welcome everybody to another deep dive into chess history here on the gotham chess youtube channel
today we are taking a look at the american player frank marshall he was the u.s champion for over 20
years and i believe over that same 20-year span in the early 20th century he didn't finish anywhere
below top 6 in any international tournament so a very creative and imaginative player
who frequently liked to partake in the intake of certain liquid substances during his games and
just basically generally have a good time today we are looking at his game number one against
levitsky uh and this one is known as the gold coins game because at the end of it apparently
the move was so gangster that they showered gold coins on the chessboard then i will show you
another part of his genius but i will save you that for part two but time stamps on the video
player let's go we have d4 e6 e4 d5 what's known as a transposition to a french defense you'll
notice that the game actually does not begin with e4 which is normally how the french defense
gets played uh d4 e6 is kind of an invitation for white to go back to the french black play
uh white place knight to c3 this is known as the classical french maybe back then it was known as
the i'm developing a knight to the center of the board french defending my pawn and black plays c5
now it's pretty interesting because nowadays c5 is is known as a sub-optimal move because here
there is just a very quick kind of refutation of this setup where white can play e takes d5 takes
and even take again and basically the problem is that you've just given yourself this weakness
when all the dust settles now i'm sure mr marshall didn't just you know he wasn't
just going to lose this pawn maybe he was going to play d4 and attack the knight maybe he was
going to play knight f6 and kind of wait to recapture the pawn on c5 but uh it's pretty
well known you cannot play c5 against knight c3 but you can play c5 against knight d2 knight d2
in the french is known as the terrace variation or terrace variation here you can play c5 because
the queen no longer you know occupies that that center that center file so c5 knight f3 knight
c6 we have one trade and again dc5 here may be possible but y just develops calmly bishop
e2 knight f6 white castles bishop e7 bishop g5 and short castle so both players have now
more or less completed the kind of necessary uh developing moves they've gotten their knights
out they black still has to get the light sword bishop both kings are castle now at this point
again for white you need to play this in a more positional way you basically need to take on c5
i need to you need to maximize your pressure on this now isolated pawn this would be a position
if white played d takes c5 uh well rather white did play d take c5 tr making it a position where
black has an isolated pawn now when there is an isolated pawn the drawback of it is that it's weak
in all end games actually the guy playing against it in this case levitsky wants to make trades to
then remove the defenders of that pawn whereas frank marshall wants to make this pawn very
strong he wants to reinforce it make the right trades in the position to reinforce that pawn
and oftentimes you can move around an isolated pawn easier does that make sense because you have
more open lines and files because you've traded off its neighboring pawns so there's a little
strategy lesson for you uh here he plays bishop e6 not recapturing yet because he needs to reinforce
this first and white plays knight d4 trying to take advantage of the you know he think about that
he just took now he transfers the knight right to the open square now here again this is a situation
where you you got to think about the future if you snap take here then white develops the queen and
now guards this you know if you go to try to win this pawn back maybe why it's just going to go b4
and all of a sudden you're like running out of moves you're not going to be able to attack that
pawn enough maybe you're going to have to play b6 and create chaos on this side of the board
so for that reason you shouldn't snap take things you have to evaluate what trades are good and bad
and now and now we get knight c bishop c5 inviting the knight to take the bishop now normally
giving up a knight for a bishop without a good reason is is not recommended in this case there
are multiple good reasons to make this trade number one you're no longer isolated in fact your
pawns are together which is what i just said right i know what i'm doing you know prefacing and then
you know intertwining the current position listen it's part of the job but something else happens
very small change but for my beginners and my intermediate players listen up you got to evaluate
what else changes in the position first of all this pawn moved which means this rook is open
if the knight moves in the future right see and this is open so maybe the queen can transfer
out this way that is how the board changes when trades happen but white also sees how the board
changes when trades happen white immediately goes for that weakness and you can't just take that
because you lose your queen losing a queen is bad that's the only thing you learned from this video
mazel tov queen to d6 out of the pin defending the pawn white goes back to h3 because white doesn't
want to get the bishop taken now rook to rook ae8 basically just taking a moment to get the only
piece that has not moved yet to join the party all right get over there stop being a wallflower right
is that what that's called wallflower i don't know it's like the person who
doesn't dance at the party this video is all over the place queen to d2
i now bishop to b4 essentially frank marshall is saying okay i'm gonna pin the knight to the queen
and then i'm gonna play d4 and you're gonna have a problem right so that's why we get bishop takes
