Mir Sultan Khan
Encyclopedia
Malik Mir Sultan Khan was the strongest chess
master
of his time from Asia. This manservant from British India traveled with Colonel Nawab Sir Umar Hayat Khan
("Sir Umar"), his master, to Britain, where he took the chess world by storm. In an international chess career of less than five years (1929–33), he won the British Championship
three times in four tries (1929, 1932, 1933), and had tournament and match results that placed him among the top ten players in the world. Sir Umar then brought him back to his homeland, where he gave up chess and returned to his humble life. David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld call him "perhaps the greatest natural player of modern times". Although he was one of the world's top players in the early 1930s, FIDE, the World Chess Federation, never awarded him any title (Grandmaster or International Master).
, British India, now part of Pakistan, where he learned Indian chess
from his father at the age of nine. Under the rules
of that game at the time, the laws of pawn promotion
and stalemate
were different, and a pawn
could not move two squares on the first move. By the time he was 21 he was considered the strongest player in the Punjab. At that time, Sir Umar took him into his household with the idea of teaching him the European version of the game and introducing him to European master chess. In 1928, he won the all-India championship, scoring eight wins, one draw
, and no losses. From this particular point of view, Sultan Khan's transition to western chess is similar to that of Philipp Stamma; who only after his arrival to Europe got acquainted with the western rules.
In the spring of 1929, Sir Umar took him to London, where a training tournament was organized for his benefit. Due to his inexperience and lack of theoretical knowledge
, he did poorly, tying for last place with H. G. Conde, behind William Winter
and Frederick Yates
. After the tournament, Winter and Yates trained with him to help prepare him for the British Chess Championship
to be held that summer. To everyone's surprise, he won. Soon afterward, he went back to India with Sir Umar.
Returning to Europe in May 1930, Sultan Khan began an international chess career that included the defeats of many of the world's leading players. His best results were second to Savielly Tartakower
at Liège 1930; third at Hastings
1930-31 (scoring five wins, two draws, and two losses) behind future World Champion Max Euwe
and former World Champion José Raúl Capablanca
; fourth at Hastings 1931-32; fourth at Bern 1932 (ten wins, two draws, three losses); and a tie for third with Isaac Kashdan
at London 1932, behind World Champion Alexander Alekhine
and Salo Flohr
. Sultan Khan again won the British Championship in 1932 and 1933. In matches he defeated Tartakower in 1931 (four wins, five draws, and three losses) and narrowly lost to Flohr in 1932 (one win, three draws, and two losses).
Sultan Khan thrice played first board for England at Chess Olympiad
s. At Hamburg 1930
, there was still no rule that teams must put their best player on the top board, and some teams, unconvinced of his strength, matched their second or even third-best player against him. He scored nine wins, four draws, and four losses (64.7%). At Prague 1931
, he faced a much stronger field. He had an outstanding result, scoring eight wins, seven draws, and two losses (67.6%). This included wins against Flohr and Akiba Rubinstein
, and draws with Alekhine, Kashdan, Ernst Grünfeld
, Gideon Ståhlberg
, and Efim Bogolyubov. At Folkestone 1933
, he had his worst result, an even score, winning four games, drawing six, and losing four. Once again, his opponents included the world's best players, such as Alekhine, Flohr, Kashdan, Tartakower, Grünfeld, Ståhlberg, and Lajos Steiner
.
In December 1933, Sir Umar took him back to India. In 1935, he won a match against V. K. Khadilkar, yielding just one draw in ten games. After that, he was never heard of by the chess world again. Reuben Fine
wrote of him:
, also a servant of Sir Umar, had won the British Ladies Championship in 1933 by a remarkable three-point margin, scoring ten wins, one draw, and no losses. She said that Sultan Khan, upon his return to India, felt as though he had been freed from prison. In the damp English climate, he had been continually afflicted with malaria
, colds, influenza, and throat infections, often arriving to play with his neck swathed in bandages. Sir Umar died in 1944, leaving Sultan Khan a small farmstead, where he lived for the rest of his life. Ather Sultan, his eldest son, recalled that he would not coach his children at chess, telling them that they should do something more useful with their lives.
