Hi there.
In this lecture, let's have a look at the so called immortal game.
This has stood the test of time.
It was playing between and of Anderson and Lionel Kieseritzky in 1851.
It's just a casual game, but it stood the test of time being so absolutely brilliant.
So it's one of the all time attacking classics.
It has been featured in the 1982 Blade Runner film.
So if you're a fan of sci fi, that's a major sci fi film worth checking out and all versions of Blade
Runner.
So who is Alf Anderson?
So this is a little bit of history you can get at Wiki.
He was one of the strongest players of his day and regarded by some to be the world champion after his
victory in the in the London 1851 tournament.
However, he lost the honor in the Anson Morphy 1858 match.
One year later, when Paul Morphy retired from International Chess, Anderson was able to regain his
reputation as one of the world's leading players, drawing with Polish in 19 in 1860, pardon me, and
winning Anderson College in 1861.
And then he went on to win the London International 1862.
And that was over.
You know, Louis Poulsen was in that finished second.
So, yeah, he's got this great set of victories, basically after Paul Morphy left the scene so he
could be regarded as another kind of unofficial world chess champion, a bit like Paul Morphy, and
he's regarded as the quintessential romantic.
With his sacrificial brilliancy, such as the game we about to see.
So the romantic era of chess where it was fought to be a bit ungentlemanly, not to accept sacrifice
material as if you're a bit cowardly or something.
So okay, let's see this game.
E4 From end of Anderson, we have E5 come from Kieseritzky for The King's Gambit, so this is a powerful
icon of the romantic era of The King's Gambit, and Boris Spassky in later generations took it up with
great success as well.
So we have E2, F4 and now Bishop C4, usually Knight F3 is played here, but this is another variation
which is very, very interesting with Bishop.
C4 Knight Free Gods the age for square.
So Bishop C4, the Queen does use that invitation to use h4.
Black could have played Knight C6 this position for example.
Slight difference.
Black should be with a technical advantage, but engines are having difficulty with these such situations.
There is a balance between material and king safety.
If we look also here at Knights F3, Black could consider G5.
Okay, so anyway, Queen H for check, we have King F1 B5.
So this was actually a favorite move of Kieseritzky.
Apparently this kind of gambit pawn we have you know if these sex here 93 nine f6 this is another way
of playing it and black should be technically okay but B5 this spice things up a little bit.
Bishop thanks B5 we have nice f69 F3 and now Queen H six the free.
Interesting.
Different is actually pretty interesting.
Alternatives.
If D for sure blank would actually consider taking on E4.
And you know there are threats like night g free shark here this looks you know who's king is unsafe
here like g free to try and win the rook but Queenie to F5 this position now is actually rather interesting
A better move might be knight C free.
In fact, this is another way of protecting E4, but it also offers, if we look at this E5 nine, g
four and now nine E4 protects F2 hits the bishop.
This kind of situation with beef, all this is weird and wonderful, but it should offer up to 95 Knight
D six check.
This should offer a very interesting position for white with maybe a small edge.
It's it looks chaotic.
It looks like a mess.
But yeah there's some interesting lines with knight C free.
But anyway D3 was played We have Knight h5 so the format here is Knight G Free shank.
Essentially, if C six had been played and the bishop drops back, this looks to be about even actually
with Knight G4 here.
93 bishop afterwards be annoying and bishop if it should be about even black does have that free control
with the Queen justifying itself in this variation on age sex.
So anyway, 95 we have no teach for Queen G five and you can see that this is actually attacking both
pieces.
So we have this move Knights F five, C six and now G for countering threat to a piece of offensive,
a piece G for that pawn being pinned.
There's no point without losing the Queen.
We have nothing to have sex.
Rook G one So this is where it absolutely gets amazing.
So rather than move the bishop.
Which does give blank the option of night takes G4 which could be annoying.
Whole bishop is sacrificed and this makes the game.
It starts to make the game absolutely amazing.
So a whole bishop sacrifice here.
But you can see one consideration to make here is about the position, not just the material.
And you know, you can balance when you evaluate positions.
It's like king safety versus interior and often pawn structure versus piece activity and all four of
those elements to be key elements to evaluate any position.
But of course there are other elements like having the bishop pair of bishop without a counterpart are
the elements we've discussed in this.
Sections of this course are all ingredients, but here a key ingredient cropping up is essentially material
versus king safety.
But what's happening is that once pieces are getting developed and Black's pieces are still asleep,
especially these rooks, these guys are still on the back row.
So the quality of pieces after this piece, sacrifice is in its favor position, you could say also
versus.
Material.
So material being offered for possession or or you could say KING Safety first all.
But actually the position itself, just intuitively, one should feel there are a lot of these spectator
sleeping pieces here.
The position for why seems absolutely great.
So Queen G five Queen are free and it looks as though this pawn is going to win on the tempo and black
goes back to let the Queen have some escape squares.
So the position is getting even more dominant.
That's a fantastic thing to liberate one's chest, just to look visually.
We don't have to just regard on what computers say about positions.
