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Alekhine's gun is a formation in chess named after the former world chess champion Alexander Alekhine. It is a specific kind of battery. This formation was named after a game he played against Aron Nimzowitsch in Sanremo 1930, ending with Alekhine's decisive victory.
The idea consists of placing the two rooks stacked one behind another and the queen at the rear. This can lead to substantial material loss for the opponent as it places considerable pressure on the "target" of the gun, especially if it is pinned (in this case it was only four moves before resignation ).
Here is the game that spawned Alekhine's gun:
Six years later, in 1936, Alekhine defeated William Winter using Alekhine's gun again. [2] Since then, players have learned much about using and guarding against this formation; however, some international games are still lost or won by the force of this tactic. In November 2018 it was successfully used by Ju Wenjun against Kateryna Lagno in game 4 of the FIDE Women's World Championship. [3] The attack could have been refuted with perfect defense, but Lagno was unable to find it and resigned five moves later. Ju Wenjun went on to win the match and with it the title.
The video game Alekhine's Gun is named after this chess formation.
Aron Nimzowitsch was a Russian-Danish chess player and writer. In the late 1920s, Nimzowitsch was one of the best chess players in the world. He was the foremost figure amongst the hypermoderns and wrote a very influential book on chess theory: My System (1925–1927). Nimzowitsch's seminal work Chess Praxis, originally published in German in 1929, was purchased by a pre-teen and future World Champion Tigran Petrosian and was to have a great influence on his development as a chess player.
Fred Dewhirst Yates was an English chess master who won the British Chess Championship on six occasions. He started a career in accountancy, but in 1909, abandoned it in favour of becoming a professional chess player and journalist.
Siegbert Tarrasch was a German chess player, considered to have been among the strongest players and most influential theoreticians of the late 19th and early 20th century.
Joel Lawrence Benjamin is an American chess player who holds the FIDE title of Grandmaster (GM). In 1998, he was voted "Grandmaster of the Year" by the U.S. Chess Federation. As of May 2020, his Elo rating was 2506, making him the No. 54 player in the U.S. and the 888th-highest rated player in the world.
The Scotch Game, or Scotch Opening, is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
Rudolf Spielmann was a Jewish-Austrian chess player of the romantic school, and chess writer.
Larsen's Opening is a chess opening starting with the move:
Fred Reinfeld was an American writer on chess and many other subjects. He was also a strong chess master, often among the top ten American players from the early 1930s to the early 1940s, as well as a college chess instructor.
Vasja Pirc was a Slovenian chess player. He is best known in competitive chess circles as a strong exponent of the hypermodern defense now generally known as the Pirc Defence.
Andor Arnoldovich Lilienthal was a Hungarian and Soviet chess player. In his long career, he played against ten male and female world champions, beating Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, and Vera Menchik.
Erich Gottlieb Eliskases was a chess player who represented Austria, Germany and Argentina in international competition. In the late 1930s he was considered a potential contender for the World Championship. Eliskases was granted the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1952.
Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov was a pair of six-game chess matches between then-world chess champion Garry Kasparov and an IBM supercomputer called Deep Blue. Kasparov won the first match, held in Philadelphia in 1996, by 4–2. Deep Blue won a 1997 rematch held in New York City by 3½–2½. The second match was the first defeat of a reigning world chess champion by a computer under tournament conditions, and was the subject of a documentary film, Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine.
The World Chess Championship 1886 was the first official World Chess Championship match contested by Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort. The match took place in the United States from 11 January to 29 March, the first five games being played in New York City, the next four being played in St. Louis and the final eleven in New Orleans. The winner was the first player to achieve ten wins. Wilhelm Steinitz won the match 10–5, winning his tenth game in the twentieth game of the match.
The Soviet school of chess was asserted to be a national style of play by Soviet chess players and journalists. Although chess had been a game of the bourgeoisie and upper classes before the Russian Revolution, its popularity among Bolshevik leaders, including Vladimir Lenin, contributed to its being supported by state leaders in the USSR as a national pastime. A keen sportsman, Lenin spent much of his free time outdoors or playing chess.
The 1935 World Chess Championship was played between challenger Max Euwe and title-holder Alexander Alekhine. It was played in various cities and towns in the Netherlands from October 3 to December 16. Euwe was the winner by overcoming a three-point deficit as late as the ninth game.
The Semi-Italian Opening is one of Black's responses to the Italian Game. It begins with the moves:
Zürich 1934 was an international chess tournament held in Zürich from 14 to 29 July 1934 to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Schachgesellschaft Zürich. Alexander Alekhine won, followed by Max Euwe and Salo Flohr tied for second-third. The tournament also served as the 1934 Swiss Championship, won by Hans Johner as the highest-ranking Swiss player.
Mikhail Gluzman is a Ukrainian-Australian chess International Master (IM) and an experienced chess coach.
David C. Taylor was the seventh U.S. Correspondence Chess Champion. He is the author of a book on the Ponziani Opening. Taylor lives in Kankakee, Illinois.
Alberto López Arce was a Cuban chess player. He is noted for his involvement in an incident at the 8th Chess Olympiad, a team tournament where then-current champion Alexander Alekhine had expected to play the previous champion José Raúl Capablanca, also of Cuba. The Cuban team instead assigned López Arce to play Alekhine in a game which Alekhine quickly won.
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