Sultan Khan died of tuberculosis
in Sargodha
, Pakistan (the same district where he had been born) on April 25, 1966.
calculation, his playing strength during his five-year peak was equivalent to an Elo rating of 2530. Another assessment system, Chessmetrics
, calculates that his highest rating was 2699, number seven in the world, in November 1932. His highest rank was number six in the world, albeit with a slightly lower rating, in May 1933, behind only Alekhine, Kashdan, Flohr, Capablanca, and Euwe, and ahead of such giants as Aron Nimzowitsch
and Akiba Rubinstein
.
Today FIDE, the World Chess Federation, often awards the Grandmaster title to players with Elo ratings of 2500 and above. In 1950, when FIDE first awarded the titles of International Grandmaster and International Master, Sultan Khan had not played for 15 years. Although FIDE awarded titles to some long-retired players who had distinguished careers earlier in their lives, such as Rubinstein and Carlos Torre, it never awarded any title to Sultan Khan.
Hooper and Whyld write of him:
against Capablanca at Hastings 1930-31:
1.Nf3 Nf6 2.d4 b6 3.c4 Bb7 4.Nc3 e6 5.a3 d5 6.cxd5 exd5 7.Bg5 Be7 8.e3 O-O 9.Bd3 Ne4 10.Bf4 Nd7 11.Qc2 f5 12.Nb5 Bd6 13.Nxd6 cxd6 14.h4 Rc8 15.Qb3 Qe7 16.Nd2 Ndf6 17.Nxe4 fxe4 18.Be2 Rc6 19.g4 Rfc8 20.g5 Ne8 21.Bg4 Rc1+ 22.Kd2 R8c2+ 23.Qxc2 Rxc2+ 24.Kxc2 Qc7+ 25.Kd2 Qc4 26.Be2 Qb3 27.Rab1 Kf7 28.Rhc1 Ke7 29.Rc3 Qa4 30.b4 Qd7 31.Rbc1 a6 32.Rg1 Qa4 33.Rgc1 Qd7 34.h5 Kd8 35.R1c2 Qh3 36.Kc1 Qh4 37.Kb2 Qh3 38.Rc1 Qh4 39.R3c2 Qh3 40.a4 Qh4 41.Ka3 Qh3 42.Bg3 Qf5 43.Bh4 g6 44.h6 Qd7 45.b5 a5 46.Bg3 Qf5 47.Bf4 Qh3 48.Kb2 Qg2 49.Kb1 Qh3 50.Ka1 Qg2 51.Kb2 Qh3 52.Rg1 Bc8 53.Rc6 Qh4 54.Rgc1 Bg4 55.Bf1 Qh5 56.Re1 Qh1 57.Rec1 Qh5 58.Kc3 Qh4 59.Bg3 Qxg5 60.Kd2 Qh5 61.Rxb6 Ke7 62.Rb7+ Ke6 63.b6 Nf6 64.Bb5 Qh3 65.Rb8 1-0
Sultan Khan won this crushing victory as Black
against the Russo-Belgian player Victor Soultanbeieff
at Liège 1930:
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 b6 3.c4 e6 4.g3 Bb7 5.Bg2 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Bxd2+ 7.Nbxd2 O-O 8.O-O c5 9.Qc2 Nc6 10.dxc5 bxc5 11.e4 Qc7 12.Rfe1 d6 13.Rac1 h6 14.a3 Nd7 15.Qc3 a5 16.Nh4 g5 17.Qe3 Qd8 18.Nhf3 Qe7 19.h3 Rab8 20.b3 Ba8 21.Nb1 Nde5 22.a4 Nxf3+ 23.Bxf3 Nd4 24.Bd1 f5 25.exf5 Rxf5 26.Rc3 Rbf8 27.Rf1 Rf3! 28.Bxf3 Rxf3 0-1
In this game from Liège 1930, long-time American champion Frank Marshall (Black) tries to add to his long list of brilliancies, but Sultan Khan defends coolly. His biographer calls his play "a wonderful example of sang-froid under pressure".
