The Queen on g3

The game, move by move

A French Sicilian

1. 1. e4 King’s pawn
2. 1… e6 e6
3. 2. d4 d4
4. 2… d5 d5 — a French, from a Sicilian move order Black plays c5 next and gets a position from neither opening. Marshall spent his life doing this.
5. 3. Nc3 The knight out
6. 3… c5 c5, at once
7. 4. Nf3 The second knight
8. 4… Nc6 And Black’s
9. 5. exd5 The pawns come off on d5
10. 5… exd5 Recaptured
11. 6. Be2 Be2
12. 6… Nf6 The knight out
13. 7. O-O White castles
14. 7… Be7 Be7
15. 8. Bg5 The bishop to g5
16. 8… O-O And Black castles
17. 9. dxc5 The pawn taken on c5
18. 9… Be6 Be6, holding d5
19. 10. Nd4 The knight to d4, at the bishop
20. 10… Bxc5 The bishop takes the pawn back

Both bishops off

1. 11. Nxe6 The knight takes e6
2. 11… fxe6 Recaptured with the f-pawn Which opens the f-file for a rook. Both black rooks use it before the end.
3. 12. Bg4 The bishop to g4, at e6
4. 12… Qd6 The queen to d6
5. 13. Bh3 The bishop to h3 Out of the way of nothing, and it is the piece a rook takes on move twenty-three to clear h3 for the queen’s diagonal. It never moves again.
6. 13… Rae8 The rook to e8
7. 14. Qd2 The queen to d2
8. 14… Bb4 The bishop to b4, at the knight
9. 15. Bxf6 The bishops come off on f6
10. 15… Rxf6 The rook recaptures Onto f6, and it goes f6, h6 and then takes on h3. Three moves with one rook, and each of them is part of the last move.
11. 16. Rad1 The rook to d1
12. 16… Qc5 The queen to c5
13. 17. Qe2 The queen to e2
14. 17… Bxc3 The bishop takes c3

A knight to d4, a rook to h3

1. 18. bxc3 Recaptured with the b-pawn
2. 18… Qxc3 The queen takes c3 A pawn, and the queen is now loose in White’s position with nothing near her. She has three more moves in this game and the last one is the famous one.
3. 19. Rxd5 The rook takes d5
4. 19… Nd4 Nd4 — the knight that does the work It is never taken and it never moves again. From d4 it covers e2 and f3 — and Ne2 is the fork that answers every capture on g3.
5. 20. Qh5 The queen to h5, at h7
6. 20… Ref8 The second rook to f8
7. 21. Re5 The rook to e5
8. 21… Rh6 The rook to h6, coming across
9. 22. Qg5 The queen to g5, at the rook
10. 22… Rxh3 The rook takes the bishop on h3 Clearing h3, and offering a rook. Taking it is answered by the move Marshall has been playing for.
11. 23. Rc5 The rook to c5, at the queen
12. 23… Qg3 Qg3 — and White resigned The queen steps to g3, where the pawn on h2, the pawn on f2 and the white queen on g5 can all take her, and nothing defends her. Every one of the three captures loses — two to the knight on d4 arriving at e2 with a fork, the third to the h-file opening onto a bare king. There are forty-one legal moves in this position; not one of them saves the game, and Levitsky played none of them.