Today’s winning chess move involves a way to collect your opponent’s queen on just the fifth move! Unfortunately, you are not likely to find an opponent falling for this famous trap in the Damiano Variation of Petrov’s Defense. Still, as the great California chess ambassador George Koltanowski shows us, it’s an opening trap worth knowing. In fact, this trap is so easy to use, you can play it blindfolded just like Grandmaster George Koltanowski did in his 1960 blindfold exhibition given at the Mechanics’ Institute in San Francisco.
George Koltanowski playing chess while blindfolded.
On 4 December 1960, in San Francisco, California, Koltanowski played 56 consecutive games blindfolded at a rate of ten seconds per move. George went undefeated with a score of fifty wins and six draws. The position below comes from his blindfold victory over Karl Diller. Mr. Diller (Black) has just played 4… Nd6. Koltanowski’s fifth move was a crushing blow which caused Karl Diller to resign immediately. What was George Koltanowski’s (White’s) winning move?
What is white’s winning move (Koltanowski – Diller, San Francisco, 1960)?
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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