1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Qxd4 Nc6 4.Qe3 Nf6 5.Nc3 Be7 Coles writes, "Sultan has unwittingly chosen one of the more hazardous openings against a master with a record of brilliancies in open games, and as will be seen Marshall is psychologically unable to resist a try for a brilliancy against this inexperienced opponent." 6.Bd2 d5 7.exd5 Nxd5 8.Nxd5 Qxd5 9.Ne2 Bg4 10.Nf4 Qd7 11.f3 O-O-O 12.O-O-O Avoiding the complications of 12.fxg4 Bh4+. Rhe8?! Marshall insists on a piece sacrifice rather than retreating the bishop. 13.fxg4 Bb4 14.Qf2! Not falling for 14.Qb3?? Qxd2+! 15.Rxd2 Re1+ and mate next. Bc5 15.Qf3! Allowing the queen to interpose on d1 if Black plays the queen sacrifice. Re3 16.Qd5! Not 16.Bxe3?? Bxe3+, winning. Now 16...Qxd5 17.Nxd5 Rxd5 18.Bc4! leaves White an exchange ahead. Qe7 17.Qf5+ Kb8 18.Nd3 Rdxd3 "Tantamount to resignation." 19.Bxd3 Nd4 20.Qxh7 a6 21.Bxe3 Qxe3+ 22.Kb1 Nc6 23.Qe4 Qh6 24.c3 Bd6 25.h4 Ne5 26.Bc2 Qe6 Black lost on time. 1-0
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
master
Chess master
A chess master is a chess player of such skill that he/she can usually beat chess experts, who themselves typically prevail against most amateurs. Among chess players, the term is often abbreviated to master, the meaning being clear from context....
of his time from Asia. This manservant from British India traveled with Colonel Nawab Sir Umar Hayat Khan
Malik Umar Hayat Khan
Major General Sir Malik Mohammed Umar Hayat Khan GBE KCIE MVO , was a soldier of the Indian Empire, one of the largest landholders in the Punjab, and an elected member of the Council of State of India...
("Sir Umar"), his master, to Britain, where he took the chess world by storm. In an international chess career of less than five years (1929–33), he won the British Championship
British Chess Championship
The British Chess Championship is organised by the English Chess Federation. There are separate championships for men and women. Since 1923 there have been sections for juniors, and since 1982 there has been an over-sixty championship. The championship venue usually changes every year and has been...
three times in four tries (1929, 1932, 1933), and had tournament and match results that placed him among the top ten players in the world. Sir Umar then brought him back to his homeland, where he gave up chess and returned to his humble life. David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld call him "perhaps the greatest natural player of modern times". Although he was one of the world's top players in the early 1930s, FIDE, the World Chess Federation, never awarded him any title (Grandmaster or International Master).
Chess career
Sultan Khan was born in PunjabPunjab (British India)
Punjab was a province of British India, it was one of the last areas of the Indian subcontinent to fall under British rule. With the end of British rule in 1947 the province was split between West Punjab, which went to Pakistan, and East Punjab, which went to India...
, British India, now part of Pakistan, where he learned Indian chess
Indian chess
Indian chess is the name given to the version of the game as played in India in the 18th and 19th centuries. Chess originated in India, and the more ancient forms are known as Chaturanga, and spread to the west via Persia in the 7th Century. There are several such variations, all quite similar to...
from his father at the age of nine. Under the rules
Rules of chess
The rules of chess are rules governing the play of the game of chess. While the exact origins of chess are unclear, modern rules first took form during the Middle Ages. The rules continued to be slightly modified until the early 19th century, when they reached essentially their current form. The...
of that game at the time, the laws of pawn promotion
Promotion (chess)
Promotion is a chess rule describing the transformation of a pawn that reaches its eighth rank into the player's choice of a queen, knight, rook, or bishop of the same color . The new piece replaces the pawn on the same square and is part of the move. Promotion is not limited to pieces that have...
