What is the Greatest Odds Game Ever?

When we think of odds games, we typically think of a stronger player giving a weaker player some advantage, like pawn and move. In order to construct the starting position, the following position was discovered intuitively, but then it makes sense logically. In the first nine moves in the game can you imagine any combination of one move per piece and one move per pawn that would give White a better position in Classical chess?

Here are the starting moves for White. 1.e4 2.d4 3.Nf3 4.Nc3 5.Bc4 6.Bf4 7.Qd2 8.O-O-O 9.Rhe1. The starting position for Black is all his pieces and pawns on their original squares with Black to move and win. The position, logically, is closer to equality rather than any big advantage White. The reason I chose this position was because I knew if I could artificially close the center with e6/d6, it would take the computer a very long time to realize it needed to play f4, but with the Bishop and Knight ahead of the f-pawn it would delay f4 too long.

I gave this position to a stronger computer (a Sphinx Legend rated about 1730 when I was rated about 1700) and required it think at least one hour/move. I never took more than one minute to consider my moves.

Before I made my first move, I decided in order to win that I would have to place my King on the a8 square and attack the computer with all my pieces and pawns. The result: Checkmate in 108 moves from the starting position.

When I showed the starting position to NM Eric Schiller, he accused me of torturing the computer!

What I did to the computer was to put it on the top of Mt. Everest and told it to climb up. Up has no meaning, so it wandered aimlessly at the summit until it finally realized I was playing chess, just unlike any chess it seen before.

After 1...e6 both Fritz 8 and the Sphinx Legend played 2.Kb1 increasing the scope of its Rooks. Neither computer had a clue how to win. The best winning attempt (if the computer had played either 2.e5 or 2.d5, I would have resigned and started with pawns on e6 and d6) after 2.Kb1 is 3.d5 e5 4.Bg3/Nh4/f4.

2...d6 Artificially closing the center 3.Bg5 f6! (GM Lev Alburt, using conventional thinking, recommended 3...Be7 when it is considered desirable to trade pieces in a cramped position. I knew I needed the Bishop for both attacking and defending purposes.) 4.Bh4 (wrong diagonal) Be7 (To show how tricky this position is consider what happens if White plays aggressively with 5.e5? fxe5 6.Bxe7 Qxe7 7.dxe5 d5 8.Bb5ch Bd7 9.Qe2 Nc6/O-O-O & I would rather play Black.) 5.Qe3 Bd7 6.a3 Nh6 7.Qd2? Nf7

Already it can be seen that Black has made a great deal of progress. 8.d5 (Too late) e5 9.Qe3? Qc8 (Now we are about to see perhaps the best example of maneuvering in a cramped position) 10.Rd2 Nd8 (Heading for c5) 11.h3 a6 12.R2d1? (It really makes you wonder about the computers algorithms that permit it to make moves like this.) b5 13.Bb3? (I played against this Bad Bishop for forty moves and eventually entombed it.)

You will note that the computer had enough sense not to compromise its King position by advancing pawns in front of its King. That is why I decided to strip my pawn shelter for attacking purposes.

Nb7 14.Ba2 (Why didn't it play this in one move?) Kd8! 15.Bg3 Be8! (The major difference between this being a win or loss is the respective power of each player's light-squared Bishops.) 16.Nh4 Nc5 17.Nf5 Bf8 18.Bh2 (Perhaps going after the c5 Knight?) Qd7 19.f4 (At last!) Kc8 (I intended to block the open f-file with my Queen Knight)

20.Ng3? Qd8 21.fxe5 fxe5 22.Rf1 Nbd7 23.Rf3 (It will soon be clear that White needs the Rook on f3 for defensive purposes) Nf6 24.Qe2 Kb7 25.R1f1 Rb8 26.Bg1 Ka8! (The square I intended to occupy before I made my first move!) 27.Bf2 Rb7 28.Rg1 Qb8 29.Nf5 a5 30.Bxc5 (e4 is hanging in some variations) dxc5 31.Nd1 (Now we see one of the reasons why the computer played 23.Rf3) c4! (Making the Bad Bishop worse.) 32.g4 c6! 33.g5 With a complex struggle. Black went on to achieve a simple practical win for a Class D player by move 62.

Does anyone have the score of a better odds game than this?

Can you post the game using the diagram editor?

This might be slightly out of date, but I'm pretty sure the general look and feel is still intact and it should be sufficient to walk you through it:

http://www.chess.com/article/view/how-to-use-the-chesscom-diagr

Greatest odds game ever?  I've gotta go with Capablanca-Iglesias 1893.  Now, it might not be spectacular, and the winner was given queen odds but keep this in mind: Capablanca was only four at the time he played this game.  There's a reason he's in a running for greatest of all time status. 

The game is on this link:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1481959

It worked! Now for the game.

Here is a try to publish the game.