Thanks for stopping by at my big Angel-Fire site!!!    .................    Be sure to check back often.   ..........   Drop me a line and tell me what you think!!    ...............................  >> 

 Click  HERE  if you want to purchase a chess book ... or other chess stuff. 
  (Tell them where you found this link.) 

NM Alexander Shashin  -  GM Vicktor Korchnoi

 The game I am going to put here is: 
 NM Alexander Shashin  -  GM Vicktor Korchnoi; 
 Leningrad (City) Championships,  Leningrad/RUS;  1973. 

  Click  HERE  to see this game in a   Java-Script Re-play page.   

Few games are as little known as this. I saw this somewhere many years ago.
I was convinced Korchnoi had won this game, and that the colors reversed had
to be simply a mis-print!  

 The reason: Korchnoi won a whole slew of tournaments in the period 1971 - 1974. 
He was easily in the "Top Ten" in the whole world. He was ... when the above game 
was played ... less than a year away from winning the FIDE Inter-Zonal Tournament. 
 (And he went on to play the match with Karpov that eventually ... 
determined the World Champion.) 

 And just who the heck was A. Shashin anyway? 
(Soltis calls him an obscure Master!) 

***

 This game was annotated  many, many,  many  times in the Soviet press. 
 (Books and magazines.) 

Yet this almost completely unknown player goes on to play what both ... 
GM M. Botvinnik  and  GM A. Karpov  calls:
 "One of the most beautiful games of chess ever played!!!" 
(It is also game # 59 in  GM Andy Soltis's book of  "The 100 Best.") 

(Nov. 2002)  This game has been like a "worry-bone" to me. 

A worry-bone needs some explaining ... people up north may have no idea of what I am talking about. 

A 'worry-bone' is something that keeps coming back to bug you, or something you take out every once in a while to pick at or play with. (Just like a good bone you give to a dog. He keeps coming back to it. Many the time has been when I had thought I had seen the last of a 'worry-bone'  - and the old hound will crawl under the porch and drag it back out - and begin to worry it ... just one more time.) 

This game has been like that to me. I have played with it and pecked at it dozens of times over the years. 
  - - - Many a Sunday afternoon has been spent exploring the fascinating twists and turns of this game. - - - 

I once took a copy of this game - just the base score to New York. (Early 90's - I think.) I gave it to one strong GM and asked his opinion of the game. (I did not tell him who the players were, I just said it was a game between two National Masters.) He said BOTH players played poorly! (I had always thought this to be a great game of chess.) This hurt me somewhat, I hardly looked at this game much for the next 3 or so years. 
(Now I wonder if he even looked at it. I now suspect that he did little than casually look at the game.) 

I had all but forgotten about this game - it had been close to 2 years since I had even looked at it - when Soltis came out with his book, "The 100 Best." In it was my old friend; my 'worry-bone' ... much to my surprise. 

This was at least 2 years ago. And once again, every so often ... I will take out my favorite toy ... and begin to worry it, and pick at it. (Just  ... ... ...  one ... more ... time.) 

After many  YEARS  of analysis ... and annotating this game, I am getting very close to being able to bring 
you this game, DEEPLY annotated ... in TEXT format. Until then, there is a short js-replay version of this 
game available. (See the link at the top of this page.) 

***

April, 2003: This game has not generated the level of excitement that I thought it would, and only a few e-mails. Therefore, until this page finds a sponsor; I am not going to try and go through the many, many, many hours of work it takes to bring the deeply annotated form of this game to an html reality. There is a relatively nice js-replay page, this will have to suffice for now.

SNM A. Shashin (2350) - GM V. Korchnoi (2650) 
[E57]
City Championship 
Leningrad, U.S.S.R; 1973

***

1.d4 Nf6;  2.c4 e6; 3.Nc3 Bb4; 4.e3 0-0; 5.Bd3 c5; 6.Nf3 d5; 7.0-0 Nc6; 8.a3 cxd4;  
9.exd4 Bxc3; 10.bxc3 dxc4; 11.Bxc4 Qa5; 12.Bb2 e5; 13.Re1 Bg4; 14.h3 Bxf3; 
15.Qxf3 Rad8; 16.Ba2 Rd7; 17.Re2 Rfd8; 18.Rae1 exd4; 19.cxd4 Qb6; 20.Qc3 Nxd4; 
21.Re7 Rxe7; 22.Rxe7 Nf5; 23.Rxf7 Rd1+; 24.Kh2 Qd6+; 25.g3 Ng4+; 26.Kg2 Nh4+; 
27.gxh4 Qh2+; 28.Kf3 Qxf2+; 29.Ke4 Qe2+; 30.Kf4 Rf1+; 31.Kg5 h6+; 32.Kg6 Ne5+; 
33.Qxe5 Rg1+; 34.Qg5 Qxb2; 35.Rxg7+,  Black Resigns. 

  1 - 0  

  Copyright (c) {LM} A.J. Goldsby I 

  Copyright (c) A.J. Goldsby, 1995-2008. 
  Copyright © A.J. Goldsby, 2009.  All rights reserved.