Siegbert Tarrasch

Siegbert Tarrasch (March 5, 1862 – February 17, 1934) was one of the strongest chess players of the late 19th century and early 20th century. He took Wilhelm Steinitz's ideas (control of the center, bishop pair, space advantage) to a higher level of refinement. He emphasized piece mobility much more than Steinitz did, and disliked cramped positions, saying that they "had the germ of defeat".

Famous Tarrasch Combinations

Black seems to be holding here (at least against immediate catastrophe), because the black queen guards against Qb7+ (followed by Kxa5 Ra1#), while the black rook on c8 defends against Rxc5#. Tarrasch played the ingenious interference move 31.Bc7! (known as a Plachutta interference because the pieces both move orthogonally). This blocks off both defences, and whatever piece captures becomes overloaded. That is, if 31...Rxc7, the rook is overloaded, having to look after both the key squares, since the Q is blocked from b7. So White would play 32.Qb7+ Rxb7, deflecting the rook from defence of c5, allowing 33.Rxc5#. But if Black plays instead 31...Qxc7, the Q blocks off the R's defence of c5 and becomes overloaded: 32.Rxc5+ Qxc5 deflects the queen from defence of b7, allowing 33.Qb7+ Kxa5 34.Ra1#. Black actually resigned after this move.

Related Topics:
Plachutta - Interference - Orthogonal

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Tarrasch did not play most of this gamehttp://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1283394 very well, and his opponent had the better of it for a long time. But the game is redeemed by the following startling combination:

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34.Rxd4 seems obvious, because 34...cxd4 allows 35.Bxd4 winning the Q. But Black has a seemingly strong counterattack which had to be foreseen ...

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34...Nxg3 35.Nxg3 Rxg3+ 36.hxg3 Rxg3+ 37.Kf1! Rxd3 and now the startling 38.Rg4!! with devastating threats of 39. Rf8+ mating and Bxe5 not to mention cxd3 to follow. Black resigned.

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