May 05, 2025
[Game log #90]
Here's the game between the author and Kisha from the International chess day special. Ironically enough, it takes place a month after the date in-universe. The game is actually the infamous 9-move mate game that was played between Fabiano Caruana and Alireza Firouzja in the Crunchlabs Masters 2024. In the game, Firouzja ended up falling for what many dub, "the 100 year old trick" which allowed Caruana to achieve a winning position as white. Firouzja resigned after realizing this.
I decided to extend the game and show one of the possible ways to mate, notably what happens if black takes both rooks. As for why the game is called "the 100 year old trick", that's due to the same rook sacrifice plan being used, albeit in a slightly different way, in a game between Carl Schlechter and Julius Perlis in 1911. Funnily enough, this also invokes some word of advice from the series itself as Mimoko made it a point that sometimes capturing a hanging rook could be bad.
[Event "N/A"]
[Site "Tokyo, Japan"]
[Date "2024.08.20"]
[Round "N/A"]
[White "The author"]
[Black "Kisha Shinbun"]
[Result "1-0"]
1. c4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. g3 Bg4 4. Ne5 Bf5 5. Qb3 Qb6 6. cxd5 Qxb3 7. axb3 Be4 8. dxc6 Bxh1 9. Rxa7 Rxa7 10. c7 Ra8 11. c8=R# 1-0