f6 an immediate reaction by white but the thing is that pawn trade way back when solidified the
center and now we see the point now the rook is going to get involved now white plays rook to d1
okay queen to c5 increasing the pressure you want to go d4 you see why well you levy you said he was
going to go d4 why didn't he do it because in chess my favorite concept is danger levels the
queen is worth as much as a queen so you can avoid a trade or rather you can avoid material loss
by attacking something of equal value so bishop takes will result in knight takes queen you say
well that's easy i just move my queen then i yeah but then white takes with check because the king
is also worth more than the queen and then i move the queen out of the way so that is why he didn't
rush he plays queen c5 stay patient y'all some of y'all play chess like you're you know late
for a business meeting queen to e2 bishop takes c3 pawn takes c3 queen c3 and now white plays
rook takes d5 nice idea here utilizing this pin on the undefended rook on e8 it's one of the
reasons you don't snap take in fact if he takes here it's white to play and win in three moves
check now black has only one move and now the bishop comes in as the hero
you have to go to the corner and you get mated how quickly a chess game can turn right
i'm winning i'm winning and all of a sudden you want to throw your computer out the window
so rook takes d5 and frank marshall plays knight d4 nice move transferring the knight in remember
the queen has to stay pinning so the queen moves to h5 doesn't stay pinning but you know it attacks
the rook here if the queen had gone here this would have put some pressure on the knight
uh here there's a cool move for black rook f4 guarding the knight by attacking the queen and
you can't take because i would fork you so that's kind of a cool trick but queen to h5
using the concept of danger levels and black plays rook f8 so now again we see the benefit
of fe 6 because the double rooks on the f file pressuring here white plays rook to e5 now here
frank marshall has a choice between two wins win number one is impressive it's you know it's a
normal win it's a nice clean conversion of the position uh but win number two gets gold coins
showered on the board and gets a gotham chess youtube video made about the game 109 years later
because i believe this game was played in 1912. i will be extremely embarrassed that this game
was not played in 1912 it was played in 1912 i just checked my other monitor so clearly
frank marshall was thinking about making it into a chess youtube channel 109 years
uh from then in 1912 when he played this game so the routine win is the very natural rook takes f2
why is that winning because you're threatening to take and if they take you you have a bank you
have a back rank infiltration because this rook covers the f1 square it's called x-ray right it's
not this because that hangs a queen but it's this and it doesn't matter who blocks whether it's the
queen of the rook or this rook it's mate but frank marshall like i said wanted to end up in a youtube
video and played the move rook to h6 that attacks the queen you say what's so good about that the
queen just moves let's say it just goes to g5 well here frank marshall shows you the reason kabam
now frank marshall trust me if he had the option of crazy win uh uh routine
win number one and crazy win number two he's gonna go crazy one number two here's the point
you can't take because i fork everybody frankly i mean my horse just forks everybody so we got rook
to c5 and levitsky must have thought okay i'm gonna attack the queen queen's gonna move maybe
i can play rook c7 and this and this and if you'd like to pause here and find the move although it
was on the thumbnail uh please feel free to do so i'm going to take a sip of my seltzer
ladies and gentlemen one of the coolest moves of all time i present to you queen to g3
i mean what more to say one more to say queen to g3 white resigns mic drop game over here's
why if h takes g3 you've now opened up my rook's vision to the h file and knight to e2 is mate
if f takes g3 you've opened up my rook's vision to your rook knight e2 king h1 and rook f1 is made
okay queen takes potentially the funniest one
knight to e2 king to h1 knight takes and there is a double pin situation
king to g1 knight to e2 check king h1 and you know probably this and we have an end game where i have
an extra night which i trust that will they will win and then last but not least if you don't take
like i don't know you play like here for example then i would play knight to e2 check
and by the way you can't mate me queen h2 is not mate because i'm defending you from the other side
knight to e2 or potentially the cooler one knight to f3 when have we ever seen something like that
king to h1 and rook h2 is checkmate queen h2 is one move more because the rook and the knight
would be integral to the attack i mean have you ever seen something like that no you haven't
that's why you're happy that you clicked on this video and that is why 10 minutes later
you are uh well no actually i was gonna say the same thing never mind but yeah now that was 1912
frank marshall played against and defeated many many strong players and i told you that after
i showed the gold coins game queen g3 by the way there there is one kind of funny thing about this
uh some of them some people say that it's because people wagered on this game so they just threw the
coins i mean i like to believe that a game was so boss that people literally just took coins out and
you know nowadays we all got some you know cryptocurrency debit card what are people gonna
throw their debit cards on the board they're gonna throw their amazon gift cards on the board like
relax so the la you know the the second thing that i wanted to show is uh is a game not really
a game as much as just the playing style of frank marshall that last game was amazing
