Levitsky-Marshall,1912 (that amazing?)

In my "famous moves" thread someone nominated this Levitsky-Marshall game for the notorious 23.... Qg3!!

Of all of the suggested moves that's the one that struck me as the most shocking. So I did a quick Google searched and learned that game was dubbed the "American Beauty" and there's quite a bit of hoopla about it in the chess world.

But then I ran across this posting of the game:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1094915

In the comments section 'ORBIT' kind of downplays the significance of the Queen move, pointing to other games a player has planted his Queen along a row of pawns. One of the ones he pointed out was Nicolas Rossolimo vs Paul Reissmann in 1967, and this time the move really does force mate. In the "American Beauty" it does not.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1260578

I'm very far away from being a connoisseur of historic chess games, but it seems to me he made some good points. So for the seasoned "historians" of chess games, what made the the Queen move in the Levitsky-Marshal game so noteworthy?

Originally posted by USArmyParatrooper
In my "famous moves" thread someone nominated this Levitsky-Marshall game for the notorious 23.... Qg3!!

Of all of the suggested moves that's the one that struck me as the most shocking. So I did a quick Google searched and learned that game was dubbed the "American Beauty" and there's quite a bit of hoopla about it in the chess world.

But th ...[text shortened]... ess games, what made the the Queen move in the Levitsky-Marshal game so noteworthy?

You are right, in the first game, Marshall, it isn't mate but the best white can achieve is to lose a knight. Black would be a knight up so I guess he saw that far and threw in the towel.

Originally posted by sonhouse
You are right, in the first game, Marshall, it isn't mate but the best white can achieve is to lose a knight. Black would be a knight up so I guess he saw that far and threw in the towel.

He also would have been stuck with 4 pawn islands that consist of 3 isolated pawns and a row of doubled pawns.

I think orbit is the type who cannot find joy in anything.

What does it matter if others played a similar move?If the same idea is played later the players probably got it from Marshall's game,and Marshall himself may have gotten the idea from an earlier game he saw.
That's how it works in chess.

Have you never scored a nice win by using an idea you got from some game you played over?Was it in any way detrimental to the joy you derived from this victory?

toet.

So it's official folks. Levitsky-Marshall is naff.

Some guy on another site said so.

Go to your collection of classic games and rip it out. 😉

Only joking boys - good thread.

This bit was a bit odd:

"...but the best white can achieve is to lose a knight"

Marshall was already a piece up when played 23...Qg3.

If you want the whole history of this game and the gold coins then go to:

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/marshall.html

Rossolimo v Reissmann is a beauty as well.

(though as someone mentioned Qxe6 instead of Qg6 was stronger -
in the Marshall game Qg3 was the strongest move - moot point).

Remember when I first this saw I started poking about with it.
I always tampered with games and the final combinations.

Moving a piece here and there, trying different things.
Jazzing it up - killing it.

Taking it to bits and putting it all back together again.

Final Position.



White is threatening Rxh7 mate.

1...Qxg6 2.Nxg6+ mate next move.

1...fxg6 2.Rxh7 mate

1....h6 2. Rxh6+ and mate.

1...Ng5 makes it all wee bit messy, kind of flaws it slightly.
Though White will win - still mate.

But what about...NxQ does that work?

(...NxQ what am I talking about?)

Here is a lovely wee variation that I stumbled upon.
Never seen it in any of the books. (why should I - it's daft).
It's the kind of thing I would do when tampering.



Yup it's still sound. 🙂

Originally posted by USArmyParatrooper
In my "famous moves" thread someone nominated this Levitsky-Marshall game for the notorious 23.... Qg3!!

Of all of the suggested moves that's the one that struck me as the most shocking. So I did a quick Google searched and learned that game was dubbed the "American Beauty" and there's quite a bit of hoopla about it in the chess world.

But th ...[text shortened]... ess games, what made the the Queen move in the Levitsky-Marshal game so noteworthy?

For starters, Marshall played his move 55 years before Rossolimo. The odds are good that Rossolimo was familiar with the Marshall game, and that had to make his move a lot easier to find.

Originally posted by toeternitoe
I think orbit is the type who cannot find joy in anything.

What does it matter if others played a similar move?If the same idea is played later the players probably got it from Marshall's game,and Marshall himself may have gotten the idea from an earlier game he saw.
That's how it works in chess.

Have you never scored a nice win by using an idea y ...[text shortened]... u played over?Was it in any way detrimental to the joy you derived from this victory?

toet.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. In the 1967 game, the guy was probably thinking, "Wow, this is like a Marshal move!".

Famous games like that become part of the "collective subconscious" of the chess community, and the tactical ideas are more easily recognizable going forward because some pioneer planted the seed for all of us.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
For starters, Marshall played his move 55 years before Rossolimo. The odds are good that Rossolimo was familiar with the Marshall game, and that had to make his move a lot easier to find.

If I had read the whole thread before posting, I would have seen that SG beat me to it!

Hmmm....so if Rosso got the idea from Frankie, where did
Franky Boy get the idea from?

Cohn- Marco, Ostende, 1907.

Frank Played in the Ostende 1907 tournament.



So where did Cohn get the idea from?

Well the idea of luring a Queen onto a forkable square via a piece sac
can be traced right back to Greco. 1600's.

I've always enjoyed Morphy's queen sac:



And this Nezhmetdinov queen sac is a joy too:



And this one too:


But the one that makes my jaw drop really is:

21. Bg7!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Honorary mention:

I vaguely remember seeing/reading about a position where a queen could be taken five different ways but they all resulted in mate. I believe it was a Kasparov game but I could be wrong about that.