Chess Facts #1 French Cafe

Hello guys im back kind of fast after the last article with a new series which I think for most of you will be something new but Interesting for sure .  This series is about stories and facts from Well known people of course everything about chess. I appreciate all the help guys and im preparing great streams for Christmas and New Year . OK let's get to the content.

Napoleon I French Emperor

No one knows, when the emperor started playing chess. We know for sure that in the 1980's as a young soldier he was using his free time on the beautiful game of chess in the well known french coffee place "Cafe De La Regence" in Paris. Here most of the Paris chess life gathered and Masters of the game back then. The amazing strategic mind of the emperor wasn't super talented in chess so he didn't even try playing against for example Philidor who played in the cafe very often. As most of us Napoleon wanted to win every single game, he was trying to win very quickly (like my brother in bullet - he thinks scholar's mate works in 1+0). And due to that Napoleon made completely unnecesarry attacks that were terrible for him positionally and this is why his chess couldnt improve. Lets see one game of his:

Very nice aggresive game from him, BUT one of a few were he wins . He was very nervous waiting for his opponents moves hitiing the table with his fingers, what made his opponents deconcentrate or get annoyed (like most of us who blunder and hope the opponent missed it.

PRO TIP: In OTB Chess never show your opponent you blundered, cause he can miss it (in the next article i will show you some crazy thing I did in my last classical tournament.

Napoleon when losing sometimes took the board and throwed it far away with the pieces leaving the cafe in a big state of anger. In the year 1809 when living in Vienna, Austria Napoleon got a chance to play against the Automaton - a chess playing machine. The game was played in the breath taking Schonbrunn Castle.

 Unfortunately he lost in just 24 moves by checkmate and here is the game: 

Yeah bad game, but the last years of his life where the years were chess gave him the most fun and enjoyment (he would had even more if chess.com was there back then : ). 

The stories in this series were and will be brought to you by the polish book "Dykteryjki i ciekawostki szachowe" by a journalist Władysław Litmanowicz. I translated the text added games and added my knowledge about Napoleon some fun adnotations etc. Hope you liked it and see ya tommorow with the crazy Mati Thing i did during a OTB game.

Wish you all the best

Feel free to comment and share your thoughts

@MatiMatic