Blass - Czerniak, 1935 Maccabiah

Moshe Blass was the first unofficial champion of Palestine, winning the 1935 Maccabiah tournament, as we have seen elsewhere in this blog. (The first official champion was Czerniak, in 1936).

This time -- a game where he defeated Czerniak in a nice kingside attack from that tournament (April, 1935). While the game is not up to modern standards, it's nice to see how Blass exploits Czerniak's mistakes. It was, by the way, Czerniak's one "off" tournament in Palestine in the 1930s, between winning the 1934 Jerusalem championship and the 1936 Palestine championship. (Source: Haaretz's chess column, ed. Moshe Marmorosh, April 12th, 1935.)

Again: the whole purpose of this blog is to tell people things they are not likely to otherwise know. Blass had already been a player in the Olympiad (representing Poland) in 1928. But his 1928 games are easier to find, as opposed to the obscure Maccabiah seven years later.

Blass, Moshe – Czerniak, Moshe [D30]

2^nd Maccabiah, Tel Aviv, April 1935

[Analysis: Deep Fritz 8 (30s)]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e3 e6 5.Bd3 Be7 6.0–0 Nbd7 7.b3 0–0 8.Nbd2 Re8 9.Bb2 Bd6 10.Ne5 c5 11.f4 b6 12.Rf3 Bb7 13.Rg3 Nf8 14.cxd5 exd5 15.Ndf3 [Fritz prefers 15.Ng4 immediately] h6!? 16.dxc5 Bxc5 17.Nd4 Bxd4 18.Bxd4 Ne6 19.Bb2

19… d4 [19...Kf8!?] 20.Ng4 [Now White is winning -- Fritz] Ne4 [‘??’ – Fritz.] 21.Nxh6+ Kf8 22.Bxe4 Bxe4 23.Ba3+ Nc5 24.exd4 gxh6 25.dxc5 Qe7 26.Qd4 1–0

Black's 19th and 20th move are typical "Czerniak moves": possibly objectively bad, even losing, but Czerniak as usual does everything to gain counterplay and activity. Didn't work this time.