and stalemate
Stalemate
Stalemate is a situation in chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check but has no legal moves. A stalemate ends the game in a draw. Stalemate is covered in the rules of chess....
were different, and a pawn
Pawn (chess)
The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...
could not move two squares on the first move. By the time he was 21 he was considered the strongest player in the Punjab. At that time, Sir Umar took him into his household with the idea of teaching him the European version of the game and introducing him to European master chess. In 1928, he won the all-India championship, scoring eight wins, one draw
Draw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
, and no losses. From this particular point of view, Sultan Khan's transition to western chess is similar to that of Philipp Stamma; who only after his arrival to Europe got acquainted with the western rules.
In the spring of 1929, Sir Umar took him to London, where a training tournament was organized for his benefit. Due to his inexperience and lack of theoretical knowledge
Chess theory
The game of chess is commonly divided into three phases: the opening, middlegame, and endgame. As to each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame, there is a large body of theory as how the game should be played...
, he did poorly, tying for last place with H. G. Conde, behind William Winter
William Winter (chess player)
William Winter was a British chess player. He won the British Open Chess Championship in 1934 and the British Chess Championship in 1935 and 1936. An acolyte of Siegbert Tarrasch, his sound, strategic play enabled him to defeat a number of the world's top players, including David Bronstein, Aron...
and Frederick Yates
Frederick Yates
Frederick Dewhurst Yates was an English chess master who won the British Chess Championship on six occasions...
. After the tournament, Winter and Yates trained with him to help prepare him for the British Chess Championship
British Chess Championship
The British Chess Championship is organised by the English Chess Federation. There are separate championships for men and women. Since 1923 there have been sections for juniors, and since 1982 there has been an over-sixty championship. The championship venue usually changes every year and has been...
to be held that summer. To everyone's surprise, he won. Soon afterward, he went back to India with Sir Umar.
Returning to Europe in May 1930, Sultan Khan began an international chess career that included the defeats of many of the world's leading players. His best results were second to Savielly Tartakower
Savielly Tartakower
Ksawery Tartakower was a leading Polish and French chess Grandmaster. He was also a leading chess journalist of the 1920s and 30s...
at Liège 1930; third at Hastings
Hastings International Chess Congress
The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the...
1930-31 (scoring five wins, two draws, and two losses) behind future World Champion Max Euwe
Max Euwe
Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...
and former World Champion José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play...
; fourth at Hastings 1931-32; fourth at Bern 1932 (ten wins, two draws, three losses); and a tie for third with Isaac Kashdan
Isaac Kashdan
Isaac Kashdan was an American chess grandmaster and chess writer. Kashdan was one of the world's best players in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He was twice U.S. Open champion...
at London 1932, behind World Champion Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
and Salo Flohr
Salo Flohr
Salomon Mikhailovich Flohr was a leading Czech and later Soviet chess grandmaster of the mid-20th century, who became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s. His name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, slippers and eau-de-cologne...
. Sultan Khan again won the British Championship in 1932 and 1933. In matches he defeated Tartakower in 1931 (four wins, five draws, and three losses) and narrowly lost to Flohr in 1932 (one win, three draws, and two losses).
Sultan Khan thrice played first board for England at Chess Olympiad
Chess Olympiad
The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.-Birth of the Olympiad:The first Olympiad was unofficial...
s. At Hamburg 1930
3rd Chess Olympiad
The 3rd Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between July 13 and July 27, 1930, in Hamburg, Germany...
, there was still no rule that teams must put their best player on the top board, and some teams, unconvinced of his strength, matched their second or even third-best player against him. He scored nine wins, four draws, and four losses (64.7%). At Prague 1931
4th Chess Olympiad
The 4th Chess Olympiad, organized by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between July 11 and July 26, 1931, in Prague, Czechoslovakia...
, he faced a much stronger field. He had an outstanding result, scoring eight wins, seven draws, and two losses (67.6%). This included wins against Flohr and Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein was a famous Polish chess Grandmaster at the beginning of the 20th century. He was scheduled to play a match with Emanuel Lasker for the world championship in 1914, but it was cancelled because of the outbreak of World War I...
