Ukraine has long been a source of great chess and great chess players. As such, many famous chess games have been an all Ukrainian affair. Tonight’s winning chess move comes from one such game.
Ukrainian-American chess Grandmaster Sam Palatnik played a beautiful winning move over fellow Odessa native Grandmaster Efim Geller at the URS Team Cup in 1980.
The prelude to this winning move came when GM Geller, who was black, uncharacteristically grabbed a poisoned pawn with 13… Bxg2.GM Palatinik responded with 14. Rg1.
GM Geller retreats his bishop to c6 and now white has a extraordinarily beautiful game winning move.
White to move and mate in 5 from Semon Palatnik vs Efim Geller, 1980 URS Team Cup in Rostov-on-Don.
Chris Torres is a nationally renowned scholastic chess coach working in the San Francisco Bay Area. His classes have attracted players of strengths ranging from rank beginners to world champions. A chess professional since 1998, Chris is widely recognized as one of the main driving forces behind the explosion in popularity and sudden rise in quality of scholastic chess in California. Chris Torres served as the President of the Torres Chess and Music Academy from 2005-2020 and currently is recognized as a correspondence chess master with the United States Chess Federation. Since 1998 Chris Torres has taught 6 individual national champions as well as led multiple school teams to win national championship titles. In addition, Chris Torres has directed and taught at 10 different schools which have been California State Champions at chess. In 2011 and 2012, several former and current students of Chris Torres have been selected to represent the United States at the World Youth Chess Championships. Mr. Torres’ hobbies include playing classical guitar and getting his students to appear on the national top 100 chess rating lists.
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