Soon after Carl Schlechter's early death the wish arose to organise a memorial tournament in his honour. In 1923 several important chess masters met at the Café Universale and played such a tournament that ended on 4 December with a victory of Savielly Tartakower. Michael Ehn invites you to travel back in time to Vienna in the early 1920s. | Photo: The building with the former Café Universale | Photos: Archive Michael Ehn
In the recent 2023 World Championship Match, Ding Liren won Game 12 against Ian Nepomniachtchi using the Colle System to tie the score at six. The match remained tied after fourteen games, and Ding went on to beat Nepomniachti in the rapid tie-breaks to become the 17th World Champion. With the Colle System utilized in the World Championship Match, it is a fitting moment to remember the life and career Edgard Colle.
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After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Black can spoil White s intentions to play the Ruy Lopez, the Scotch Game, the Giuoco Piano or the Evans Gambit by answering with 2. . d6. In a first article on this topic I described that the former World Champion Alexander Alekhine (1892 - 1946) played the Philidor Defence several times and was very successful with it. Since the article met with lively interest and some ChessBase readers also provided interesting hints, I would like to go into some more details and present some more exciting games with this opening.
Edward Lasker vs Alekhine - a positional masterpiece
The 15-year-old Alexander Alekhine played an interesting game against Edward Lasker in Dusseldorf (Germany) in 1908. Again he chose the Hanham variation, in which Black defends e5 by 3. . Nd7 instead of giving up the the centre by exchanging pawns or risking Philidor s hazardous counterattack 3. . f5?!. Through skilful manoeuvring Alekhine reduced the white KB to an ext