Monday, November 12, 2007

The furious queen

Many players are familiar with the furious rook. To review:
Furious Rook: A maneuver designed to force a draw. If a player has no moves other than the moves of his rook, then if that rook can repeatedly check the opponents king, the game will often be a draw; either by stalemate if the king captures the rook, or by repetition caused by continuous checks.

We have a number of examples of the furious rook in Manitoba chess. But this is the first instance of the furious queen that I'm aware of.



Lipic, Stephen - Khedkar, Jay S. , September TNT 2007

54...d1Q?
Now the White king is stalemated. If he can just get rid of those pawns ...

55. g7+ Kxg7 56. h8Q+ Kg6 Black sees the stalemate. Can it be prevented?

57. Qg7+ Kf5 58. Qg6+ Kf4 59. Qg3+ (59. Qg4+ ?? Qxg4 -+) Ke4 60. Qf4+ Kd5 61. Qe4+ Kc5 62. Qc6+

And now Black is forced to capture the queen, since 62. ...Kd4?? loses to 63. Qd7+ and White wins Black's queen and the game. The furious queen prevails!

62...Kxc6. stalemate. 1/2:1/2. Of course, 54...d1R or 54...d1B or even 54...Na5 wins for Black.

10 comments:

Chess Manitoba said...

Nigel,

You must check out my furious Queen versus young Raihman in the 2007 Yanofsky, which preceded the Lipic game by mere days.
In fact, I showed Stephen the position minutes before his game with Khedkar started !

Nigel Hanrahan said...

That's interesting. Here is the game btw.

Kwiatek,J (1791) - Raihman,D (1736) [A14]
2007 Yanofsky Memorial U1800 University of Winnipeg (5), 02.09.2007

1.c4 e6 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 d5 4.Nf3 Be7 5.0-0 0-0 6.b3 c5 7.d3 Nc6 8.Nbd2 Qc7 9.Bb2 Rd8 10.cxd5 exd5 11.d4 b6 12.Rc1 Nd7 13.e4 Ba6 14.Re1 Nb4 15.exd5 Nf6 16.Nc4 Nxa2 17.Ra1 Nb4 18.Nfe5 Nfxd5 19.Bxd5 Rxd5 20.Bc3 cxd4 21.Qf3 dxc3 22.Qxf7+ Kh8 23.Ng6+ hxg6 24.Rxe7 Qxe7 25.Qxe7 Rad8 26.Qxb4 c2 27.Ne3 Rd1+ 28.Nxd1 Rxd1+ 29.Kg2 Bb7+ 30.f3 Rxa1 31.Qh4+ Kg8 32.Qc4+ Bd5 33.Qc8+ Kf7 34.Qd7+ Kg8 35.Qc8+ Kh7 36.Qh3+ ½-½

In this case, it is a series of inescapable checks rather than a stalemate that ends things. But a furious queen nevertheless. Well done!

Nigel Hanrahan said...

Nigel, just to clarify, the above post was not from Jordan (me). I believe Tony Boron was posting. I did have a furious queen once, against Harry Weiss, as black I believe in a dead lost position. I unfortunatly could not find the game. What ever happened to old Harry anyways? He was the only player I ever met who could say that funny word "scheviningen" properly. (he was Dutch). Anyways The game you posted was'nt related to chess manitoba's post Nig.
JK

Nigel Hanrahan said...

Whoops! Did I ever make a mess of that!

So, first of all, here is Tony's game...

Raihman,I (1782) - Boron,A (1973) [B28] 2007 Yanofsky Memorial Open University of Winnipeg (4), 02.09.2007

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 a6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Nb3 Bb4 7.f3 d5 8.exd5 Nxd5 9.Bd2 Nxc3 10.bxc3 Ba3 11.Bd3 0-0 12.Qe2 Nc6 13.h4 Be6 14.g4 Rc8 15.g5 Qd7 16.Qe4 g6 17.Kf2 Bf5 18.Qe2 Rfe8 19.Be4 Bxe4 20.fxe4 Re6 21.h5 Rf8 22.Rag1 a5 23.Be3 Qe7 24.Qc4 Rd8 25.Rh3 Rb8 26.Qb5 b6 27.Rgh1 Na7 28.Qd5 Rd8 29.Qc4 b5 30.Qe2 a4 31.Nd2 Bc5 32.Ke1 Bxe3 33.Qxe3 Rd7 34.Nf3 Qd6 35.Ke2 Nc6 36.Nh2 Na5 37.Ng4 Nc4 38.Qd3 Qe7 39.Nf6+ Rxf6 40.gxf6 Qd8 41.hxg6 Rxd3 42.gxh7+ Kh8 43.cxd3 a3 44.dxc4 bxc4 45.Rg3 Qd2+!! ½-½

45...Qd2+ saves the game for Black, since 46. Kxd2 is stalemate. No bonus points for Tony, however, as there is no series of annoying checks leading to the stalemate.

The game that I posted by mistake, Jordan's game against Daniel Raihman, is the wrong game for another reason. By capturing the pawn on c2, White would have had a queen versus a rook and bishop and could have played for the win. However, this was the final round of the Yanofsky Memorial and, it's understandable why Jordan might settle for the draw and collect his share of the prize money along with Dezheng Kong and Keith Gannon.

Well, that solves that mystery. I was wondering how Jordan managed to post as chess manitoba ...

Nigel Hanrahan said...

Let me make amends for my mistake by a little research about Harry Weijs. Please note the spelling of his last name.

Since the TNT in August of 2002, Harry has played in 12 tournaments in Edmonton. I think it's likely that he's moved to that city.

Harry's tournament results can be examined over here ...

http://www.chess.ca
/memberinfo.asp?CFCN=120176


Examining Harry's tournaments, I see that he played you (Jordan) 3 times, all in 2001: in the July Active (a draw), in the August TNT (a win for Harry), and in the September TNT (also a draw). All of these games were in the first round of the respective tournaments as noted in the crosstables. Interestingly, the last time you played Harry was precisely a week before 9-11, on September 4, 2001.

If your draw with the furious queen was in the July Active then the game is probably lost. However, it's more likely that the September TNT game is saved somewhere. Unfortunately, I do not have any of these games.

Chess Manitoba said...

Nigel,

Bonus points to Raihman for recognizing the furious Queen !
He could have played on many moves...chased by the furious Queen.

Leslie said...

While Stephen Lipic's game is a fantastic chess swindle, I'm wondering if it's such a good example of "the furious Q." After promoting with check on h8, White can force stalemate in just two moves in all variations: 56...Kg6 (56...Kf7) is met by 57.Qf6+, the BK goes to either available square on the edge of the board, and White forces stalemate next move.

Les Mundwiler

Nigel Hanrahan said...

Welcome Les and thanks for the contribution. We can find no fault with your more efficient forced draw or stalemate!

Please feel free to make future contributions. By the way, we have published the solution to the help double stalemate in problem 2. Check out those rookhoppers! I like that Zoltan shaped the layout as an exclam both at the start and at the end of the solution. That's worth a double exclam!!

Anonymous said...

The only thing I have to say about missing the quicker draw is that I was sweating bullets when Khedkar didn't just accept the draw right away.

I then had to very nervously plod forth with my Q while being as absolutely careful as possible not to blow my chance at a draw.

That was probably the most exciting game I played in 2007, my "rookie" year, as it were.

-- Stephen

Nigel Hanrahan said...

Good luck in chess in '08 Stephen. The only thing better than a draw rescued from a certain defeat is a win in the same circumstances! I've had a few of those.

Nigel