Thursday 11 June 2009

Taking the king for a walk

A couple of weeks ago I posted a club game where the White king went for a wander across the board. Recently I purchased a book on the best games of Paul Keres (one of my favourite players) and was reminded of the fact that Keres was also fond of the wandering king. A lot of his early career games were played by correspondence, and often essayed the Steinitz variation of the Kings Gambit. Here is a win against Soller from 1933, where his king deliberately goes to e2 on move 4, before heading for c1.

Keres,P - Soller [C33]
CC 1933

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nc3 Qh4+ 4.Ke2 d6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Nd5 Kd7 7.Nxf4 Nf6 8.d3 g5 9.Nh3 h6 10.Nf2 Nc6 11.Be3 d5 12.Kd2 Qh5 13.Be2 dxe4 14.Nxg4 Nxg4 15.Bd4 e3+ 16.Kc1 Rh7 17.Rf1 Qg6 18.Nh4 gxh4 19.Bxg4+ Ke8 20.Bxe3 Ne7 21.a4 h5 22.Bf3 Bh6 23.Qd2 Nc6 24.Be4 Bxe3 25.Qxe3 Qe6 26.Re1 Rh6 27.Bxc6+ 1-0

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