With all the pieces visible to both players and all the rules much pretty set in concrete, it’s hard to think of a good April Fools’ Day joke to play over the board in tournament play that doesn’t run the risk of getting you forfeited.
Still, creative players over the years have carved out a small niche for (legal) deceit and deception that’s very much in the spirit of the day.
Take, for instance, the drama arising from today’s diagram, played by future Soviet star Alexander Kotov and memorably recounted in his classic “Think Like a Grandmaster.” “I cannot be sure of the exact position, but the basic essentials were etched in my brain so I never forgot them,” Kotov recalled.
The young rising master is Black and has a won game with an overwhelming material edge — queen and rook against White’s three minor pieces. As Kotov tells it, his deflated opponent had theatrically written “Resigns” on his scoresheet and tucked it in his pocket, apparently just waiting for Black to deliver one final blow.
Almost any move now wins, but Black’s boyish impatience to finish things off with 1…Rxf7?? had one fatal defect: “Immediately the other [White] bishop whizzed through the air and landed with a bang on d8. Again with a bang, my opponent started my clock and looked round in triumph at the people who were watching the game. Then he took out the score sheet, wrote down his move and mine and crossed out the word ’Resigns.’”
Indeed, after 2. Bd8+! Kxd8 3. Nxf7, forking king and queen, it was Black who had to do the resigning.
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Chess swindles aren’t exactly April Fool’s jokes, as the ability to fight on and save a lost position can be a valuable asset. The early modern history of the game might have pivoted on one such swindle in the celebrated 1843 match between English champion Howard Staunton and French rival Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint Amant, a match widely seen as a clash between the two best players of the time.
Saint Amant was in a pretty massive hole when this game was played, with just one draw and seven painful losses in the first eight games. (The first player to win 11 games claimed the match stakes.) He looks to be about to go down 8½-½ here by spoiling his exemplary early play in a QGD Semi-Tarrasch with a string of aimless moves and piece retreats from 20. f4?! through 23. Bd3 Rfe8 24. Bc1?! that gifts Black a better position and the initiative.
But White squeezes lemonade from the lemons by managing to confuse his opponent with unexpected moves, and then pounces when Staunton fails to recover his equilibrium: 28. Qxd5!? (objectively a mistake, but the superior 28. Qf1 Be5 29. Bb2 still leaves White fighting uphill) Nh3+!? (Black dodges one bullet: 28…Red8 29. Qa2 Rxc1! 30. Rxc1 Nh3+ 31. Kh1 Qxe3 32. Qc4 Bf8, winning back a piece with a dominating game) 29. Kh1 Be5 30. Rge2 Bxd4 31. Qxd4 Red8, and here White uncorks the unexpected 32. b5!!.
Staunton sees that taking the offered queen with 32…Rxd4 33. exd4 threatens both his own queen and a back-rank mate, but he should have looked a little further: 33…g5! (apparently the only winning move) 34. fxg6 Qh5 35. gxf7+ Qxf7+ 36. Kg2 Ng5 37. Bxg5 Qd5+ 38. Re4 Qxg5, winning.
Instead, a rattled Black first throws away the win and then throws away the draw: 32…Qh5? 33. g4! Rxd4?? (the wrong time to get greedy; Black retains his edge after 33…Qh4 34. Qxa4 Rxd3) 34. exd4, and now the Black queen is still attacked and the back-rank mate threat is also still on the table. After 34…f6 35. gxh5, Staunton resigned.
The gift appears to have put some wind in the Frenchman’s sails, as he would outscore his rival in the second half of the match, although he would still succumb by a score of 11-6-4.
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Another unexpected reversal very much in the spirit of the day comes in a game between FM Thomas Rendle and expert Malcolm Armstrong at the 2007 Liverpool Open, a game featured in Australian GM David Smerdon’s entertaining 2020 survey “The Complete Chess Swindler.”
Rendle as Black makes a mess of this Dutch Defense against his lower-rated opponent, missing the pawn-winning 17. dxe5 dxe5? 18. Nxa5! Bc8 (Rxa5 19. Bc4+ Kh8 20. Rxd7) and finding himself down material with no evident counterplay after 24. Nc5 Qh5. White ruthlessly pushes to simplify, but a desperate Rendle finds an ingenious way to throw some tactical sand in the gearbox.
Thus: 25. Nd7 Bxe4!? (with 25…Nxd7 26. Rxd7 Qg6 27. Qb3 a joyless ending for Black, he decides he’d rather go down in a blaze of glory. Unfortunately for White, the simple, “logical’ refutation to Black’s antics contains a fatal flaw) 26. fxe4 Ng4 27. h3 Ne3 28. Qe2?? (Armstong may have thought this move countered completely the nasty Black knight fork, but he’s in for a shock; winning instead was 28. Nxf8! Nxc2 29. Rd8! h6 30. Ng6+ Kh7 31. Bf7) f3!! 29. Qxe3?? (as in the Staunton game, mistakes tend to come in bunches where a player with a won position suddenly has to calculate and defend; with the tricky 29. Rxf1! Nxf1 30. Qxf1 Rd8 31. g4 Qg5 32. Qxf3 Qe7 33. Bb5, White retains his advantage), setting up a marvelous finish.
It goes from 1-0 to 0-1 in a heartbeat on 29…f2+ 30. Kh2 Qxd1 31. Nxf8 Qg1+!! (the critical finesse; White still wins after 31…f1=Q 32. Bxf1 Qxf1 33. Ne6) 32. Kg3 f1=N+!, and White resigns. In a final indignity, after 33. Bxf1 Qxe3+ 34. Kh2 Qf2, one of White’s remaining pieces will be lost as well.
(Click on the image above for a larger view of the chessboard.)
Saint Amant – Staunton, Game 9, Match, Paris, November 1843
1. d4 e6 2. c4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 c5 5. e3 Nc6 6. a3 b6 7. Bd3 Bd6 8. cxd5 exd5 9. Bb5 Bb7 10. dxc5 Bxc5 11. b4 Bd6 12. Bb2 O-O 13. Ne2 Qe7 14. O-O Rad8 15. Rc1 Ne5 16. Ned4 Nxf3+ 17. Qxf3 Qe5 18. g3 Ne4 19. Qe2 Qg5 20. f4 Qg6 21. Rc2 Bc8 22. f5 Qh6 23. Bd3 Rfe8 24. Bc1 Bd7 25. Qf3 Ba4 26. Rg2 Rc8 27. Re1 Ng5 28. Qxd5 Nh3+ 29. Kf1 Be5 30. Rge2 Bxd4 31. Qxd4 Red8 32. b5 Qh5 33. g4 Rxd4 34. exd4 f6 35. gxh5 Black resigns.
Armstrong – Rendle, Liverpool Open, Liverpool, England, March 2007
1. d4 f5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bg5 e6 4. Nbd2 Be7 5. c3 b6 6. e3 Bb7 7. Bd3 Ne4 8. Bxe7 Qxe7 9. O-O O-O 10. Qc2 Nxd2 11. Nxd2 Qg5 12. e4 f4 13. f3 e5 14. a4 a5 15. Nc4 d6 16. Rfd1 Nd7 17. dxe5 dxe5 18. Nxa5 Bc8 19. Bc4+ Kh8 20. Nb3 Nf6 21. a5 bxa5 22. Rxa5 Bb7 23. Rxa8 Bxa8 24. Nc5 Qh5 25. Nd7 Bxe4 26. fxe4 Ng4 27. h3 Ne3 28. Qe2 f3 29. Qxe3 f2+ 30. Kh2 Qxd1 31. Nxf8 Qg1+ 32. Kg3 f1=N+ White resigns.
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