, and draws with Alekhine, Kashdan, Ernst Grünfeld
Ernst Grünfeld
----Ernst Franz Grünfeld , an Austrian grandmaster and writer specializing in opening theory, was for a brief period after the First World War one of the strongest chess players in the world....
, Gideon Ståhlberg
Gideon Ståhlberg
Anders Gideon Tom Ståhlberg was a Swedish chess grandmaster.He won the Swedish Chess Championship of 1927, became Nordic champion in 1929, and held it until 1939....
, and Efim Bogolyubov. At Folkestone 1933
5th Chess Olympiad
The 5th Chess Olympiad, organized by the FIDE and comprising an open and women's tournament, as well as several events designed to promote the game of chess, took place between July 12 and July 23, 1933, in Folkestone, United Kingdom...
, he had his worst result, an even score, winning four games, drawing six, and losing four. Once again, his opponents included the world's best players, such as Alekhine, Flohr, Kashdan, Tartakower, Grünfeld, Ståhlberg, and Lajos Steiner
Lajos Steiner
Lajos Steiner was a Hungarian–born Australian chess master.Steiner was one of four children of Bernat Steiner, a mathematics teacher, and his wife Cecilia,, and a younger brother of Endre Steiner...
.
In December 1933, Sir Umar took him back to India. In 1935, he won a match against V. K. Khadilkar, yielding just one draw in ten games. After that, he was never heard of by the chess world again. Reuben Fine
Reuben Fine
Reuben Fine was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the early 1930s through the 1940s, an International Grandmaster, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology.Fine won five medals in three chess Olympiads. Fine won the U.S...
wrote of him:
The story of the Indian Sultan Khan turned out to be a most unusual one. The "Sultan" was not the term of status that we supposed it to be; it was merely a first name. In fact, Sultan Khan was actually a kind of serf on the estate of a maharajah when his chess genius was discovered. He spoke English poorly, and kept score in Hindustani. It was said that he could not even read the European notations.
After the tournament [the 1933 Folkestone Olympiad] the American team was invited to the home of Sultan Khan's master in London. When we were ushered in we were greeted by the maharajah with the remark, "It is an honor for you to be here; ordinarily I converse only with my greyhounds." Although he was a MohammedanIslamIslam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, the maharajah had been granted special permission to drink intoxicating beverages, and he made liberal use of this dispensation. He presented us with a four-page printed biography telling of his life and exploits; so far as we could see his greatest achievement was to have been born a maharajah. In the meantime Sultan Khan, who was our real entrée to his presence, was treated as a servant by the maharajah (which in fact he was according to Indian law), and we found ourselves in the peculiar position of being waited on at table by a chess grand master.
Later life
Miss FatimaMiss Fatima
Miss Fatima was an Indian-British Indian female chess master.Miss Fatima won the British Women's Chess Championship at Hastings in 1933. Earlier, she took 12th place at London 1932 . She was a friend of maharaja Sir Umar Hayat Khan...
, also a servant of Sir Umar, had won the British Ladies Championship in 1933 by a remarkable three-point margin, scoring ten wins, one draw, and no losses. She said that Sultan Khan, upon his return to India, felt as though he had been freed from prison. In the damp English climate, he had been continually afflicted with malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
, colds, influenza, and throat infections, often arriving to play with his neck swathed in bandages. Sir Umar died in 1944, leaving Sultan Khan a small farmstead, where he lived for the rest of his life. Ather Sultan, his eldest son, recalled that he would not coach his children at chess, telling them that they should do something more useful with their lives.
Sultan Khan died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
in Sargodha
Sargodha
Sargodha is a city in the Sargodha District of Punjab province, Pakistan.Sargodha is located in the northwest of Pakistan. It is the eleventh largest city of Pakistan and also known as Pakistan's best citrus-producing area. It is an agricultural trade centre with various industries...
, Pakistan (the same district where he had been born) on April 25, 1966.