If, you know, they classically have favored the signs with great material because computers have to
calculate further and further to justify the material.
But as humans, we can say, well, blacks really on a back foot, literally in a funny back foot with
all of these pieces on the back row, blacks really on the back foot here, Bishop takes her for Queen
sex and we see Knight C friend.
And this knight's now poised to actually help its fellow knight and get into key squares and the real
key squares around the opponent's king here or in the vicinity, which are of great interest to white
to try and make that king still in the center.
The position looks absolutely overwhelming.
Even though White's a bishop down, it looks like an overwhelming position.
We see Bishop see five and now 95 is played.
Yeah, this looks absolutely fantastic.
If the four bishop be six this this also could be played and here Knight takes G seven shank This is
very very dangerous Bishop these six Jack G five this is still this is like a really dangerous, incredibly
dangerous position for, you know, the king Safety has been shot here.
It's actually a mate a force to mate here if f6 G takes f6 king of some G seven king six for Czech king
takes d6 e5 Czech king C 796 is checkmate.
Yeah, there's force mates around.
This is absolutely amazing.
But default, this is like a variation which it just shows the enormity of White's position that there
are variations like this.
And if Bishop takes D4 even more great basically, which is not helping Black's position, greed does
not help the whole position here.
97 Czech 1984.
This is just crushing.
So yeah, already D4 looks to be a super strong move, just maximising the position even further.
But okay, 95 was played immediately.
We have Queen size B2 and now this is the funny thing, this is absolutely unbelievable thing about
this game, this next move, if you put it in light analysis, Bishop D6 on certain online sites like
chess, it's like regarded as a blunder you actually need.
The.
Even Stockfish needs to have time to properly work out what the heck is going on.
Here we have a very strange position where both Rucks can be taken potentially and all White's done
is is kind of secure some escape squares to try and weave a mating that around the king.
But yeah, it's another central move it's the bishop is now central White's just built and built on
the position in an intuitive manner, trusting that the position will outweigh the material.
And yeah, if you don't leave engines running, you know, they think that maybe Black's got resources
here to draw or something.
It's not the case.
White definitely has a clear advantage, even with absolute best play.
But there was a more accurate continuation with rookie one, which is a kind of delayed gratification
of Bishop de Sex.
If Bishop b7 Bishop de sex here is even stronger, it seems, in a way than the continuation of the
game, which is absolutely brilliant.
But this continuation with Bishop takes G1.
Boy actually is in a situation a funny situation where queen are for.
It's super strong.
So like the bishops less left the scene here and it's trying to coordinate the queen and bishop to have
multiple threats like 97 check their what is black do here?
Bishop B six, Queen G five.
And the positions reached this kind of threshold where it's difficult to defend the king.
You know, 1967 check.
Black would have to give up the queen.
That's another key idea here.
Just 1967, Black would have to give up the queen.
And this was a 1966 check taking out the Rock.
White's on top there.
So it's funny.
Rookie one is even stronger technically.
But let's go into the game, which certain engines believe.
Believe it or not, if you put it on a not enough analysis, the engine just can't evaluate.
This is very difficult to evaluate this.
We have Bishop takes G1, so this is a mistake.
But Black was losing.
In any case, if Queen takes a one check King E to saying no, take both my rocks here.
If Queen B2, King D2.
And it's still winning.
For once, this position if Bishop takes JI won.
There's a key move here which takes away a key defensive resource.
Can you see what that is?
400 points.
What would you play in this position?
So you've just lost both your rooks?
No panic.
The position looks really, really strong with these pieces.
The king still in the center.
We've got kind of a half woven mating there.
What do we play here?
Yeah, just.
This is the quiet E-5.
Just disconnect a little bit of disconnection.
Disconnect the Queen from G seven.
So the fret is actually now 90 6g7.
Check King and Bishop C seventh mate.
Let me put that on the board.
You know, 85 knights as a token of 1967 Shank and Bishop C seven is checkmate.
So what does Black do here?
Bishop A6.
Bishop before and blacks in huge trouble after this, if not to each sex, because that vocation of
sex means that there's new resource de sex.
If for example queen sex if I'm there's 90 sex check and.
This is troublesome.
You know, if KING if a queen size of seven and if King decides, we can take on seven at the very least
to win the queen and the attack rages on.
So let's imagine.
Nice h six though, to defend f seven.
This position is still really strong after four.
Why?
96.
Check.
And here.
If King of eight.
G five and White still got a big advantage in this situation.
It's a fascinating set of scenarios.
If we go back here just just to highlight some other stuff after this.
E5 So I mentioned Bishop A6 F6 just to show 9/10 G seven check nine takes F6 and yeah, Black's running
out of options for king safety you know Queen C1 shaking up to queenside C2.
KING Geoffrey White's attack is still pretty vicious here.
White's winning there.
So if we go back to this bishop, A6 mainline bishop before, yeah, it's just problematic.
This, this whole variation is in White's favor.
If we go back.
So this is one Queen E, one King E two.
We mentioned Queen B2.
If Queen cites G one just to show.
Well, yeah, it's.
It's.
