Don't Believe Everything You Read

Black to Move

r1bq1rk1/pppn1pp1/8/3pP1NQ/1b1P4/8/PP3PPP/R1B2RK1 b - - 0 13

The position above is from Game 19 of Euwe and Meiden's Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur. White, the master, sacrificed his bishop on h7; he just moved Qh5. Black to move; what would you do?

The amateur chose Re8 in the game, which led to a forced mate in 5; Euwe and Meiden comment that Re8 is "the only move"; Fritz begs to differ.

Answer:
[
It turns out that Nf6 saves the game for Black, though Fritz still rates White better by a pawn or so. I can see how this was missed; sacrifice the Knight to clear the way for the bishop, sort of a reloader...
]

It was funny how I ran across this. I took the white pieces against Fritz after the bishop sacrifice, and things didn't work out as well as they did in the book.

It just goes to show this game isn't easy if you're not Fritz.

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That said, I like this book; it's another good collection of heavily annotated games for the beginner. It differs from Logical Chess: Move by Move in that the games are between an anonymous master and an anonymous amateur player, along the lines of Silman's Amateurs Mind -- the idea being that amateurs will learn how to take advantage of opportunities in their own games. Early games feature the master against beginners making obvious mistakes; later games have the master exploiting more subtle errors by strong amateurs.

I enjoy the style of annotation -- authoritative and calm -- and as a bonus, one game features the master playing the Allgaier Gambit!