Tuesday 17 February 2009

Play it again, Humphrey

"Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake" is the correct quotation from the movie "Casablanca", not "Play it again, Sam". This I know as it is Humphrey Bogart week on the classic movie channel I often watch. Yesterday it was "Casablanca" and tonight "The Maltese Falcon".
Of course it is reasonably well known the Humphrey Bogart was a fair chess player. But in my 3,000,000+ game database, I only have 4 games with his name attached to them. There is the well known loss to Paul Limbos (played on the set of The African Queen), as well as a loss in a blindfold game to George Koltanowski. The only wins I have for him are against Lauren Bacall, and a CC game against NN (ie Not kNown). Well I assume it was by Bogart, although unreliable information has a habit of sneaking into large databases. But it is an original game at least (ie not a game played by others and mislabelled), especially after Whites second move.

Bogart,H - N.N. [A45]
corr, 1933

1.d4 Nf6 2.g4 Nxg4 3.f3 Nf6 4.e4 d6 5.Be3 g6 6.Nc3 Bg7 7.Qd2 Nc6 8.0-0-0 0-0 9.Bd3 e5 10.d5 Nb4 11.Bc4 a5 12.a3 Na6 13.h4 Nh5 14.Nge2 f5 15.Bg5 Bf6 16.f4 exf4 17.Nxf4 Nxf4 18.Qxf4 fxe4 19.Bh6 Re8 20.Nxe4 Bg7 21.Bxg7 Kxg7 22.h5 Bf5 23.hxg6 Bxg6 24.Qh6+ Kg8 25.Rdg1 Qe7 26.Rxg6+ hxg6 27.Qh8+ Kf7 28.Rh7# 1-0

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