Chess strength
In his brief but meteoric career, Sultan Khan rose to the top of the chess world, playing on even terms with the world's best players. By Arpad Elo'sÁrpád Élo
Arpad Emrick Elo is the creator of the Elo rating system for two-player games such as chess. Born in Egyházaskesző, Austro-Hungarian Empire, he moved to the United States with his parents as a child in 1913.Elo was a professor of physics at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was...
calculation, his playing strength during his five-year peak was equivalent to an Elo rating of 2530. Another assessment system, Chessmetrics
Chessmetrics
Chessmetrics is a system for rating chess players devised by Jeff Sonas. It is intended as an improvement over the Elo rating system.-Implementation:...
, calculates that his highest rating was 2699, number seven in the world, in November 1932. His highest rank was number six in the world, albeit with a slightly lower rating, in May 1933, behind only Alekhine, Kashdan, Flohr, Capablanca, and Euwe, and ahead of such giants as Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch was a Russian-born Danish unofficial chess grandmaster and a very influential chess writer...
and Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Rubinstein
Akiba Kiwelowicz Rubinstein was a famous Polish chess Grandmaster at the beginning of the 20th century. He was scheduled to play a match with Emanuel Lasker for the world championship in 1914, but it was cancelled because of the outbreak of World War I...
.
Today FIDE, the World Chess Federation, often awards the Grandmaster title to players with Elo ratings of 2500 and above. In 1950, when FIDE first awarded the titles of International Grandmaster and International Master, Sultan Khan had not played for 15 years. Although FIDE awarded titles to some long-retired players who had distinguished careers earlier in their lives, such as Rubinstein and Carlos Torre, it never awarded any title to Sultan Khan.
Hooper and Whyld write of him:
When Sultan Khan first travelled to Europe his English was so rudimentary that he needed an interpreter. Unable to read or write, he never studied any books on the game, and he was put into the hands of trainers who were also his rivals in play. He never mastered openingsChess openingA chess opening is the group of initial moves of a chess game. Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings as initiated by White or defenses, as created in reply by Black. There are many dozens of different openings, and hundreds of named variants. The Oxford Companion to...
which, by nature empirical, cannot be learned by the application of common sense alone. Under these adverse circumstances, and having known international chess for a mere seven years, only half of which was spent in Europe, Sultan Khan nevertheless had few peers in the middlegame, was among the world's best two or three endgame players, and one of the world's best ten players. This achievement brought admiration from Capablanca who called him a genius, an accolade he rarely bestowed.
Notable games
Probably Sultan Khan's most famous game is his win as WhiteWhite and Black in chess
In chess, the player who moves first is referred to as "White" and the player who moves second is referred to as "Black". Similarly, the pieces that each conducts are called, respectively, "the white pieces" and "the black pieces". The pieces are often not literally white and black, but some...
against Capablanca at Hastings 1930-31:
1.Nf3 Nf6 2.d4 b6 3.c4 Bb7 4.Nc3 e6 5.a3 d5 6.cxd5 exd5 7.Bg5 Be7 8.e3 O-O 9.Bd3 Ne4 10.Bf4 Nd7 11.Qc2 f5 12.Nb5 Bd6 13.Nxd6 cxd6 14.h4 Rc8 15.Qb3 Qe7 16.Nd2 Ndf6 17.Nxe4 fxe4 18.Be2 Rc6 19.g4 Rfc8 20.g5 Ne8 21.Bg4 Rc1+ 22.Kd2 R8c2+ 23.Qxc2 Rxc2+ 24.Kxc2 Qc7+ 25.Kd2 Qc4 26.Be2 Qb3 27.Rab1 Kf7 28.Rhc1 Ke7 29.Rc3 Qa4 30.b4 Qd7 31.Rbc1 a6 32.Rg1 Qa4 33.Rgc1 Qd7 34.h5 Kd8 35.R1c2 Qh3 36.Kc1 Qh4 37.Kb2 Qh3 38.Rc1 Qh4 39.R3c2 Qh3 40.a4 Qh4 41.Ka3 Qh3 42.Bg3 Qf5 43.Bh4 g6 44.h6 Qd7 45.b5 a5 46.Bg3 Qf5 47.Bf4 Qh3 48.Kb2 Qg2 49.Kb1 Qh3 50.Ka1 Qg2 51.Kb2 Qh3 52.Rg1 Bc8 53.Rc6 Qh4 54.Rgc1 Bg4 55.Bf1 Qh5 56.Re1 Qh1 57.Rec1 Qh5 58.Kc3 Qh4 59.Bg3 Qxg5 60.Kd2 Qh5 61.Rxb6 Ke7 62.Rb7+ Ke6 63.b6 Nf6 64.Bb5 Qh3 65.Rb8 1-0
Sultan Khan won this crushing victory as Black
White and Black in chess
In chess, the player who moves first is referred to as "White" and the player who moves second is referred to as "Black". Similarly, the pieces that each conducts are called, respectively, "the white pieces" and "the black pieces". The pieces are often not literally white and black, but some...
