Alekhine – Reshevsky

Alekhine plays White against the defense named after him! But there is little of interest in this game until move 32.

Metadata » Click to open.

Date: 1937.??.??
Location: ?
Tournament: Kemeri
Round:
Opening:
Submitted by:
Published on: February 9, 2020

[Event "Kemeri"] [Site "?"] [Date "1937.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Alekhine"] [Black "Reshevsky"] [Result "1-0"] [PlyCount "73"] 1.e4 Nf6 {Alekhine plays White against the defense named after him! But there is little of interest in this game until move 32.} 2.e5 Nd5 3.Nf3 d6 4.d4 Bg4 5.c4 Nb6 6.Be2 dxe5 7.Nxe5 Bxe2 8.Qxe2 Qxd4 9.O-O N8d7 10.Nxd7 Nxd7 11.Nc3 c6 12.Be3 Qe5 13.Rad1 e6 14.Qf3 O-O-O 15.Bxa7 Qa5 16.Bd4 Qf5 17.Qg3 e5 18.Be3 Bb4 19.Na4 Ba5 20.f4 Bc7 21.b3 f6 22.fxe5 Qe6 23.h3 Rhg8 24.Bd4 Nxe5 25.Qc3 Nd7 26.c5 Rge8 27.b4 Nb8 28.Nb6+ Bxb6 29.cxb6 Qxa2 30.Qg3 Rd7 31.Bc5 Qf7 32.Ra1 {Alekhine seizes the open file, threatening to move the rook to the 8th rank, pinning and winning the Black knight.} Qg6 {Black responds by trying to exchange queens and eliminate the threat.} 33.Qh2 {White preserves his queen -- and the threats!} Re5 {By placing this rook on the diagonal, blocking the White queen from acting on the b8 square, Reshevsky thinks that he has solved his problems. But the back rank has become weak. How can White exploit this?} 34.Ra8 {First he pins the knight.} Rd2 {Black fails to appreciate the danger, though it was probably too late to save the game anyway. Can you find the winning move?} 35.Rxb8+ {This sacrifice of a rook for a knight sets up a mating net.} Kxb8 {We can now see that the Black king would be checkmated if we could get a rook or queen to the 8th rank. This can be accomplished by means of a sacrifice. See if you can find it.} 36.Qxe5+ fxe5 37.Rf8+ {and Black resigned because mate is inevitable.} 1-0