MARK RUBERY CHESS
The great Viennese player, Carl Schlecter (1874-1918), was famous for his solid and steady play that made him a most difficult man to defeat. He was for a long time ranked as one of the top few players in the world and his pinnacle was in 1910 when he let Lasker escape by the narrowest of margins while playing for the World Title. It is now generally accepted that Schlechter needed to score +2 win the match and thus he needed to win the tenth game. But, in the tenth game, tragedy struck: after first achieving a won game, he blundered into a clearly drawn position, and then blundered again which led to the loss of the game for him. The match ended tied at 5-5 (+1 -1 =8) and Lasker retained his title. Another theory was that Schlechter was too honourable to win the title by a fluke (he had been lucky in a lost position in the fifth game) and therefore strove to win at all costs. Schlecter followed the guidelines of Steinitz and would build up his game by seeking a positional advantage and only to go on the attack once these conditions had been met.
His pacific style made him draw an inordinate amount of matches: with Marco (+0 -0 =10) in 1893, drew with Janowski(+2 -2 =3) in 1896, drew with Alapin(+1 -1 =4) in 1899, beat Janowski (+6 -1 =3) in 1902, drew with Teichmann (+1 -1 =1) in 1904, and drew with Tarrasch (+3 -3 =10) in 1911. Schlechter was one of many who died of starvation towards the end of WW1.
Here is a crushing victory of his over the first world champion.
Schlechter,Carl - Steinitz,William [C28] Congress Cologne (11), 1898
1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.d3 Na5 5.Nge2 Nxc4 6.dxc4 d6 7.0–0 Be6 8.b3 c6 9.Qd3 Be7 10.Bg5 h6 11.Bxf6 Bxf6 12.Rad1 Be7 13.c5 dxc5 14.Qg3 Bd6 15.Qxg7 Ke7 16.Nf4! …Rg8?
tenacious)
SEE DIAGRAM
(16…exf4 17 e5 Rg8 was more
17.Ng6+ Kd7 18.Rxd6+! Kxd6 19.Rd1+ Bd5 20.Qxe5+ Kd7 21.Nxd5 cxd5 22.Rxd5+ Kc6 23.Ne7+ Kb6 24.Rd6+ 1–0
In 1962 Alexander Roshal, a master rated around 2430, played some blitz games against an 11-year-old boy while his students stood crowded around kibitzing. After he had lost the first game, Roshal asked the students to tell him what he had done wrong – turning the game into a didactic lesson for them. After losing three more he again asked his students to identify the mistakes he had made. “Why did I lose?” he asked one and all. Anatoly Karpov, his opponent, humbly quipped: “Perhaps, because I am a better player than you?”