either speaking in ignorance of the subject, or is making a wilful
misrepresentation. The likelihood of the remarks of the English
writers producing an erroneous impression arises from their mixing
up these two separate and distinct things: 1st, that at a previous
stage of the game, the London Club had a winning position which they
did not discover, and failed to avail themselves of; and, 2d, that
the Edinburgh Club would not allow them to retract the 27th and
28th moves. These two facts have no longer any possible connection
with each other when it is known that, at the 27th move, the London
Club had ceased to have a winning position, and that the recall
of that move would have been of no use to them. The failure, at a
previous stage of the game, to maintain the winning position which
they had, is simply one among several illustrations which occurred
in the match, of the truth that the London Club, "in the pride and
plenitude of its strength," did not always play as well as it was
possible to have done. How such things show that superiority on
the part of London, which they are brought forward to establish, we
confess ourselves unable to understand, unless we were to adopt the
principle of the _Chess-Players' Chronicle_, that it is the best
players who are most likely to commit errors in conducting a match
by correspondence!!
It seems to be a source of melancholy consolation to the English
players, that their Club committed a "ridiculous and vexatious
blunder." We are sorry that, in our strict regard for truth, we must
deprive them even of that comfort. The losing of the disputed game
was not a ridiculous blunder, however vexatious. On the contrary,
the series of moves by which they lost the chance of winning, was
at first a very promising attack, and had the additional temptation
of appearing brilliant and enterprising. If any chess-player will
set up the men at the 27th move of the London Club, or glance at
the diagram given in Mr Staunton's periodical for May 1850, he will
see that nothing but the utmost skill and caution on the part of
Edinburgh could have successfully warded off the attack. The London
Club had not contemplated the defence which they met with; and if,
in these circumstances, they were seduced into an ingenious but
unsound attack, it may be conceded that they manifested want of
circumspection, an important qualification in a chess-player; but
they cannot be accused of committing a ridiculous blunder. They
talk of having "thrown away" a rook. They did no such thing. The
rook was played not by mistake, but for the very purpose of being
taken in the course of their dashing but unsuccessful attack. And in
Mr Lewis's analyses, it will be found that many of his methods of
winning, at previous stages of the game, involve this very sacrifice
of the rook.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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