Check Mate
By Houssam El Jouzou, Contributing Writer

Beirut, Lebanon - ”Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy.” Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch

There are different meanings for the word "Mating”.

The nineteenth century was known as the “romantic period of chess”. With no computers, no million games’ databases for preparations, and no live broadcast, chess purely gathered a chess board (with no coordinates), an analogue clock, and two chess players competing for the victory. But that had its pros and cons!

Journalov, a Russian chess journalist back in the 19th century, and his photographer, Picturovsky, were two decent chess players. Unfortunately, they always arrived late whenever they wanted to cover any chess event. At the final game of a famous Grand prix tournament in Cuba, they arrived late to the tournament to discover that it was already closed to an end. Journalov himself had to report the winner of the tournament. Since it was a weekend in Cuba, with no officials to provide him with any information, and since he was leaving to Russia the next day, a brilliant idea came to his mind: from the pairing, he will tell the names of the two finalists and the color each of them had. Yet, the hard task was to identify the winner. So he decided to go to the “Hall of Fame” where the organizers kept the board of each year’s finals with its closing position for memory, and from the arrangement, he thought that he will be able to determine the winner. That’s the position he found for that year's final:

The problem Journalov and Picturovsky faced was that the boards at that time had no coordinates. The other problem was that nothing indicated whose turn it was. Naturally, Journalov thought that he was smart enough, and told Picturovsky: “This one was pretty easy, none of the white pieces (not pawns) was captured; it is obvious that the white won…wait a second, I can even see a mate in 3 for white if white was to move first!” Picturovsky, standing on the opposite side of the board, replied: “But boss who said that it was the white’s turn? If it was the black’s turn to move first, I can see a mate in 3 for black!”

To illustrate, Journalov thought that the black king was on the 7th rank and it was the white’s turn. However, Picturovsky thought that the black king was on the second rank and that it was the black's turn. Can you find the two mates in 3 that Journalov and Picturovsky obtained?

When we mention the romantic age we cannot forget the proponent of it, the unofficial world champion at that time, Adolph Anderssen with his two unforgettable games: The “Immortal Game” and the “Evergreen Game”. Here are the solutions for the mates of those two games which were introduced in the previous issue consequently.

Mate in 3

1.Nxg7+ Kd8 2.Qf6+ Nxf6 3.Be7# 1–0

Mate in 4
 
 1.Qxd7+ Kxd7 2.Bf5+ Ke8 3.Bd7+ Kf8 4.Bxe7# 1–0

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