
Romanovsky the Great
Fame and fortune are very fickle, unpredictable realities. Recently I was looking at Peter Romanovsky's book:
.....and upon looking at one or two of his games, was reminded of what a great player he was!
Yet I had never heard of him, until Simaginfan published a blog post about him:
https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/romanovsky-revisited-tragic-scenes-from-a-wonderful-book
and that motivated me to buy the book. It is a pedagogical masterpiece! Romanovsky is one of the great Teachers of the game. After looking at his games, I realize he was World Champion material. And his commentaries and explanations are so lucid, your rating is guaranteed to go up, just because your understanding of chess goes up after reading his book.
What motivated to write this short blog post is a game in which he beat Bogoljubov with the black pieces in 1925, which was the same year Bogoljubov won the great Moscow International Tournament!
Here is the standings table for this tournament:
Not only did Romanovsky beat Bogoljubov with the Black pieces, he beat him in 21 moves! A miniature against the hottest player in the world that year!
The game was played in Leningrad, some time before the Moscow tournament. In the Moscow tournament, they played a short draw (20 moves).
Here is the game, with commentary by GM Peter Romanovsky (FIDE only gave him the IM title, so I am giving him the GM title, 'cause he deserves it!)
Enjoy!
Peace.
P.S.- I am inspired to add the following game: