Unpublished Files: The LA Chess Swindle 1


Many of our regular JudeAcers.com readers know that Jude contributed annotations and short stories to many chess publications before the dawn of the internet.

Many of his articles were published worldwide and in a variety of chess periodicals of the day. Some magazines, columnists and newspapers did not publish his articles or columns for space reasons or lost the manuscripts. Fortunately, many of Jude’s original, unpublished works have been preserved.

Here is one such short, entertaining article for your enjoyment. We present it for the first time unedited just as Jude wrote it 23 years ago.

The Louisiana Chess Swindle of the Century

by Jude F. Acers

Sudden Death Playoff: New Orleans, World FIDE Match, June 27, 1991, 10:15 p.m.

According to FIDE rated master Brent Inman, of Mobile, Ala. (winner of the first international Paul Morphy Memorial Tournament) many players and computers had actually arrived at the Acers line of play with 3…Rg2 but both humans and computers dismissed it because it loses a rook.

According to Acers his miracle idea came in the middle of the night by the clock radio after many hours of getting nowhere fast. Acers credited a New Orleans attorney William Waguespack III with entire competitive strategy and “especially the presentation of the trap at the chessboard which Waguespack does as well as anyone in chess history.”

Waguespack was the legendary player who drew by stalemate an entire queen and rook down versus Fenner Parham, Jr., of Mississippi just days after Parham had defeated (Bobby) Fischer in a simultaneous game in 1964!

White: Charles Galloway, Baton Rouge, LA Black: Jude Acers, New Orleans, LA

Acers to move…

DIAGRAM

Sudden death playoff, world rated… Actual playing time: 40 seconds

1… Rf5+

2.Kg3 Rg5+

3.Kh4 Rg2!!

4.Rc8+ Kg7

5.Rg8+? Kh6!! Draw

Galloway - Acers copy


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