EG39 - Gady Costeff

Rb8 (If 2. g7 Bh6, or if 2. Bd5Bd4). The win .. Rb8 is availabletill move 6. Black can alsowin by 1. . . Bc5 or draw by 4. ..Rxe4 5. h8Q Bxg5, Most of this iseliminated if wB is moved to d5,but 1. .'. Rb8 2. Bg8 Bc5 is stilltoo strong.No. 2091: P. Joita. Bl wins by 2... Rxh7 3. Bxa8 Kc2!, threateningmate, 4. Ka4 Kxd3 5. Bhl Kc4 6.Ka5(3) Re7 and bPh2 soon costsa bishop.A SOURCE IDENTIFIEDDavid Hooper, researching at theBritish Museum (Colindale)Newspaper Library for the bookTHE UNKNOWN CAPABLANCA(to be published by Batsford)which he is writing in collaborationwith Dale Brandreth (USA),stumbled on the attached diagram.It, and the full text which I havetranslated, appeared in the "fifthsupplement" to the Berlin newspaperVOSSISCHE ZEITUNG, onSunday, 26th July 1914, in the regularchess column edited by Dr.Emanuel Lasker.Endgame, composed byLasker and Capablanca"Endspiel, komponiert vonLasker und Capablanca"White moves and wins 4-f-4"The above endgame owes itsexistence to an accident. A weekago the Cuban master camethrough Berlin. I was about totravel to Mannheim for the Congressof the German Chess Federation,where the question of thefounding of an international chessfederation was to be discussed,and this matter was also of interestto Capablanca. We thereforearranged to meet each other. Wedid meet, and we were able toconfirm that our points of viewagreed in important respects. Inthe meantime our encounter in theCafe Kerkau had attracted attentionand a chess enthusiast tookthe opportunity to offer a prizefor ten quick games ("Schnellpartien")between us. A conditionwas to be that no move wasto take longer than five seconds.Despite this speedy pace weplayed quite passable games, Capablancain particular committinghardly any errors even under thisconstraint ("Insbesondere bezeichnetesich Capablancas Spielauch bei dieser Fixigkeit nochdurch Mangel an Fehlern aus"),while I was the one to go astraymore often. The result was Z.6V2, L. 3V2. In one of the gan. sC. had won very prettily. Tneidea that C. had hatched on thisoccasion was afterwards a littlestylised ("ein wenig stilisiert") byus both, and in this way the aboveendgame was created.The piece is almost nothing butthought ("fast ganz und gar Gedanke").If you hit upon the basicidea, the solution is easy,otherwise it appears to be quiteinsoluble. It goes 1. Sxc7 Sxc7 2.Ra8f (and not Kxc7, which givesstalemate) 2. .. Sxa8 3. Kc8 andwins along well-known lines".A photocopy of the column is infront of me as I type.It is worth noting that this was180