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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 Latvian-born 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.
The French Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
The Ruy Lopez, also called the Spanish Opening or Spanish Game, is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
The Evans Gambit is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
Frank James Marshall was the U.S. Chess Champion from 1909 to 1936, and one of the world's strongest chess players in the early part of the 20th century.
Alekhine's Defence is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
Richard Selig Réti was an Austro-Hungarian, later Czechoslovak, chess player, chess author, and composer of endgame studies.
The Nimzowitsch Defence is a somewhat uncommon chess opening characterised by the moves:
Rudolf Spielmann was a Jewish-Austrian chess master of the romantic school, and chess writer.
Ossip Samoilovich Bernstein was a French chess player and businessman. He was one of the inaugural recipients of the title International Grandmaster from FIDE in 1950.
Carlos Jesús Torre Repetto was a Mexican chess player and the first from his country to be awarded the title of grandmaster, which was accorded by FIDE in 1977.
Amos Burn was an English chess player, one of the world's leading players at the end of the 19th century, and a chess writer.
The Noah's Ark Trap is a family of traps in the Ruy Lopez chess opening in which a white bishop is trapped on the b3-square by black pawns.
Richard Teichmann was a German chess master and a chess composer. He was known as "Richard the Fifth" because he often finished in fifth place in tournaments. But in 1911 he scored a convincing win in Karlsbad, crushing Akiba Rubinstein and Carl Schlechter with the same line of the Ruy Lopez. José Raúl Capablanca called him "one of the finest players in the world". Edward Lasker recounted the witty way in which Teichmann demonstrated the Schlechter win in his book Chess Secrets I learned from the Masters, and generally admired Teichmann's mastery.
Vasja Pirc was a Yugoslav 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.
Friedrich Sämisch was a German chess player and chess theorist. He was among the inaugural recipients of the title International Grandmaster from FIDE in 1950.
Benjamin Blumenfeld was a Russian chess master.
Zurich 1934 was an international chess tournament held in Zurich 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.
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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