Evan's Gambit Finishes With Amazing Queen Sacrifice - Best Of The pre-1900s - Urusov vs. NN, 1887
The Urusov family was a remarkable chess family in Russia. Most notable was Prince Sergey Urusov after whom the Urusov Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nf3) is named. Urusov was a Russian noble and a military man who fought in the Crimean War. Evidently, he met the great author Leo Tolstoy during the war. Tolstoy was himself a chess lover, and the two were friends and correspondents for many years until Tolstoy left the Russian Orthodox church, and Urusov ceased correspondence.
Urusov had respectable results in matches against some of the greatest players of his day, including Alexander Petrov, Carl Jaenisch, and Ignatz Kolisch. Urusov had other family members including his brother Dmitry who were strong chess players. When he retired from chess in 1878, he left his substantial chess library to Tolstoy's oldest son, Ilya.
The victory in today's game was Nikolay Urusov, while seemingly one of the strongest players in the city of Novgorod, he left behind few games, only seven in the database, and five of them, including our main game, were correspondence games. Here he showed his skills, crafting a finer game than any on record won by his more famous relative, Sergey. Nikolay opens with the Evan's Gambit, but in the early middlegame he follows up uncertainly, and his excellent compensation vanishes, When his opponent uses tactics to exploit his advantage, Nikolay sees through the combination and plays into it, sacrificing the exchange to gain a big advantage. The final sequence is precisely calculated by Nikolay as both players appear near defeat, but the spectacular final combination clarifies everything.
Top 10 Games from before 1900
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- #10: Urosov vs. NN, 1887
- #11: Saint Amant vs. Staunton, 1843
- #12: Chigorin vs. Steinitz, 1892
- #13: Fleissig vs. Schlecter, 1893
- #14: Konyovits vs. Charousek, 1893
- #15: Weiss vs. Pollock, 1889
- See also: Top 10 of the 1900s, Top 10 of the 1910s, Top 10 of the 1920s, Top 10 of the 1930s, Top 10 of the 1940s, Top 10 of the 1950s, Top 10 of the 1960s, Top 10 of the 1970s, Top 10 of the 1980s, Top 10 of the 1990s, Top 10 of the 2000s, and Top 10 of the 2010s
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