Gold Coins Game Revisited
Today is the 106th anniversary of the “gold coins game” that has amazed the chess world for more than a century. The game was played in 1912 in an area that today is Poland between Frank Marshall, who was the U.S. Chess Champion, and Stefen Levitsky, a Russian chess master and national champion.
Marshall won with black by making the “shower of gold” play on his 23rd move and leading to Levitsky’s immediate resignation. The magnificence of Marshall’s move inspired spectators to shower the board with gold pieces, thus giving the name of “gold coins game” to this match.
To see the board position and understand why chess experts consider Marshall’s move to be one of the top three most brilliant moves in chess, go to my initial post about this game. The finish of the game shows the dramatic power of a knight to checkmate an enemy king when a trap is set with other pieces.
Ray Linville’s high point as a chess player occurred when he swiped the queen of GM Hikaru Nakamura in a 60-second bullet game in 2021. This game was reported in a “My Best Move” column of the Chess Life magazine, published by the U.S. Chess Federation.
At Chess.com, he has been an editor (part-time) since 2019 and has edited news articles and tournament reports—including those of the Candidates and World Championship Tournaments and other major events—by titled players and noted chess writers as well as Game of the Day annotations by leading grandmasters. He has also been a contributing writer of chess terms, e-books, and general interest articles for ChessKid.com.
He enjoys “top blogger” status at Chess.com. His blog has won the award for Best Chess Blog from the Chess Journalists of America for several years. In addition, he has also been the recipient of first-place CJA awards for feature article, humorous contribution, online review, and educational lesson as well as honorable mention in the categories of personal narrative and historical article.