16 May 2006

Alekhine's annotated brilliancies

Alekhine left a rich legacy of annotated games. Among his most popular books are 'My Best Games of Chess' 1908-1923 and 1924-1937. While thumbing through the two books, I noticed that quite a few games had received brilliancy prizes. Here is a list of those games...

1-46, BP, 1916 Moscow, Alekhine - Zubarev
1-55, BP, 1921 Triberg, Alekhine - Bogoljubow
1-56, BP, 1921 Budapest, Alekhine - Sterk
1-62, BP, 1922 Pistyan, Tarrasch - Alekhine
1-65, BP, 1922 Pistyan, Alekhine - Wolf
1-80, BP, 1923 Karlsbad, Alekhine - Rubinstein
1-81, BP, 1923 Karlsbad, Grunfeld - Alekhine
2-10, BP, 1926 Semmering, Davidson - Alekhine
2-11, BP, 1926 Semmering, Rubinstein - Alekhine
2-14, BP, 1926 Dresden, Rubinstein - Alekhine
2-16, BP, 1927 New York, Alekhine - Marshall
2-17, BP, 1927 Kecskemet, Alekhine - Asztalos
2-25, BP, 1929 Bradley Beach, Alekhine - Steiner
2-38, BP, 1930 Hamburg ol, Stahlberg - Alekhine
2-51, BP, 1932 London, Alekhine - Koltanowski
2-86, BP, 1936 Nottingham, Alekhine - Alexander
2-88, QP, 1936 Nottingham, Tartakower - Alekhine

...The first column is the book (1 = 1908-1923, 2 = 1924-1937) and the game number from the book. The second column is the prize won by the game (BP = Brilliancy Prize, QP = Quality Prize). The first item in the list (1-46, BP, ...) means that game no.46 in 'My Best Games 1908-1923', played by Alekhine and Zubarev at Moscow 1916, won a brilliancy prize.

Since brilliancy prizes are usually awarded to tactical games and Alekhine was a first rate tactician, there should be more than a few interesting positions in these games. I'm going to look at some of them in future blog posts.

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