Chess by Kavalek

By Lubomir Kavalek
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, June 1, 2009; 9:04 AM

Josef Hasek (1897-1976) was a witty Czech master and chess composer who loved chess, wine and meteorology. He composed nearly 300 studies. In 1927, he came up with this little gem (White: Ka6,Ra5,P:a2,e3,f2,g2; Black: Kg4,Rc4,P:a3,a7,g3): White wins with surprising tactics. Can you find how? (Solution next week)

Chess Brilliancy

By definition, the chess brilliancy does not need to be a perfect game, it may not be even sound, but it should include a moment when something astonishing, beautiful and inspiring happens on the chessboard. A daring combination, an out-of-the-blue sacrifice, an unusual maneuver. The first brilliancy prize was created by the owner of Cafe International in New York during a tournament played in the fall of 1876. The Englishman Henry Bird won it for his queen sacrifice against Irishman James Mason. It was designed to prevent boring chess and as such it was always dear to the hearts of chess fans.

Spoiling the Fun

In his peak, early in the 1980s, the Serbian grandmaster Ljubomir Ljubojevic was rated right behind Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov ¿ No. 3 on the official FIDE rating list. An excellent tactician with original mind, Ljubo, as we usually called him, was a bundle of nervous energy. He could create unexpected powerful storms on the chessboard. When he didn’t play chess, he was constantly walking and talking in several languages, rarely seen sitting down.

I met Ljubojevic for the first time during the international tournament in Belgrade in 1965. He demonstrated our games for the public on huge chessboards. “I always wanted to work on your games because you sent me to buy cigarettes and left me with a generous tip,” he confessed after his excellent result at the Chess World Cup in Barcelona in 1979, where he tied for first place with Kasparov. In 1973, we played for the first time in two tournaments in Canary Islands. I was awarded brilliance prizes for both games, in Las Palmas and in Lanzarote, but I was not sure I deserved them.

In the fall, we met again in Manila, and this time after 10 moves I thought I could create a really brilliant game. And so did Ljubo. After sacrificing my two central pawns, I chased his queen out of play, hoping to finish him off with a rook sacrifice. In a critical moment, Ljubo looked at me and played an inferior move with his queen. It was a losing move, preventing not only my planned rook sacrifice, but also a chance to win the third brilliancy prize against him in a single year. Despite the loss, Ljubo edged me by a half point for the second place and finished one point behind the winner, the legendary Dane Bent Larsen. I have expanded my original notes to the game and included a few remarks from Colin Crouch’s incisive book “Chess Secrets: Great Attackers.”

Here is the full article.