ Kh5 34. Qg6+ Kh4 35. Rh3#.

The way that the game actually goes, Blackburne does not take the rook sacrifice after 29. Rf8+. He plays Kxh7, grabbing that umbrella pawn.

Then the game continues:

  1. Qxe4+ Kg7

The spared white queen goes after the black king.

  1. Bxe5+ Kxf8

Zukertort seems determined to use that dark-squared bishop to capture the black e pawn with check, and black takes the white rook after all.

Even better for a faster ending would have been the extraordinary rook sacrifice 31. Rg8+. After black takes the white rook with his king (Kxg8), he cannot avoid being checkmated, starting with 32. Qg6+.

If black goes Qg7, the game could have finished: 31. Rg8+ Kxg8 32. Qg6+ Qg7 33. Qe8+ Qf8 34. Rg3+ Kh7 35. Qg6+ Kh8 36. Bxe5+ Qf6 37. Bxf6#.

Back to the actual game:

  1. Bg7+ Kg8

Although Zukertort missed his chance of playing 31. Rg8+ as we noted, this bishop sacrifice offer that uncovers an attack on the black queen by the white queen is a tactical beauty to behold, as well.

If black takes the white bishop with his king (Kxg7), then white plays Qxe7+, with a fork on the black king and bishop. If black goes Kh8, the game could conclude: 32. Bg7+ Kxg7 33. Qxe7+ Kh8 34. Rh3+ Kg8 35. Rg3+ Kh8 36. Qh4#.

In the actual game, Blackburne did not accept the bishop sacrifice, as we can see above, and the final move by Zukertort was:

  1. Qxe7

Blackburne resigned. He’s had enough. He’s lost his queen, and he’s in a losing position, although checkmate could take a little bit longer.

Zukertort played one for the ages. Blackburne was one of the strongest players in the world at the time.

This has been one of 40 lessons from my first chess book Learning Chess Middle-Game Attacking with the Classic Masters: Volume 1. Here is a video which I made for this lesson below. I created the music, too, on the JamStudio application.