Chigorin- A Creative Genius 'Till the End!

Chigorin was a great pioneer of modern chess. His creativity was unbounded, and even when his health started to fail, he maintained his creative attitude to the game.

In 2018 I published a small post, titled

"Marshall's Attack is Actually Chigorin's Idea!"
https://www.chess.com/blog/kamalakanta/marshalls-attack-is-actually-chigorins-idea 

....and although the game from Ostend 1905 that proves the point is there, the comments to the game are not. So I thought I should publish the game again, but this time with Jimmy Adam's comments from page 313 of his masterpiece, the book titled:

"Mikhail Chigorin, The Creative Genius" (New in Chess, 2016)

The book is a masterpiece, an autobiography with annotated games.Many of the game were analyzed by Chigorin himself or some of his contemporaries.

The following game was played in Ostend, 1905, where Chigorin's health first showed its decline. He was to die 3 years later, in 1908. Yet the game remains as a testament to the creative genius that was Mikhail Chigorin.

I will quote from Adam's book:

FEVERISH FINAL YEARS

".....In 1905, friends began to notice a change in his appearance. He had lost weight, the color of his face was unhealthy, his nose became sharper and his eyes duller, always looking complacent, discreetly harboring suffering."

"These were dreadful symptoms. Having earlier possesed great physical strength and a healthy complexion, Chigorin was now seriously ill.In this also lies the basic reason for Chigorin's failures in 1905. In the Ostende tournament he played so badly, as never before in his life: he scored only 6 1/2 points out of 26 and finished last but one in a field of 14 participants."

"At this tournament, a St. Petersburg friend of Chigorin, G.Ge, was present as a spectator. In his memoirs he depicts this scene:" 'Our steps can be heard resoundingly on the sinking pavement. And here I will never forget he moment we turned into the, by now, gloomy alley: in the same turning, under the last beam of the moon which remained behind the projecting house, Chigorin suddenly said, in a quiet voice: "There is not a spark of play left in me....."   I do not know why, I felt the truth in his words. The sorrow that was felt by this grown-up child was inexpressible, but I did not say anything....This was only a second of total frankness by Chigorin, on the most burning question of all for him, the recognition of his death.'