Poisoned Pawns and 'Tern'-Based Chess
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on Wed, 04/01/2009 at 5:28am.
In The Court Jester, Danny Kaye found himself forced to fight to the death against an evil black knight. To help him out the heroine poisoned one of the two goblets from which the adversaries would drink and warned him by saying, “The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle, but the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.” As you would expect, the rhyme was changed, the goblets were changed, and Danny became very mixed up before the fight took place. Click on the link if you want to see how it all came together.
In chess, the poison pellet often comes in the form of an innocent-looking pawn, and it's possible to win a pawn but lose the game. Gambit openings are built around this idea.
My personal rule-of-thumb is never to pinch pawns before my pieces are developed and my king is safely castled. Of course, if I can do so without losing time, or if there is a secondary threat—e.g. the capturing piece may be able to mount a further attack—then I'm going to grab it.
Poisoned Pawns at Reykjavik
Bobby Fischer was willing to endure cramped, defensive positions to steal a pawn and won many games that way—but even he could sometimes come unstuck.
In Game 7 at Reykjavik Spassky opened with 1.e4 for the first time in the match, Fischer replied with a Sicilian, and they played the “Poisoned Pawn” variation. Fischer took the pawn, extracted his queen from trouble and then, on move 12, Spassky gave up a second pawn.
Svetozar Gligoric in his book of the match said that “Spassky's apparently dangerous attack evaporated after a few moves and resulted in an inferior end game, a pawn down. Spassky was lost again!”
Fischer had every right to be pleased with the way they both played but even he was capable of relaxing too soon and he allowed Spassky back into the game and it was eventually Fischer who was forced to find a perpetual check to salvage the draw.
Expecting to repeat his earlier play Fischer again took the pawn in Game 11—he wasn't going to relax too early a second time—but Spassky had done some homework and this time the pawn was really poisoned. Spassky exchanged his dark-square bishop for the f6 knight on move 10 and by move 22 Fischer must have realised the game was over. Perhaps he only played on for another nine moves so that he wouldn't have to lose the shortest game of the match.
On a wing and a pawn
Last week, holidaying at beautiful Mollymook Beach, I spent some time watching two crested terns hunting. They would hover for a while, sight their prey, then plummet down to capture just one small fish from a shoal, before doing it all again. They were not only eating well, they were obviously enjoying the sport. I realised as I watched that their attack might well transfer to the chess board.
In the final round of the 2004 NSWCA Grade Matches I played for Rooty Hill's B-team in the Under 1800 division. Since our A-team were expected to be the stronger it was a little surprising to reach the final round leading the competition—and four points clear of our nearest rival. Theoretically they could have caught us but to do so they needed to win 4-0 and we needed to lose by the same margin. We felt safe but nobody took the task lightly. Half an hour into the match our #2 player won a piece and offered his relieved opponent a draw. It was all over, the pressure was off, and we won 3-1.
With hindsight my own game was reminiscent of those terns feeding. I'd hover for a while, dive on a pawn, hover again to keep an eye on any possible counter-attack, then dive in to seize another. I picked up the first pawn on move 32, the second on 34, the third on 42, and yet another on 46. Black resigned a few moves later.
This gives a new meaning to tern-based chess I suppose but there are worse ways to play the game. Select your target, manoeuvre into position, dive in for a quick snack, then regroup before swooping in again. Of course, you need to be alert—the prey has very sharp teeth, and I've seen a few one-legged terns who paid a high price for being careless.
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