# Chess: Anyone Remember This Game? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 22, 2009, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585 "2009-06-22T15:02:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/1 "2009-06-22T15:02:33Z")
Back in the day I read a book by Edward (or maybe it was Emmanuel) Lasker. In it, he mentions a game that either he or a contemporary played. It was a short game - less than 20 moves, I think. The winner played black (IIRC), and he won by chasing his opponent’s king all the way across the board, checkmating the king on his (the winner’s) own first rank. Does this ring a bell? TIA ---
**Author:** ![borschevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/2 "2009-06-22T15:59:48Z")
Probably you mean this game: [Edward Lasker - Thomas, 1912](http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1259009) ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/3 "2009-06-22T16:16:27Z")
That’s it. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/4 "2009-06-22T16:43:58Z")
A shame Ed. Lasker didn’t play 18. 0-0-0# just for the lulz. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/5 "2009-06-22T17:25:31Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > A shame Ed. Lasker didn’t play 18. 0-0-0# just for the lulz. 🆒 Would that have been considered a breach of etiquette (showing off, maybe?)? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/6 "2009-06-22T22:26:15Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > Would that have been considered a breach of etiquette (showing off, maybe?)? No idea, but I don’t see any reason why one mating move would be considered more acceptable than another. Although “Castles (check)” occurs now and then, I don’t know of any instance of “Castles (mate)” in master play, nor does Wikipedia, so it’s a shame Ed missed his chance of immortality. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/7 "2009-06-22T22:38:50Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > A shame Ed. Lasker didn’t play 18. 0-0-0# just for the lulz. 🆒 > [@HeyHomie](#): > > Would that have been considered a breach of etiquette (showing off, maybe?)? The ‘etiquette’ in chess is to not distract, worry or annoy your opponent (e.g. by whistling or offering a draw in a lost position). Chess is a game of skill - if your opponent plays badly and you win, it doesn’t matter how it happens. Sir George Thomas could have resigned earlier (he was an international and would have seen the mate coming). ---
**Author:** ![AppallingGael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9bd4f/32.png) [@AppallingGael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AppallingGael)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/8 "2009-06-23T04:36:12Z")
Moving the King to mate there is clearly cooler than castling would have been. For one thing, the mate comes from farther away. In any case, Kd2 does not seem not to have blown his immortality. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/9 "2009-06-23T06:05:38Z")
OK, clearly after White’s move 13: Neg4+ …, Black never had any choice, so the game can be considered over at that point, and presumably Lasker saw the whole sequence. But what if Black had responded differently to move 12? In retrospect, moving the king forward was obviously the wrong move, but what if he had instead moved the king back to F8? Wait, never mind, that would have led to Ne5-g6 mate, with the added insult of a three-prong fork to the Queen and Rook. But that just means that the point of no return was earlier yet… The last move where Black had any choice appears to have been move 10: … Q-e7. What should he have done instead? It looks like any move other than h6 would have let White pull the same trick… Am I seeing that correctly? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/10 "2009-06-23T07:30:20Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The last move where Black had any choice appears to have been move 10: … Q-e7. What should he have done instead? It looks like any move other than h6 would have let White pull the same trick… Am I seeing that correctly? Exchanging one of his bishops for one of White’s knights would have disrupted the chain of checks that was used to pull the king out of position. That might have worked. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Klutz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/captain_klutz/32/4993_2.png) [@Captain\_Klutz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Klutz)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/11 "2009-06-23T11:02:05Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > A shame Ed. Lasker didn’t play 18. 0-0-0# just for the lulz. 🆒 There has been a game that finished with 18. 0-0#, [Paul Morphy vs Alonzo Morphy](http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1238144). Although black did play very weakly (and was given rook odds). And yes, castling was the only mating move. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/12 "2009-06-23T12:15:12Z")
> [@glee](#): > > Sir George Thomas could have resigned earlier (he was an international and would have seen the mate coming). I’m glad he didn’t, because doing so would have deprived those of us who _can’t_ see eight moves ahead the chance to study a beautiful game. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/13 "2009-06-23T22:42:17Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > I’m glad he didn’t, because doing so would have deprived those of us who _can’t_ see eight moves ahead the chance to study a beautiful game. At a guess, Sir George sportingly played on in order for the spectacular finish to go on the record. Unlike Curt von Bardeleben whose response to a Steinitz brilliance was to put on his hat and go home, leaving his clock to run down. I know a couple of stories about Sir George. One is that he considered it unprincipled to analyse an adjourned game before the resumption (as **glee** will confirm, it is not only legal and ethical, but at anything like the top flight it is more or less obligatory to have a strong backroom team to help you if you hope to stay alive). The other has him taking his friend Mieses aside and asking him what a third party had meant by calling him a “ganeff” in a game that Sir George had won in fine style. Mieses evaded the question, not wanting to apprise Sir George that he had been called a “crook” in Yiddish, but Sir George demanded to know if it was possible to be both a “ganeff” and a gentleman… and Mieses, after due consideration, gave his opinion that it was. ---
**Author:** ![Eugene\_of\_Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@Eugene\_of\_Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eugene_of_Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/14 "2009-06-23T22:49:38Z")
My older brother by seven years taught me chess. He won most of the time. How convenient. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/15 "2009-06-23T22:56:22Z")
Capablanca learned by watching his father play and, as an untaught four-year-old, thrashed him the first time they played. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/16 "2009-06-24T15:51:36Z")
> [@Captain\_Klutz](#): > > There has been a game that finished with 18. 0-0#, [Paul Morphy vs Alonzo Morphy](http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1238144). Although black did play very weakly (and was given rook odds). And yes, castling was the only mating move. Thanks! Even given the qualifiers, that’s one to file away along with such oddities as the only game I’ve seen that ended in “P x P e.p. mate”. ---
**Author:** ![borschevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/17 "2009-06-24T17:16:34Z")
[Here](http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1037399)’s a game with 0-0-0#. In this case, too, there was a choice between castling and just moving the king, so we know at least one strong player prefers castling. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-anyone-remember-this-game/500585/18 "2009-06-24T21:59:27Z")
Fascinating. The loser was an IM and Dutch international, so at least on a par with Thomas and Ed. Lasker - good enough to have won a tournament ahead of Steiner, Pilnik and Bernstein, who were no rabbits. The winner was one of Canada’s best (and only 19 at the time of this game, not that that’s setting any records given that Fischer was a GM at age 15).