Adams, Edwin Ziegler2350–Torre Repetto, Carlos25351–0C62New OrleansNew Orleans1920
The Players Edwin Adams (1885–1944) was born in New Orleans. He is best
known as having been Torre’s trainer, and for this game and its sensational
combination. Carlos Torre Repetto (1905–78) was born in Merida, Yucatan,
and is the strongest player ever to have come from Mexico. There are certain
parallels between his career and that of Paul Morphy: having proved himself
against the best of the North American players, he travelled to Europe and
achieved some remarkable successes, most notably his fifth place in the Moscow
tournament of 1925, including a brilliant win over Emanuel Lasker. However, in
1926, following severe misfortunes in both his professional and personal life,
he suffered a nervous breakdown and never played tournament chess again. He
was finally awarded the grandmaster title in 1977, on the basis of his results
in the mid-1920s. In his games he used the opening system 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6
(or 2...g6) 3. Bg5 to great effect, and as a result this popular opening is
nowadays known as the Torre Attack. The Game What starts as a normal training
game – a young talent against his teacher – takes on immortal status when
the teacher finds a spectacular combination. From a fairly quiet opening,
Torre fails to resolve the problem of his weak back rank, and it is this that
Adams exploits with a series of astonishing queen offers. Torre refuses the
offer for as long as he can, but eventually he runs out of options – the
queen must be taken and the back rank collapses. A highly appealing feature is
that White’s back rank is also weak, but this does not provide quite enough
counterplay for Black to survive. There have been questions asked about
whether Torre and Adams really played this game, or whether it is a
composition. I imagine there will always be doubts about any such brilliant
game that was played neither under tournament conditions nor with any
eye-witnesses. It would take us too far afield to go into details here, but
the evidence for this game being fabricated strikes me as purely
circumstantial, and presents no compelling reason to assert that the game was
definitely not played. So let’s just enjoy the game. If it was composed,
then let’s enjoy the composition! 1.e4 e5 2.f3 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.xd4 This treatment of the Philidor Defence was favoured by Morphy in
his time. White centralizes his queen and the f3-knight continues to support a
possible e5 push. The drawback is that White will need to surrender the
bishop-pair to maintain his queen in the centre. c6 4...a6 -->
Sznapik-Plachetka 4...f6 --> Guez-Samama 4...f6 5.e5 5.c3
--> Campora-Chiburdanidze 5.g5 --> Sax-Tseshkovsky e7 6.c3 --> main
line 5...e7 --> Jansa-Ermenkov 5...dxe5 --> Gufeld-Georgadze 6.e3 g4= 5.b5 d7 5...f6 --> Niedermayer-Speckner 5...ge7 -->
Markovic-Nikolic 6.xc6 xc6 7.c3 The text-move should not give White
much advantage either, but the move has scored well in practice. White has
more space and his game is very easy to play. 7.g5 f6 --> Morphy-Harrwitz 7...f6 --> Anderssen-Paulsen 7...e7! 8.xg7 f6 9.xh8 xh8 10.xd8 xb2!= 7...f6 7...f6 --> Tringov-Acimovic 8.0-0 8.g5 --> Gawliczek-Goebel e7 9.0-0-0 8...e7 9.d5 RR 9.b3 0-0 10.b2 e8 11.d5 f8 12.fe1 g4 13.c4 d7 14.ad1 c6 15.f4 f6 16.d3 g4 17.h3 xf3 18.xf3 e7 19.e5 d7 20.e6 fxe6 21.xe6 c5 22.xf8 xe1+ 23.xe1 xe1+ Gomez Esteban,J (2410)-Vladimirov,E (2585) Oviedo 1993 1/2-1/2
RR 9.e1 0-0 10.g5 d7 11.xe7 xe7 12.d5 xd5 13.exd5 f6 14.e4 fe8 15.ae1 xe4 16.xe4 h6 17.c3 c5 18.e3 f5 19.b4 a4 20.c4 c2 21.b3 xb3 22.axb3 b2 23.e3 a5 Butler,B (1790)-Danaswara,I (1061) Canberra 2015
1-0 9...xd5 Torre sees no way to put his bishop-pair to use and gives up
one of the clergymen to eliminate White’s powerful knight. 10.exd5 0-0 11.g5 c6N RR 11...d7 12.fe1 h6 13.h4 fe8 14.d2 b5 15.d4 d7 16.c4 a5 17.e2 g5 18.g3 h5 19.ae1 f6 20.d1 xe2 21.xe2 g7 22.c2 b6 23.d2 f5 24.e4 g7 25.d1 d4 26.d2 Bird,H-Horwitz,B London 1851
0-1 (38) 12.c4 cxd5 The liquidation 12...xd5 13.cxd5 xg5 14.xg5 xg5 15.dxc6 bxc6 16.xd6 gives White the more pleasant pawn-structure. 13.cxd5 e8 13...h6, partly with hindsight, could be suggested. 14.fe1 a5 This is certainly not the most useful move imaginable, and this fact has
been seized upon by those who seek to cast doubt on this game’s credibility.
