Improvement
Chess as Symbol (Part I): When It All Comes Together
Frank Marshall vs. Stepan Levitsky (1912)
“Combinations have always been the most intriguing aspect of Chess. The masters look for them, the public applauds them, the critics praise them. It is because combinations are possible that Chess is more than a lifeless mathematical exercise. They are the poetry of the game; they are to Chess what melody is to music. They represent the triumph of mind over matter.”
~ Reuben Fine, International Grandmaster, Psychologist (1914–1993)
Opening
Maybe only a handful of times in life does everything come together so perfectly you can’t help but smile. You make a life-changing decision, fully channel your potential, find inspiration somewhere entirely unexpected. It feels like an impossible collision of choices you’ve made with a huge side of good luck — you’re at just the right place at just the right moment.
This is a much shorter piece, but structurally flipped. The aim is to represent a feeling through the precise organization of pieces and squares. In this case, that inimitable, frozen-in-time feeling when it all works out.
Originally published in♟️ Chess for Life ♟️. Feel free to share.
Middlegame
At first glance, this looks like an ordinary game. It’s black to move, and white’s made a temporary attack on black’s queen.
Black is naturally in a good position here, and has some clear options to maintain advantage. But in lieu of a simple, careful move, Frank Marshall (black) looked as deeply as you could at this otherwise straightfoward position — and found one of the greatest moves in chess history. Can you see what he saw over a century ago?
For what it’s worth, I was first given this puzzle by my former coach, a Serbian National Master, who was given this puzzle by his own coach decades earlier. The phrase ‘no way’ is etched in my brain when I stare at it. It was one of the first moves to inspire me to never stop playing in hopes of one day finding something half as great.
And I’m not the only one. After the move was played, the crowd in Breslau, Poland threw gold coins on the board in celebration of what they’d collectively witnessed. Time for the magic:
Qg3. Just look at it. To have the imagination to see this move as an option is hard to fathom; to have the gall to play it is just as impressive. The black queen is both the unstoppable force and the immovable object. This is the only move that wins on the spot and ends the game in pure style. Here’s why it works:
- If white goes for the queen via any of three possible captures, white loses
- If white doesn’t capture the queen, white has no threats — and gets checkmated on h2.
Here are all three possible captures of the black queen on g3, beginning with my personal favorite — why can’t the white queen simply step back and recapture black’s queen? This continuation is particularly beautiful:
The black knight reveals itself to be the most powerful piece on the board. After a timely check on e2, the black knight picks up the white queen with interest. The h- and f-pawns are pinned by both black rooks after the knight the grabs the queen (again, with check).
When the dust settles, white can finally grab the black rook on h3, but black has an easy escape route with his knight. All he has to do now is play the easiest endgame in history: up a full piece against white’s shattered pawn structure.
If white sees the futility of this continuation, he’ll find capturing the queen with either pawn only hastens his end. Taking with the h-pawn is mate in one:
Taking with the f-pawn is mate in two:
If you try the slick, Qxe5, the black knight is unapologetic (aided by the queen’s newfound pin on the g-file):
Ultimately, Frank Marshall’s opponent — Russian Grandmaster and Russian Chess Champion, Stepan Lepitsky — resigned on the spot. After a move like that, you can hardly blame him.
Endgame
It’s hard not to marvel at something that seems to collapse our collective understanding into an individual act. This piece is less “Chess for Life” and more “Life Depicted in Chess”.
By sprinkling purpose-inverted pieces like this throughout, the hope is that these representations might show chess to be something with the capacity not only to teach us something practical, but to elucidate elements of the human experience in concrete symbolics.
If you have an idea, feeling or experience you’d like expressed in chess form, drop it in the comments below! We’re just geting started.
Originally published in♟️ Chess for Life ♟️To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
