Philidor. A 'Game' Ahead Of It's Time.

Good Morning everyone, and seasonal greetings.

A few days ago there was a thread on the site which touched on the subject of restraining a Pawn majority. You can find it here - https://www.chess.com/blog/Zeitnot17/lost-in-space-a-positional-puzzle  

It put me in mind of the legendary Philidor who first examined the idea, so I decided to put this together - with a lot of one finger typing.

So, Philidor. Someone you have heard of for a change! The man who supposedly said 'Pawns are the soul of chess'. 

Another bust can be found here

In 1749 he wrote possibly the most remarkable chess book ever written.

l'Analyse du jeu des Échecs

Most chess players have heard of it, but very few have actually read it!!

In amongst the openings analysis and the extraordinary endgame analysis he gave four 'games'. The games were his inventions, with no relevant published material too draw on, created  to show some ideas in chess strategy.

Some of the ideas were so far ahead  of their time that, if he had never existed it would be impossible to have invented him. He had them at a time when chess was very, very much in the beginner's stage and they were 'rediscovered', so to speak, decades or even centuries later.

In 1966 Max Euwe discussed one of the games in his book 'The Development of Chess Style.'

Having never seen any of Philidor's 'Analyse' presented via the medium of a modern chess interface, I decided to dust off my own copy - over 200 years old now

- go to the appropriate page,

and digitize the game in question.

I will give two versions. Firstly Philidor's original ( there a slight differences between the various editions he published and different translations), and then Euwe's take on the game with my own comments and opinions.

Hopefully you will begin to understand what a genius the man was.