Learning from the Old Masters

While I was visiting the FIDE Office in Athens, I had the opportunity to pick up some older issues of the FIDE Trainers Manuals. They had plenty to spare, although sadly this was due to them being returned to the office by National Federations who either did not collect them, or more commonly, failed to maintain a valid postal address.
While flicking through them I saw and interesting article by Georg Mohr called "Learning from the Old Masters". In part it was a tribute to Milan Vidmar Sr, and also a description of the first Budapest Gambit played in an important game. Interestingly it was a friend of Vidmar's, Abonyi, who suggested he play it against Rubinstein, but this suggestion came only half an hour before the game was due to start. The players also did not have a chess board to hand, so Abonyi had to describe the opening to Vidmar. But as you can see, Vidmar picked up enough information from Abonyi's description to score a spectacular win over Rubinstein.


Rubinstein,Akiba - Vidmar,Milan Sr [A52]
Berlin Berlin, 1918

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Bf4 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bb4+ 6. Nc3 Qe7 7. Qd5 Bxc3+ 8. bxc3 Qa3 9. Rc1 f6 10. exf6 Nxf6 11. Qd2 d6 12. Nd4 O-O 13. e3 Nxd4 14. cxd4 Ne4 15. Qc2 Qa5+ 16. Ke2 Rxf4 17. exf4 Bf5 18. Qb2 Re8 19. Kf3 Nd2+ 20. Kg3 Ne4+ 21. Kh4 Re6 22. Be2 Rh6+ 23. Bh5 Rxh5+ 24. Kxh5 Bg6+ 0-1