Notation Practice 2: Mate à la Pin - Saint Petersburg 1914

Here is another classic game for you to work through.

Set the pieces out on the chessboard and steadily work through the moves.

The moves are listed below, but there is also a swf for you to use. The swf shows the moves and the moves are filled in on a score sheet as the game progresses. Click here to use this asset. It will open ion a new page.

This time I have added the comments that were made by the players about the game. The notes are by Nimzowitsch except where specified as being from someone else. This illustrates how Chess Players use the shorthand notation I listed on this page to record their thoughts on a move.

	White: Aron Nimzowitsch	Annotation	Black: Semyon Alapin	Annotation	Position after Black's 4th move....N x d5
1.	e4		e6
2.	d4		d5
3.	Nc3		Nf6
4.	ed	Cyber-chess Note: This is an even shorter-hand way of writing a capture by a pawn.	N x d5	Surrender of the center
5.	Nf6		c5	To "kill" the Pawn. "Restraint" might have been effected by, say ...Be7, ...O-O, ...b6, ...Bb7.	Position after White's 12th move 0-0-0
6.	N x d5		Q x d5
7.	Be3	It was to be able to make this move, which combines development and attack (the threat is dxc5 winning a Pawn), that White exchanged Knights.	cd	Disappearance of tempo spells loss of time.
8.	N x d4		a6
9.	Be2		Q x g7	Stealing a Pawn. The consequences are grievous.
10.	Bf3		Qg6
11.	Qd2		e5	The crisis. Black means to be rid of the unpleasant Knight, so that he may in some measure catch up in development. [White must have paid him a fee to play this. -- Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander]
12.	0-0-0	!	ed
13.	B x d4	White's advantage in development is now too great.	Nc6		Position after White's 18th move Re8#
14.	Bf6	! Travels by express. Any other Bishop move could have been answered by a development move, whereas now there is no time for this; Black must take.	Q x f6
15.	R(h) e8+	Play in the King and Queen files at the same time. The danger of a breakthrough is great.	Be7	or 15...Be6 16.Qd7 mate!
16.	B x c6+		Kf8	or 16...b x c6 17.Qd8 mate.
17.	Qd8+	!	B x d8
18.	Re8 #

To see this game in Descriptive Notation - click here

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