Analyse du jeu des d’échecs. Traité de Greco par C. Sanson. Edition augmentée de 68 parties joués par Philidor, du traité de Greco, des débuts de Stamma et de Ruy-Lopez par C. Sanson.
François-André Danican Philidor is widely regarded as the strongest chess player ever in history prior to the modern era. He was so much better than any of his contemporaries that it is impossible for us to know how good he really was. Almost all of his games that come down to us today were either blindfold games or handicap games. He often gave a pawn, a knight or even a rook handicap to his opponents.
He born on September 7th, 1726 in Dreux France to a family of famous musicians. His first musical composition was played before King Louis XV when he was only 11 years old. He composed and performed many operas and musical works. During his musical career he produced over twenty music comedies and two tragédies-lyriques. However, it is for his chess that he is primarily remembered today.
Late in life, Philidor visited England to play chess and then was stranded there because of the French Revolution. It was not safe for him to return to France as his name had been placed on a banned list. He died in London, England on August 31, 1795.
The first edition of Analyse du jeu des d’échecs was published in 1749 in London, but in the French Language. An English edition came out the following year. There quickly followed translations in German, Dutch and Italian. It seems to have been one of the most popular books of any kind during that era.
A second expanded edition was published in French 1777. The original work was only 170 pages.
This book begins with Opening Analysis of what is known today as the “Bishop’s Opening”, an opening that is rarely seen today. As the book is in French Descriptive Notation, here is the first analysis given in the book, but in modern Algebraic Notation.
[Site “France”]
[Date “1749”]
[White “Philidor, Francois Andre Danican”]
[Black “Analysis \ Analyse”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “C23”]
1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.c3 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.cxd4 Bb6 6.Nc3 O-O 7.Nge2 c6 8.Bd3 d5 9.e5 Ne8 10.Be3 f6 11.Qd2 fxe5 12.dxe5 Be6 13.Nf4 Qe7 14.Bxb6 axb6 15.O-O Nd7 16.Nxe6 Qxe6 17.f4 Nc7 18.Rae1 g6 19.h3 d4 20.Ne4 h6 21.b3 b5 22.g4 Nd5 23.Ng3 Ne3 24.Rxe3 dxe3 25.Qxe3 Rxa2 26.Re1 Qxb3 27.Qe4 Qe6 28.f5 gxf5 29.gxf5 Qd5 30.Qxd5+ cxd5 31.Bxb5 Nb6 32.f6 Rb2 33.Bd3 Kf7 34.Bf5 Nc4 35.Nh5 Rg8+ 36.Bg4 Nd2 37.e6+ Kg6 38.f7 Rf8 39.Nf4+ Kg7 40.Bh5 1-0
XABCDEFGHY
8-±±tr-+(
7+p±+Pmk-’
6-±+P±zp&
5±+p±+L%
4-±±sN-+$
3±±±+P#
2-tr-sn-±+"
1±±tR-mK-!
xabcdefghy
The Final Position. Black resigned here because he cannot prevent White from playing e7 followed by e8 queening a pawn.
In French Descriptive as used in this book, the first moves of this same game are: 1. P.4.R P.4.R 2. F.4.FD F.4.FD 3. P.3.FD C.3.FR 4. P.4.D P.pr.PD 5. P.pr.PD F.3.CD 6. C.3.FD Roque TR 7. C.2.R P.3.FD 8. F.3.D P.4.D
So we can see from this that P = pawn, F = bishop, C = knight, T = rook, D = queen and R = king. Roque TR = Castling King Side or O-O and Roque DR = castling queen side or O-O-O. Pr means captured or x.
The first 34 pages of this book are concerned with the analysis of the Bishop’s Opening. Then, on page 34, Philidor turns to the opening 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 which, interestingly, he calls “The Philidor Defense”. However, none of his games in this book, nor in any game of his that has come down to us, is the Philidor Defense played, which has led some researchers to state: “Philidor never played the Philidor Defense”.
On pages 35-39, Philidor gives the following analysis of the Philidor Defense:
- e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 f5 4. d3 c6 5. exf5 Bxf5 6. Bg5 Nf6 7. Nbd2 d5 8. Bb3 Bd6 9. Qe2 Qe7 10. O-O Nbd7 11. Nh4 Qe6 12. Nxf5 Qxf5 13. Bxf6 gxf6 14. f4 Qg6 15. fxe5 fxe5 16. Rf3 h5 17. Raf1 O-O-O 18. c4 e4 19. dxe4 d4 20. Bc2 Ne5 21. Rf6 Qg7 22. Qf2 Ng4 23. Qf5+ Kb8 24. Rxd6 Rxd6 25. Qf4 Qe5 26. Qxe5 Nxe5 27. Rf5 Ng4 28. c5 Rg6 29. Nc4 Ne3 30. Nxe3 dxe3 31. Rf3 Rd8 32. Rxe3 Rd2 0-1
XABCDEFGHY
8-mk-±±+(
7zpp±±±’
6-+p±+r+&
5±zP-±+p%
4-±+P±+$
3±±tR-±#
2PzPLtr-+PzP"
1±±±mK-!
xabcdefghy
He concludes on page 39 that White is winning here but obviously Black is winning in this position. This may be an error in the book that has gone unnoticed for the last 260 years, since the book was published in 1749 !!!
