The Eternal Pin. A Beautiful Game Find.

Good afternoon everyone.

It's surprising how the same chess idea can appear in front of your eyes a number of times in a short space of time! Someone recently posted an online puzzle with an idea seen in a game I had posted here shortly before. Then a couple of days ago I came across a beautiful - and practically unknown - example of the idea.

So, what do I mean by an eternal pin? Basically a pin where the victim - however much they struggle -  is reduced to helplessly looking on, waiting for the execution. So, for example, there is a famous game which is a borderline case. Capablanca can save the Rook - it is not pinned to his King - but only at the cost of his Queen. Meanwhile Alekhine can quietly call up the reinforcements.

One common form of the idea sees a Rook pinned to it's King by an opposing Bishop. The King is tied to defending the Rook and has nowhere to run. Meanwhile the opponent can do what he wants - usually resulting in a zugzwang. Often this is all the result of a temporary exchange sacrifice, so simply taking the Rook back at once only restores the material balance.

The first example I ever saw was from my chess youth - a game as famous for it's annotations as it's actual content.

That one is quite simple - White quickly runs out of Pawn moves, has to move his King and the Rook is taken.

A much deeper example was in my recent post on Voronkov's 'The Russian Sphinx'. There White has to sit helplessly while his opponent undertakes a long term plan ending in zugzwang.

So let's get to the game which started me doing this blog! I am actually working on another one which I started 2 years ago and never got round to finishing. I get distracted by new things rather a lot! Taking a break I went to play catch up.

I have about 3000 pages of recently received  books that I am trying to get through! I went back to the wonderful John Hilbert's research masterpiece on Emil Kemeny which I posted on a few weeks ago. 

In that previous blog you will have seen Mordecai Morgan, who was a strong and important player in Philadelphia chess. There was another Morgan in those circles at the time - usually referred to as J.P. Morgan. 

I don't know if the two were related - not my thing, but there is a thread on ancestry.com for those who enjoy looking into these things. The above image is from a wonderful one - to be found in the book 'Chess In Philadelphia'.

I love strategic endgames. Always have. Anyone can appreciate 'sac, sac, mate, but, for me, a deep endgame plan is more beautiful - you just have to be prepared to put in the effort to appreciate it! This one can not be found in the online databases - there are definite advantages to actually paying for books ( PAYING MONEY for books, instead of waiting for the free Pirated pdf download?? How stupid and 20thc. am I ?!!. The authors actually getting paid for their work!?!? Good grief!) - but it deserves to be brought to peoples' attention imho. Just a delight. Enjoy the game!

Kemeny from the above team portraits.

Picture bonus!