{"id":2474,"date":"2023-06-01T11:07:36","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T11:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forwardchess.com\/blog\/?p=2474"},"modified":"2023-06-01T11:07:37","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T11:07:37","slug":"forward-chess-highlights-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forwardchess.com\/blog\/forward-chess-highlights-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Forward Chess Highlights: May"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Who was \u2018the Last Knight of the King\u2019s Gambit?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a romantic description, yet the name of the player, who was at the height of his powers during one of the Golden Ages of Chess, eludes most people when they eulogize the games of Jose Raul Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine and a whole range of other titans from the 1920s and 1930s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet this player was, in a way, a Candidate for the World Chess Championship, as he played in the famous New York tournament of 1927, which was won (very comfortably) by an imperious Capablanca, who went on to lose his title \u2013 the surprise of many \u2013 the Alexander Alekhine later in the year.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Alekhine finished second in New York and readers will find the names of Aron Nimzowitsch and Frank James Marshall spring immediately to mind when trying to recall the four other competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two most likely to be forgotten are Milan Vidmar and…Rudolf Spielmann<\/strong>.

The latter is the player whose name we asked about at the start of this post.<\/p>\n\n\n

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In reality, of course, nobody other than Capablanca and Alekhine were really likely to take either of the first two places in New York, especially given the quadruple round-robin format, which made surprise results rather difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, even though Spielmann\u2019s play was too frustratingly inconsistent to enable him to make a substantial impact at the very top level, his creativity and originality brought him many stylish wins against some of the best players in the world and they can be found in the excellent new book, A Chess Biography of Rudolf Spielmann<\/a> (Elk and Ruby) by Grigory Bogdanovich.<\/p>\n\n\n

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View Free Sample<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n


The author has clearly worked hard to assemble a large amount of very interesting material and games, just as he did with his earlier books on Bogoljubov.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spielmann\u2019s life story was certainly not without its tragic elements, as readers will discover as they delve into the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, to keep this blog post on the positive side of life, we shall return to the old, romantic, and possibly suspect King\u2019s Gambit.

Spielmann\u2019s own article, \u2018From the Sickbed of the King\u2019s Gambit<\/em>\u2019 is an historical lament in recognition that 1. e4 e5 2. f4 was, perhaps, nearing the end of its life at the higher levels of chess. However, as it was written 100 years ago, hindsight shows us the death knell was sounded prematurely (see, for example, the magnificent King\u2019s Gambit games<\/a> played by Boris Spassky, who numbered various other chess kings amongst his victims, including Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, and David Bronstein).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a snippet showing Spielmann in his finest King\u2019s Gambit form.
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