****** THE CACHE IS NOT AT THE POSTED COORDINATES ******
Recently I attended a well-organized Community Celebration Event which introduced young chess players and geocachers to each other's interests. A student of the host invited me to play a game which I accepted even though I hadn’t played in quite some time.
In my early years learning chess, I tried to memorize a handful of opening positions but soon discovered the complexity of the game made this impossible. There are 20 possible moves for White in the first move. After White and Black each make one move, there are 400 possible positions. After three moves each, there are 8,902 positions. For four moves, the number of positions jump to 197,281. Because of this, I limited my openings which sharpened my game by knowing what countermoves to expect.
I like playing the English Opening. Bobby Fischer used it only twice in serious competition prior to “shocking the chess world” against Boris Spassky in Game 6 of the 1972 World Championship. The game has been described as "A Symphony of Placid Beauty" where Fischer's unexpected pawn opening and brilliant endgame play impressed Spassky so much he actually stood after his defeat and applauded his opponent.
Playing White, my first move was the same as Fischer's: c4
I was surprised to see my young opponent respond with: … g6
More puzzling countermoves followed. The game continued as:
2. Nc3 Bg7 3. e3 e6 4. d4 d6 5. h4 a6 6. h5 Nc6
I was perplexed by what I saw but quickly realized he had cleverly disguised his moves to set up an aggressive counterattack to the English Opening … the Great Snake Defense (appropriately named due to the pawns creating a snake-like chain on Black’s side of the board). I knew I had to raise my concentration level a bit more to defeat this young Magnus Carlsen!
The middlegame battle went back and forth with several double attacks and exchanges. Each move was weighed by their chess piece value vs. their advantageous board position. An early endgame position below was finally reached where I saw several "Mate in Two" moves and possibly another way to solve for checkmate!
The closing moves I chose to play gave me a win with a "Dovetail Mate":
27. Nd5+ Ke6 28. Qd7#
Reviewing the board, there may be more than one way to reach the final.
"Don't move until you see it!"
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