However, the move is not without point: one idea is to play ...Ra6 and then
either ...Rb6 or ...Qb6, while another is simply to secure c5 as a square for
the knight later on. Torre may also have been thinking of the more ambitious
plan of ...a4 and ...Ra5, threatening the d5-pawn. It is quite common even for
strong players to try slightly unrealistic ideas in a misguided attempt to
generate winning chances as Black. The results, as here, tend to be somewhat
unfortunate. Again one might suggest 14...h6, possibly then meeting 15. Bh4
with 15...Qb6 creating counterplay against the d5-pawn. 15.e2 Doubling
rooks on the e-file is an effective answer to Black’s idea. Black now fails
to sense the danger and simply develops his a8-rook. c8? Now everything
is set for the great combination. 15...h6 16.ae1 d7 16...h6 17.xf6 gxf6 18.g4+ h7+- gives White a choice of devastating continuations. 17.xf6 xf6? We are now treated to one of the most spectacular
sequences in chess history – six consecutive queen offers. Black can never
take the queen due to mate on e8. 18.g4! b5 The e8-rook is attacked
twice, so Black must keep it defended twice. Note that the whole combination
is only possible because the e1-rook is defended by the knight on f3. If the
minor pieces were magically to vanish from the board, White’s combination
would not work due to 18...Rxe2, when 19. Qxd7? would allow 19...Rxe1#. 19.c4‼ Some writers have claimed that 19 Qa4?? is bad because of 19...Qxe2.
This is true, but I’ll leave it for the reader to find a simpler answer to
White’s blunder! The text-move puts the queen en prise again, but this time
to two black pieces. However, since they are both needed to cover e8, the
queen is again invulnerable. d7 20.c7‼ The same theme, but White has
now penetrated into the midst of Black’s forces. As Nunn puts it, "It is
especially attractive that the queen slides cheekily along the black rook’s
line of attack. b5 It appears that Black is coping quite well with the
multiple queen offers – perhaps all White has done is to find a very
striking way to force a repetition of moves? Note that White need only have
seen this far to feel safe when playing the combination – a draw by
repetition is his "safety net" if it proves impossible to find anything
better. However, Black’s defence is very fragile, and all it takes is one
little tap at its base for the whole structure to come crashing down. 20...d8 21.xc8!+- 21.a4! 21.xb7? xe2 22.xe2 c1+-+ 21...xa4 22.e4‼ This is the point. White is able to introduce another idea into
the position – the rook can control, with gain of tempo, one of the squares
on the a4–e8 diagonal. If the black queen can be run out of squares on that
line, then this will sever the black king’s lifeline. White’s main threats
are now 23. Qxc8 Rxc8 24. Rxa4 and 23. b3 Qb5 24. Qxb7, so Black has no time
to breathe. b5 23.xb7! The white queen covers the squares b5, c6 and d7
and, now that the a4-square is also covered and there is no killing
counter-sacrifice on e2, this completes the domination of the black queen. It
has finally been run out of squares and now it is either mate or loss of a
"full" queen. John Nunn wrote that he was particularly impressed by this
combination as a young player: "This combination had a profound effect on me.
It suddenly seemed that chess was worth all the blunders and lost games, if
only one could produce such a beautiful and profound combination." Lessons
from this game: 1) Spare a thought for your back rank. If it is possible to
open up some "luft", an escape-hatch for your king, without a serious loss
of time or weakening of your king’s defences, it is well worth considering.
2) If your opponent’s position is only hanging together by a slender thread,
use all your ingenuity to find a way to cut this thread. 3) If you want
everyone to believe that you really did play a fantastic combination, be sure
to play it in a tournament game! 1–0
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