against the Russo-Belgian player Victor Soultanbeieff
Victor Soultanbeieff
Victor Ivanovich Soultanbéieff was a Belgian chess master.-Life:...
at Liège 1930:
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 b6 3.c4 e6 4.g3 Bb7 5.Bg2 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Bxd2+ 7.Nbxd2 O-O 8.O-O c5 9.Qc2 Nc6 10.dxc5 bxc5 11.e4 Qc7 12.Rfe1 d6 13.Rac1 h6 14.a3 Nd7 15.Qc3 a5 16.Nh4 g5 17.Qe3 Qd8 18.Nhf3 Qe7 19.h3 Rab8 20.b3 Ba8 21.Nb1 Nde5 22.a4 Nxf3+ 23.Bxf3 Nd4 24.Bd1 f5 25.exf5 Rxf5 26.Rc3 Rbf8 27.Rf1 Rf3! 28.Bxf3 Rxf3 0-1
In this game from Liège 1930, long-time American champion Frank Marshall (Black) tries to add to his long list of brilliancies, but Sultan Khan defends coolly. His biographer calls his play "a wonderful example of sang-froid under pressure".
1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Qxd4 Nc6 4.Qe3 Nf6 5.Nc3 Be7 Coles writes, "Sultan has unwittingly chosen one of the more hazardous openings against a master with a record of brilliancies in open games, and as will be seen Marshall is psychologically unable to resist a try for a brilliancy against this inexperienced opponent." 6.Bd2 d5 7.exd5 Nxd5 8.Nxd5 Qxd5 9.Ne2 Bg4 10.Nf4 Qd7 11.f3 O-O-O 12.O-O-O Avoiding the complications of 12.fxg4 Bh4+. Rhe8?! Marshall insists on a piece sacrifice rather than retreating the bishop. 13.fxg4 Bb4 14.Qf2! Not falling for 14.Qb3?? Qxd2+! 15.Rxd2 Re1+ and mate next. Bc5 15.Qf3! Allowing the queen to interpose on d1 if Black plays the queen sacrifice. Re3 16.Qd5! Not 16.Bxe3?? Bxe3+, winning. Now 16...Qxd5 17.Nxd5 Rxd5 18.Bc4! leaves White an exchange ahead. Qe7 17.Qf5+ Kb8 18.Nd3 Rdxd3 "Tantamount to resignation." 19.Bxd3 Nd4 20.Qxh7 a6 21.Bxe3 Qxe3+ 22.Kb1 Nc6 23.Qe4 Qh6 24.c3 Bd6 25.h4 Ne5 26.Bc2 Qe6 Black lost on time. 1-0
External links
- Edward WinterEdward Winter (chess historian)Edward Winter is an English journalist, archivist, historian, collector and author about the game of chess. He writes a regular column on that subject, Chess Notes, and is also a regular columnist for ChessBase.-Chess Notes:...
, Sultan Khan (2003) - The Ramanujan of Chess essay by Hartosh Singh Bal. 3quarksDaily.com, February 28, 2011