Shakespeare, Borges and ‘Plaskett’s Immortal’

Just before the 1986 world championship in London I was sitting in the living room of our Kensington flat, writing the programme notes for the forthcoming clash between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov. At one point, while writing, I dropped my pen. It was a British Airways cross between a ballpoint and felt tip. It had a clip on it, so could not roll far. I was sitting on a low sofa, so the maximum falling distance was somewhat less than two feet, if that.

I bent down to pick up my dropped pen, but I could not immediately see it. I then searched the carpet and under the sofa (remember the pen’s clip would have prevented it from rolling) but I still could not find it. Then Annette (my wife) and I tore our flat apart looking for it. But it simply wasn’t there.

When we moved house four years later, we totally emptied the apartment, but the missing pen never turned up. Somewhere between my hand and the floor it had vanished into a mini itinerant black hole, disappeared into another time zone, was accidentally transported by space aliens or…?

To this day I have no explanation for what happened. This incident has led to my strong suspicion that anything is possible and, as celebrated quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg (originator of the Uncertainty Principle) once said: not only is the universe stranger than we think, it is stranger than we can think.  Or as William Shakespeare had put it, a mere three centuries previously, there are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.

While seeking a game of epic Shakespearean dimension, to mirror the  seeming  quarkiness of Quantum Theory, I came across this death-defying feat by Grandmaster James Plaskett — “Plaskett’s Immortal”, no less. It is certainly stranger than one might be able to imagine and completely undreamt of in any philosophical system of which I am aware. Plaskett’s wife, the ethereal poetess Fiona Pitt Kethley, has been the chief campaigner in exposing the iniquities of the notorious Brian Eley. Plaskett is also a relentless hunter in the quest to track and unravel the arcane world of coincidence, no less strange than the Eleusinian Mysteries of Quantum science. Readers of TheArticle may have noticed James Plaskett’s essay on “the Coughing Major”, published here earlier this week.

James Plaskett

Speaking of coincidences, Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges left us with these beautiful words:

“Every person who passes through our existence is unique. They always leave a bit of themselves and take a bit of us. Some will take a lot, but there will be those who leave us with nothing. This is the clear proof that two souls do not meet by chance.”

‘The Book of Sand’, 1975

“There is no such thing as coincidence, only destiny. We only find what we seek, and we seek it deep within our hearts.” I would encourage those not familiar with my  columns on Borges to do so. Like James Joyce (who originally coined the term “quark” in Finnegan’s Wake) Borges speaks as a modern Shakespeare:

Two questions posed by Borges.

Jorge Luis Borges and the heresiarchs of the 64 squares.

And now, a quantum leap into a strange world, a world of charm, where we can move up to the bottom and down to the top, and all in a presentation without spin!

James Plaskett vs Tony Miles

Lugano Open,  1986

English Opening

The following is a much analysed game, with commentaries having been provided by many top players. Some further references follow the game text, but in these opening comments, I reflect on the nature of the following analytic brief. Plaskett had used the computer programme Stockfish 14 to check some of his top quality post-analysis. The following has utilised Stockfish 16 40MB NNUE.

1.c4 e5 2. e3 d6 3. Nc3 g6 4. g3 Bg7 5. Bg2 Ne7 6. d4 O-O 7. Nge2 Nd7 8. O-O 

31 years later, Plaskett had the black pieces in a game against Nigel Short, who avoided the volatile explosive variations that follow. He played the pragmatic 8. a4, which the computer thinks is completely level. Six moves later, Short was better and had a winning game after 20 moves, with capitulation following on move 42.

8… f5 9. dxe5 dxe5 10. b3 c6

The text move cedes ground to White. Black is equal after, 10… e4 11. Ba3 Re8 12. Qc2 Nc6 13. Nf4 Nce5 14. Nb5 a6 15. Nd4 Qf6 16. Nd5 Qd8 17. Nf4 Qf6 etc., when neither side can make progress.

11.Ba3 Qe8 12. f4 e4 13. Qd6 Rf7 14. Rad1 Nf8 15. Rd2 

11.Qd8 was probably rejected as it supercharges Black’s development after either 15… Bd7 or …Be6, and when White captures the queen, Black recaptures with his rook, completing his development and constructing a compact fortress around his king. However, the engine recommends here, 15. g4!

15… Ne6 16. Bh3

Threatening 17. Nxe4.

16… g5 17. fxg5

Plaskett prefers a spiky provocation (he describes it as “fun”), to the more placid 17. Rdd1, which is the primary choice of the engine, but which Plaskett dismisses.

17… Ng6

17… Bf8 allows 18. Nxe4! Ng6 (18… fxe4 19. Bxe6) and now White only has 19. Bxf5!. But that takes us back into the game. (Plaskett)

18.Bxf5 Bf8

If 18… Nxg5 19. Bxg6 Rxf1+ 20. Kxf1 hxg6 21. Qe7 Qxe7 22. Bxe7, after 22… Nf3 23. Rd1 Kf7 24. Bc5 b6 25. Bd4 Nxh2+ 26. Kg2, neither side has any significant advantage. Plaskett examines variations after 19. Bxg6, before dismissing various lines as producing no more than equality. In the most robust of these, after: 19. Bxg6, Black has … hxg6 20. Qe5 Rxf1 + 21. Kxf1 Qf7+ 22. Kg1 Bxa3 23. Nxe4, Plaskett scrutinises 23… Be7 and …Qf5, and notes that Stockfish 14 prefers …Qc7, with equality in all three.

