CWAP Game 4: From-Steinitz, Paris 1867

      Steinitz-From, Paris 1867, isn’t an ideal game for this project, in which I want to provide instructive examples of masters defeating amateurs who are castled behind the K3-KB2-KN3-KR3 pawn structure.

      For one, From was a master (his name is on the promising gambit 1. f4 e5 2. fxe5 d6). Games of master vs. master include few mistakes, and the mistakes are of relatively little consequence. From didn’t handle the sharp opening well, and never reached equal; he didn’t make any amateur mistakes. But bonus feature! Annotated move-by-move from move 7! (That’s the extra attention I wanted to give my writings about the 1931 Capablanca-Euwe match, and I just forgot which project I was working on.)

      Two, the game is sort of over by the time the Common, Weak, Airy Pawn (CWAP) structure arises, though you can see how easily Steinitz tears through it after it forms.

      I could only find a few games where Stenitz played against the subject pawn position. There just aren’t enough master vs. amateur games in circulation. Imagine how much richer chess literature would be if every game in a simultaneous exhibition had to be turned in; there are surely very many instructive and beautiful exhibition games we never saw because the losers didn’t want to show them.

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