Chess Podcast Launched! The Match With Marshall, Ep. 1.
Hi! I have made a brand new chess podcast. You might ask how will this be different from the other chess podcasts? The Say Chess Podcast will be updating you on my chess projects, delivering blindfold chess puzzles, miniature games, and moments from chess history. It will challenge you to visualize the chessboard and practice blindfold chess. To ensure a good narration of the puzzles I have used an artificial voice, that I think does a better job than I would.In the first podcast episode, you will find a part of Capablanca’s book ‘My Chess Career’ that I’m covering in newsletter format. The game mentioned on the podcast can be found in this Lichess study or look below.Let me know what you think! THE MATCH WITH MARSHALL, CHAPTER IV, My Chess Career, part VII “The most surprising feature of all was the fact that I played without having ever opened a book to study the openings.” — Capablanca Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. The Match with Marshall. No difficulty was experienced in arranging the match. Marshall was disposed to play in this case where he naturally discounted his victory. How far he was wrong the result proved. I beat him eight to one with fourteen draws thrown in between. I can safely say that no player ever performed such a feat, as it was my first encounter against a master, and such a master, one of the first ten in the whole world. The most surprising feature of all was the fact that I played without having ever opened a book to study the openings; in fact, had Marshall played such things as Danish Gambits, Vienna openings, or the like, the result might have been different. I certainly should have experienced more difficulty in obtaining such a result. I had only looked up an analysis of the Ruy Lopez by Lasker, on the f5-defence, but the analysis was wrong, as it did not give the strongest continuation for Black. This, and whatever I knew from experience or hearsay, was all my stock of knowledge for the match. My victory put me at once in the foremost rank among the great masters of the game. The play during the match showed that I was weak in the openings and just about strong enough in the simple play for position. My great strength lay in the end game, and I also excelled in combinations of the middle game. I had a fine judgment as to whether a given position was won or lost, and was able to defend a difficult position as few players could, as I repeatedly demonstrated during the course of the match, in repulsing Marshall’s onslaughts. I may add that my style was not as yet either definite or complete, though it had a wide range, i.e. I could attack almost as well as I could defend, and could make combinations in the middle game nearly as well as play the endings where I felt more at home and was decidedly strongest. Here are some of the games with notes as I see them today. GAME No. 7.The Fifth Game of the Match. F. Marshall vs. J. R. Capablanca, 0-1Link to Lichess studyYear: 1909Opening: Queen's Gambit Declined (Lasker Defence)1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. e3 Ne4 Today, when I have developed theories in accordance with my greater experience and knowledge, the chances are great against my making such a move, but then it was different, I did not know what to play, and when someone told me that Lasker had successfully played this move in his match with Marshall, I decided to adopt it. It was not till the end of the match, when I learned something else, that I changed my defence. 6. Bxe7 Qxe7 7. Bd3 The continuation adopted by Marshall in this game is in my opinion deficient. I believe that he played this variation best in the twenty-first game. Here, at any rate, I think it is better to play cxd5, followed by Qb3, after the Knights have been exchanged. 7... Nxc3 8. bxc3 8… Nd7 cxd5 at once is better. 9. Nf3 O-O 10. Qc2 h6 11. O-O He still had time to play cxd5, which was the correct continuation. 11... c5 With the idea of counterbalancin
