Chess Brilliancies

Conrad Bayer was a well known chess problemist, one of the greatest of his day.

Here is an example of brilliant OTB play by Conrad who, as black, employs the Falkbeer counter-grambit against the King's Gambit.

  Excellent game!  Thanks for posting it Batgirl.    BTW, wasn't that your Lisa Lane story I saw at Chessbase?

A  classic, bg. Loved it.

Sir Alfred Kempe was a British Ecclesiastical barrister and diocesean chancellor best known for his work as an amateur mathematician. Several of his amateur chess games had been published in various chess periodicals of his day and later in various games collections.
In this game, he sacs his Queen to let his Rook eat pieces like Pac-man, then allows the Rook its own sacrificial demise to force mate.

Hmm, first game is something like a class A player vs a class C, 2nd game about the same.

The same could be said about Morphy vs. the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard in the Opera Game.  In these types of brilliancies it's not always skill as much as style that sets the games apart.

They're good games, I enjoyed the pretty attacks :)  Probably should have added that in my other post.

The Morphy vs Duke & Count @ the Opera -- I guess the combination was very forcing (starting with Rxd7).  Maybe with a good amount of time a class A player could find it, but it strikes me as not very likely.  I think most would cut calculation short (you'd have to see the mate at the end to justify the first move).

I like the second game. However, I would not sell it quite the same way, Batgirl. In such games, the fact that white wins back some material along the way only detracts from the brilliancy.

How about: "In this game he sacs first his queen and then his rook only to top it off with a silent knight move in an all forced mate in 11!"

Of course, after that, the actual game might disappoint. (By the way, I really do think it's a forced mate in 11. The announced mate in four is probably: Nf3, Ne5, g3, Bg4#, and I can't see any alternative to 22...Qe8 that prevents that. Black has only one alternative along the way before that (that, of course, detracts significantly from the splendour of the game), but 18...Kg6 19.f5# is hardly an improvement.)

Still, white had to spot 20.f5+ when playing 16.Qxh7+, that's quite an achievement.

Incidentally, I think the Kempe mate is much more of an achievement than the aforementioned Morphy game. I quite like that game, but apart from the 15th, (where the mundane Bxf6 would also have won) every move there is obvious. Actually, that is what I like about the game, it's such a neat little destruction. Stylish indeed. But it might have been a blitz game, by it's appearance.

(I'm not belittling Morphy here, of course. I wouldn't dare, in this company. Besides, he played perfectly, if obviously.)

" In such games, the fact that white wins back some material along the way only detracts from the brilliancy."

That's possible, but I though it added a humorous touch. Black is compelled to thow piece after piece to block the Rook just to have the Rook surrender itself so the attack can proceed from an entirely different direction.

Great to see these games, with their great flourishes; thanks Batgirl:)

And: wondering if the first game could have ended more clinically:

The Kempe attack, to me, could be played intuitively with little to no concrete calculation needed.  The Morphy mate had to be seen to the end before the first sac or it doesn't work so I think Morphy's is harder to see. 

It might appear obvious seeing it all played out because they're captures and it's forcing, but during a real game sub-masters would likely cut their calculation off and throw away the line before finding the mate.

That doesn't work.

30. Qxb8+

Herr Lepge  and Herr A. Saalbach played a series of games, two of which are recorded in Fiske's (and Morphy's) 1860 Chess Monthly.  I couldn't find anything about Lepge, but A. Saalbach had some loses published in Schachzeitung against Anderssen and Paulsen. They were all played even, so apparently he was a player of some force.  In this KGA (Bishop's Gambit) game however, he loses to Lepge's clever, some might say brilliant, play:

I must admit that calling the Kempe game much more of an achievement might be a bit of rhetorical overheating, but you really have to either see 20.f5+ five moves ahead or simply trust that mate is there. But it might not be too hard to find. (Edit: corrected an annoying spelling error (one to many, so too speak))

The morphy game, on the other hand, really is straightforward all the way. You can cut off the calculations at several points.

Oh, I guess I miscounted the attackers defenders -- you're right, Rxd7 is easy to find in that case.

@EO_______ yep, thanks.

It's an understandable miscounting. The game has been praised so much that at some point it's hard to believe it's not some superhuman achievement. I was under the spell too, until I read a clinical evaluation along the above lines by Tim Krabbe ( I think).The real lesson, which is actually quite important generally, in my humble opinion, is: don't believe something because everybody says it's so.

Although born in the Lviv Oblast of present-day Ukraine, Jakob Rosanes received his degree, like his contemporary Adolf Anderssen, in Mathematics from the University of Breslau where he eventually became a professor. Most notably, he and Anderssen contested a small series of recorded games of which Rosanes won about half. In the following game, however, Rosanes takes on an amateur whom he defeats with breath-taking panache . . . maybe even brilliance.

IMO it's a game overly praised by beginners -- to my memory no master ever said, check out that Morphy game vs the Duke/Count and see how good he is :)

I associate it more with "this is why beginners think Morphy is at top GM level"  i.e. my mis-evaluation doesn't have a nice excuse