Reflections on the Steiner Gambit in the Marshall Attack

Recently I came upon a post by Lions which reminded me of a picturesque game by Lev Polugaevsky.

By the way, I highly recommend this book. As GM Mikhail Tal states in the preface, in this book Lev Polugaevsky shares the inmost work of a GM's laboratory.

And I have to say that people like Lev Polugaevsky, Tal, Bronstein, Tartakower, Nimzowitch, Eduard Gufeld and Judit Polgar make me love chess more, because when they write, they make me feel like a friend.

Going back to Lions, in his post,

https://www.chess.com/blog/Lions/ruy-lopez-marshall-steiner-attack-i

he gives a game which he played recently:

This game reminded of a game which Lev Polugaevsky published in this book. It was played when Lev was 13 (1948). It does NOT appear in chessgames.com (the earliest Polugaevsky game there is from 1953!).

So I would like to publish it here, with the comments by Lev Polugaevsky himself! This is all from the "Grandmaster Preparation" book!

In the opening section of the book, GM Polugaevsky is explaining what led him to give emphasis to proper opening preparation:

"....much later I realized that I had been drawn along the path of experimenter in the opening, either in preparations for a game or during the course of it, by another incident, which was not especially important in the competitive sense."

"A few days before my 14th birthday, I, as a first category player, met an experienced candidate master A. Ivashin in the Championship of Kuybishev, a large town on the Volga, where I then lived. Although the game lasted 48 moves, its outcome was decided much earlier."