What would you play here?
There's a false checkmate in this position.
If this happens, our position is so dominant, we've really got to celebrate all its possibilities.
We have nine tanks, g seven shank, and we've got a killer.
Common square.
Bishop C seven is checkmate.
The Knights holding E eight.
They're so wonderful stuff.
Yeah.
All of this stuff shows such dominating position does actually pay dividends.
So back to the game.
Bishop takes G1, made Wayne's task easier.
We have E five here disconnecting the Queen from G7.
Okay, So this is a.
Very, very good stuff.
E5 is good.
And also, you know, Rookie won this position with 96 check nine takes F seven, Shaq, C, 96 Shaq.
And the thing is, once F seven has been taken, the Queen's got access to that back row.
So this variation shows some dangers there where black could be clobbered basically with rookie one
but E5 and now that's what makes game special.
The black is so greedy taking this off the rook.
So both rooks taken.
We have a really wonderful situation, the kind of effects, the side effects of materialism, these
pieces kind of out of play away from the king.
These pieces are asleep still in bed, spectator pieces.
We have now huge fans of Black Steel with 96 destroyed if Bishop a6 97 Shank 9/10 A6 is troublesome
for black.
Say Quincy.
Jeffrey Bishop.
See, seven Shaq Black would have to give up the queen.
There.
If King size 96 is checkmate on the other way, plants could get mated on potentially the other way.
Queen snakes have seven mating.
So, yeah, that's that's very, very funny.
Very, very problematic.
If queen takes a two, might be four heads.
The Queen and Nancy two.
That's in Wayne's favor.
One's going to potentially just take on eight soon.
And the attack rolls on.
If Bishop be six, Queen takes eight for sure.
Queen C three night b4 protect c two and the attack rolls on her.
Bishop c seven King D one.
This position is also it's very strong after this situation with a free one is also in a winning position
getting material back.
Funny stuff, Really funny stuff.
But anyway, Knights six was played and we have this iconic scene in in Blade Runner where we have this
position and while it's absolutely winning here, there's a false checkmate.
Can you spot what that is?
If I give you 5 seconds to pause Video So for 500 points, can you spot the final checkmate sequence?
It's not Also E5 just disconnects the Queen away from certain key squares, not even just G seven,
but also F six actually.
So that was a great disconnect.
Move to further amplify the dominating look of the possession, how the pieces, you know, are so good,
but without any key defensive resources on that diagonal as well from that queen.
This bishop, of course, looks extremely irrelevant.
But here yeah, there's a false checkmate with nine times G seven check.
That's the first move.
And can you see what the move is here?
So once planned shut, mate.
So check all checks, even the seemingly outrageous ones.
Okay.
Queen F six.
CHANG Yeah.
This gets access to E seven, so it takes away the defender from E seven 9/10 f sex and Bishop E seven
is actually checkmate because this time it's guarding C seven and this night it's gone in E eight.
So this is why it's the immortal game.
It really actually, you know, is technically sound as well.
Okay.
There might be a more optimal move at a certain point, but you know it makes a huge impression and
I was in for a shock on revisiting this game with more detailed analysis, but there's also a dedicated
wiki page which has important analysis as well.
Just in case you're getting the wrong impression from analysis, check the wiki page for the immortal
game.
There's analysis there.
But yeah, this this, this whole game shows quite vividly.
Not just the king in the sense of this whole notion of king safety versus material.
Or you could say king safety verses a position which looks like really, really good, really dominating
position.
Sometimes we do need to, especially when we're playing people, we're playing people, not machines.
So positions which really look great sometimes they aren't really great and it really needs huge effort
on the part of engine to actually evaluate things properly.
That huge, you know, that balance between material in king safety, all the strength, the good looking
strength of position versus king safety.
So the attacking plan needs to bear this in mind.
You know, sometimes there's going to be intuitive sacrifices to get huge knights, for example, on
day five or five and see what dividends they actually pay.
What is the trend of the position after.
So, yeah, this was an absolutely beautiful looking position.
Okay.
A bishop now on technicality.
Look at the pieces.
If they're going backwards, we're getting, you know, like a Morphy victim.
Basically, when the pieces are in bed, I tend to think of it.
Oh, this is a Morphy victim, Paul Morphy.
But no, this is actually Adolf Anson, again, one of the great attacking players of that time.
And he's just wrapping himself around the king systematically and, you know, using a key disconnection
resource.
But yeah, this is absolutely, you know, a winning position.
It's great to think that you can play like this in such a romantic fashion.
And, you know, hundreds of years later, you know, it's proven by modern technology that actually
there is something about this.
It's actually rather sound.
So it does kind of create a liberation effect for me, you know, material.
Yeah, is is an obsession, but it's not the only element.
How how good looking is the strength of your or the strength of your pieces.
Are they much more developed than the opponent, the whole position as a whole?
How does that link with King safety?
So this balance get it right, try and get it right.
The attacking players, You know, when we see examples like this, these are mortal games.
They are really inspirational, in my view, for attacking chess and sacrificing and combinations.
Okay.
Thanks so much.