For today’s puzzle I decided to hop onto the internet and search for “best short chess games” to see if that would come up with a nice tactic to show you. The first post that came up was “Nigel Short’s best games!” Don’t you just love the way computers think. Nigel Short is the famous British chess prodigy who has been a leading grandmaster for may years and once challenged Kasparov for the world championship. Whether Short played may short games however is unclear. I guess you could argue that they were all “Short” games!
Instead I have a position from Alekhine v Nenarokov 1907 (see diagram). Alekhine has just played 1.a3 to attack that annoying N on b4. This seems strange as doesn’t that just force Black to play Nxd5 which is the move he wanted to play anyway? Has Alekhine just wasted a move with a3 or is he perhaps setting a trap? Of course you and I would immediately have our suspicions aroused and check …Nxd5 before playing it, but Nenarokov was more trusting.
ANSWER:
After 1…Nxd5 Alekhine played 2.Na4! 1-0 as the black Q is trapped. Another lesson for young players not to bring out your Q early in the game.
Nenarokov obviously however learnt from the experience and went on to win the Moscow Championship the following year and was awarded the IM title in 1950.
Alekhine went on to become World Chess Champion but choked on a piece of meat in Portugal in 1946 and died whilst still holding the title. The only player ever to do so.
