Pages

Thursday, April 2, 2015

The Imitation Game and Botvinnik

I watched The Imitation Game last evening on Amazon Prime. Turing's co-worker, Hugh Alexander was, as mentioned early in the film, a multiple British chess champion. What isn't as well known is that Alexander continued working for MI6 long after the end of WWII and was not allowed to travel to international chess tournaments behind the Iron Curtain for fear that he would be captured by the KGB.

But, Alexander did play against and defeat the future Chess World Champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, in a UK vs. USSR radio match in 1946. Printed below is that game.  Botvinik plays the French Defense and loses in spectacular fashion.

[Event "ENG-URS radio"]
[Site "Soviet Union"]
[Date "1946.??.??"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Alexander, Conel Hughes"]
[Black "Botvinnik, Mikhail"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C18"]
[PlyCount "81"]
[EventDate "1946.??.??"]
[EventType "team"]
[EventRounds "2"]
[EventCountry "URS"]
[Source "ChessBase"]
[SourceDate "1999.07.01"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 Ne7 7. Qg4 cxd4 8.
Qxg7 Rg8 9. Qxh7 Qa5 10. Rb1 Qxc3+ 11. Bd2 Qc7 12. f4 Nbc6 13. Nf3 Bd7 14. Ng5
Rxg5 15. fxg5 O-O-O 16. Qxf7 Qxe5+ 17. Kd1 Nf5 18. g6 Ne3+ 19. Kc1 Qe4 20. Bd3
Qxg2 21. Re1 Ne5 22. Qf4 Nf3 23. Re2 Qh3 24. Bxe3 e5 25. Qf7 dxe3 26. g7 Qg4
27. h3 Qg1+ 28. Kb2 Qg3 29. Bg6 Nd4 30. g8=Q Rxg8 31. Qxg8+ Kc7 32. Qh7 Kd6 33.
Bd3 e4 34. Qh6+ Kc7 35. Rxe3 Qe5 36. Ka2 Nf5 37. Qg5 Be6 38. Be2 d4+ 39. Reb3
b5 40. Qd2 d3 41. Bg4 1-0

No comments:

Post a Comment