Here is another example of analysis of The Philidor Defense by Philidor.
[Date “1749”]
[White “Philidor Analysis page 39-40”]
[Result “0-1”]
[PlyCount “58”]
- e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 f5 4. dxe5 fxe4 5. Ng5 d5 6. f4 Bc5 7. c4 c6 8. Nc3 Ne7 9. h4 h6 10. Nh3 O-O 11. Na4 Bb4+ 12. Bd2 Bxd2+ 13. Qxd2 d4 14. c5 b5 15. cxb6 axb6 16. b3 Be6 17. Be2 Nf5 18. Ng1 Ng3 19. Rh2 e3 20. Qb2 d3 21. Bf3 Rxf4 22. O-O-O Raxa4 23. bxa4 Rxa4 24. a3 Rc4+ 25. Kb1 Rc2 26. Qb4 Na6 27. Qf4 Nc5 28. Qxg3 Ba2+ 29. Ka1 Nb3# 0-1
XABCDEFGHY
8-±wq-+k+(
7±±±zp-’
6-zpp±±zp&
5±±zP-±%
4-±±±zP$
3zPn+pzpLwQ-#
2l+r±+PtR"
1mK-+R±sN-!
xabcdefghy
Checkmate!! Black Wins
Here we must confess that White has played poorly and might be only of the Class-A level on the modern standard.
This game features an en passant capture on move 15, showing that the en passant rules were in effect at that time.
The section on the Philidor Defense is brief and gives mostly moves for White that are now known to be weak. Most of the rest of the section of this books on the openings are devoted to the King’s Gambit, 1. e4 e5 2. f4, or the Queen’s Gambit, 1. d4 d5 2. c4. There is brief analysis of the Sicilian Defense which had already been called the Sicilian Defense long before Philidor.
By modern standards, Philidor does better in this book with his endgame analysis. Included in this book is Philidor’s famous proof that in the endgame of rook and pawn vs. rook, the defending side can in most cases hold the draw if his king is in front of the pawn and he has the opposition. The rook and pawn endgames analyzed in this book are the most useful and the most common endgames in all of chess.
Philidor also analyzes the bishop and knight against king endgame and the queen against rook endgame. The queen against rook endgame was only completely solved relatively recently using a Cray Computer with a huge tablebase.
Philidor also analyzes the rook and bishop vs. rook endgame. This endgame is usually a draw with correct play, but in practice the side with the rook and bishop wins most of the time.
The edition of the book that is reprinted here was published in 1871 by C. Sanson. This shows that the original Philidor book was still the standard work on the subject one hundred years after it was first written. It includes 68 games by Philidor as compiled by George Walker in 1832. These 68 games were not in the original book because they were all played after the original book was published.
Because of the difficulties the reader will very likely have with French Descriptive Notation, which is no longer used, not even in France, all 68 games here are translated into modern PGN notation in an appendix in the back of this book. These constitute most of the known games by Philidor.
Among the most famous feats by Philidor are that he played three simultaneous blindfold games May 10, 1788 and later two simultaneous blindfold games in 1794 when he was 68 years old. These games are all included in the appendix to this book. However, by 1794, he was clearly slipping. Although it is reported that he played two games simultaneously, he actually played three. He lost the third game badly and nearly lost game two, barely managing to hold a draw. He died the following year.
Philador’s play was not always without errors. In Game 42 in this book, he missed a fairly simple mate on move 34 and lost the game. In that game, he was giving knight against pawn odds. Then, in Game 43, he blundered into a mate against the same opponent that he should have seen coming. However, then, still against the same opponent, Philidor won games 44 and 45 with brilliant sacrifices of heavy material.
Note that one of his opponents in 1788 was T. Bowdler. Research by Grandmaster Raymond Keene has established that this T. Bowdler was in fact the same Thomas Bowdler who was the leading Shakespearian scholar of his day and who published “The Family Shakespeare”, which infamously “Bowdlerized” the works of the great Bard. (The Family Shakespeare was recently reprinted by Ishi Press.) Thomas Bowdler was almost the only opponent who achieved a draw in an even game against Philidor, except that Philidor was blindfolded. That is in game number 2 in this book. The only games that Philidor lost were games with heavy handicaps.
It is noteworthy that these blindfold and handicap games were played against some of the leading players of his day. It appears that Philidor was so far ahead of his contemporaries that none of them could give him a contest in an even game.
Sam Sloan