uh and the move was amazing but i just want to show you the contribution that frank
marshall made to chess which might amaze some of you so frank marshall you know allowed the
uh the ru i always say rue lopez that's not how you say it rule lopez he always allowed
the spanish and one of the open main lines of the spanish involves b5 bishop b3 and castles
and here black plays d6 solidifying the center and then deciding you know are you going to play
uh knight to a5 for example are you going to play uh what's known as like the chagor and the briar
although back then not a lot of them had names right the zaitsev system with bishop to b7 but
frank marshall invented theory in this position which is played to this day over a hundred years
later it's been worked out to be good the best adaptation it had was boris baskey uh the later
part of the 20th century he adapted it and that is the immediate move d5 now according to computers
this is still playable for black and this is the idea takes takes and you sacrifice the pawn
in the center of the board but white has no queen side development right and nowadays people play
c6 and what they do is they move the bishop to attack the king they bring the queen out sometimes
they bring the bishop out and it's pandemonium and like with optimal alpha zero preparation
maybe white has like 0.2 advantage but oftentimes you know the game's end in draws
uh but of course the unprepared opponent not the super grand master will get absolutely destroyed
in the martial positions these positions are a disaster for white if you're unprepared because
you're going to deal with four very angry pieces maybe five very angry pieces further down the line
now back in the day we got knight to f6 but this is kind of the point look we're talking about jose
rajablanca one of the greatest players of that generation arguably in history um and this is
the year 1918. now historically frank marshall did not score very well against cup of blanca
but nobody really did but it shows you look at this look what frank marshall does knight to g4
watch what he does you can't just i mean you can't just take because then i go here
and i hunt you down with my bishops right so kabablanca shows discipline and plays queen f3
and frank marshall says bro i don't care if my rook is hanging i'm gonna hit you with queen f2
so now we get d4 the only move to keep advantage say why isn't he taking the knight he doesn't need
to but frank marshall shoves that knight down his throat now again the only move rookie two
what why can't you just take well then bishop g3 frank marshall is making actually i apologize not
bishop to g3 bishop to g3 is wrong because i just realized wheat takes f7 is mate rook f7 rookie
oh that would have been bad i would have gotten a comment oh oh levy you hung maton 2 here probably
bishop to h2 check i would imagine but then king f1 oh but then you can play this because now this
comes with a check oh god okay frank marshall you're insane i mean are you kidding me are you
kidding me frank marshall so that is why he plays knight f2 and that is why capoblanca doesn't take
it i'm learning as i go here right then he's he sacrifices a bishop right hg2 any any and he
hunts the king he's down two pieces right now and he's hunting the king look he takes the rook uh
and now this is hanging so capablanca has to once again find the only move which is bishop to d2
right we get bishop back to h4 like this is the playing style that this man brought to the game
and in this game kama blanca it took every bit of resistance not to succumb to this pressure
look he is throwing everything at this guy he's just shredding the position open
destroying the safety of the king and camablanca just covers up like this weathers the storm and
he ultimately wins the game you say what's so impressive about this he just lost all his guys
i mean come on show some respect to frank marshall this kind of creative play took like
10 only moves of resistance and we're talking about capoblanca who was the world champion so
this is the what the man brought to the table frank marshall has uh long lasting contributions
to the game of chess in terms of the theory that he brought uh there are many martial gamuts there
is also uh this martial gambit in the uh in in in the queen's uh the queen's gambit d4 d5
c4 e6 and then here when black plays the triangle defense you can play e4 this is known as the
marshall gambit because there are lines where for example after check you lose the pawn on d4 and
that this is very much a frank marshall kind of thing and it's incredible that the stuff that they
played in 1915 1920 1925 has been perfected to this day and is still played very frequently that
always blows my mind because those guys did not have the answers the fact that they were able to
pave the way in frank marshall's case in multiple variations and openings uh for the openings that
we see nowadays especially in an opening like the rui lopez which is just so popular at the
top level incredible just incredible to see uh feel free to read a little bit more
about frank marshall and his you know he brought a real new yorker swagger to the chessboard now
obviously the martial chess club is named after him in new york city uh a club that i've played
many many tournaments at all the way from i don't know i was about seven years old i'm 25 now so
yeah once again hope you are enjoying these dives into chess history and taking a look
at some games as always if there's a player or a game that i have not yet looked at do let me
know in the comments below or upvote some of the other top comments so i do see them i do read them
i frequently take ideas and then ultimately make videos about them as always if you're
new welcome to the channel i've got tons of playlists for you to check out and enjoy chess and
learn i've got courses link is in the description and that's it i will see you in the next video