19Nxe4

Plaskett makes the bold decision to sacrifice his queen. So complex are the variations that form the myriad continuations of numerous and complex lines,  that such a decision must have been of, as Plaskett describes, a “speculative” nature. Nor was it too late to seek quieter waters: 19. Bxg6 Rxf1+ 20. Kxf1 hxg6 21. Qe5 Qf7+ 22. Kg1 Bxa3 23. Nxe4 Qf5 24. Qxf5 gxf5 25. Nf6+ Kf7 26. h4 Be7

19… Bxd6 20. Nxd6 Qd8

The game listing on chessgames.com (link follows after this text) has chat after the game score. In it, Plaskett accepts that the queen sacrifice should not have won. It seems, with the benefit of hindsight and a strong engine, that Black should preferred 20… Qe7, when after 21. Nxf7 Qxa3 22. Nh6+ Kg7 23. h4 Qb4 24. Rdd1 Qe7 25. Kg2 Ne5, it would seem that Black can survive White’s epic onslaught.

21.Rd3 Rxf5 22. Nxf5 Qxg5 

22… Qxd3! 23. Nh6+ Kh8! (but absolutely not 23… Kg7?? 24. Rf7+ Kh8 25. Bb2+ Ng7 26. Bxg7 checkmate) 24. Bb2+ Ng7 25. Nf7+ Kg8 26. Nh6+ Kh8 etc. But in playing for the win, and declining a virtual draw, Black signs his own death warrant. An additional queen is no more than chaff in the wind.

23.h4 

23… Qh5

It is quite unfair on human protagonists to have their performance in the practical struggle benchmarked against the remote calculations of the silicon warrior, yet in highly charged tactical encounters, games are decided on single moves. 22… Qxg5 handed White a critical advantage, but the text pushes that over the edge.

Slightly less unsavoury is, 23… Nxh4 24. Ne7+ Kg7 25. e4 Ng6 26. bb2+ Ne5 27. Nf5+ Kf6 28. Rd6 b5 29. Nf4 bxc4 30. Rxc6 Qg4, and Black can still pray for a commensurate blunder, but bad things loom: 31. Rd6 cxb3 (31… h5 32. Nxe6 Bxe6 33. Ne3+ Ke7 34. Nxg4 Kxd6 35. Ba3+ Kc7 36. Nxe5 cxb3 37. axb3) 32. axb3 a5 33. Nxe6 Bxe6 34. Nh6+ Ke7 35. Nxg4 Kxd6 36. Nxe5 Bxb3 37. Rc1 and White’s piece and pawn to the good, should prove decisive in the endgame.

24.g4 Qxg4+ 25. Neg3 Qh3 26. Nh6+ Kg7 

Avoids putting it on a plate after: 26… Kh8?? 27. Bb2+ Ne5 28. Bxe5+ Ng7 Rf8 checkmate.

27.Nhf5+?? 

Even though the doubly negative punctuation would normally be reserved for an outright losing move, in this context, White hands back a certain win, and gifts Black full equality. After the accurate 27. Ngf5+ Kf6 28. Bb2+ Ne5 29. e4 Qxf1+ 30. Kxf1 a5 31. Ng4+ Kf7 32. Nxe5+ Ke8 33. Rg3 Kd8 34. Rg8+, it was all over.

27… Kf6??

Black has lost the plot. I have no record of the times at this stage, with another 13 moves due before time control was reached, but, 27… Kf7 28. Nh6+ Ke8 29. Nh5 c5 30. Nf6+ Kf8 31. Nh5+ Ke8 32. Nf6+ Kf8 33. Nh5+ Ke8, draws.

28.Nh5+ Ke5 

Now 28… Kf7 29. Nh6+ Ke8 30. Nf6 is checkmate.

29.Nfg3 Nef8

Black is finished, but could postpone the inevitable after either 29… Qxf1 + or …Nc5. After this ultimate blunder White can select a mate in four.

30.Bb2+ Ke6 31. Ng7+ Ke7 32. Ba3+Black resigns 1-0

without waiting to see 32… c5 33. Bxc5 checkmate

In such an epic encounter, it would be customary to leave the final word to the victor, who wrote the history. Plaskett summarised his “Immortal” in his characteristically succinct manner: “The nature of our game is such that situations sometimes arise in which the possibilities border on the threshold of the calculable. Top players navigate through by calculation mixed with judgement, experience and intuition. And, as Tibor Karolyi once accurately observed ‘They are also lucky.’”

Ray’s 206th book, “Chess in the Year of the King”, written with Adam Black, appeared late last year. Now  his 207th, “Napoleon and Goethe: The Touchstone of Genius” is available from Amazon and Blackwell’s.

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