Levitsky v Marshall, Breslau 1912: the gold coins game

Frank Marshall, the leading American player of his day, played this game against Stepan Levitsky in the masters' tournament at Breslau (now Wrocław) on 20 July 1912. It is remembered for one move, 23...Qg3, and for a story: Marshall said that spectators showered the board with gold coins after it. The story is disputed. Marshall's wife Caroline is reported to have denied that even pennies were thrown, and others said any coins were paying off bets.

Black to move after 23.Rc5. Marshall's reply is one of the most famous moves in chess.

The whole game

Levitsky v Marshall, Breslau 1912. Step through all 23 moves; White resigned.

What Stockfish makes of it

We had Stockfish check every move.

The opening: 3...c5

3...c5, which Marshall favoured at the time, is now considered dubious, and Stockfish agrees: Black is more than a pawn worse after it, against about a quarter of a pawn after 3...Nf6. White let some of that go with 4.Nf3, where Stockfish prefers 4.exd5, as does Nunn's Chess Openings.

20.Qh5: the losing move

White to move after 19...Nd4. 20.Qe4 holds the balance; 20.Qh5 loses.

After 19...Nd4 the game was still level. Levitsky played 20.Qh5, and Stockfish rates Black more than four pawns better after it. Pete Tamburro suggested 20.Qe4 instead, and Stockfish agrees that it holds the position level. Marshall then found the only strong reply, 20...Ref8, bringing the second rook to the f-file: every other move gives the advantage back.

23...Qg3: the queen that can be taken three ways

23...Qg3!! The queen can be taken by the h-pawn, the f-pawn or White's queen.

Black threatens 24...Qxh2#, and the queen on g3 can be taken three ways. Each loses:

24.hxg3 Ne2#.

24.fxg3 Ne2+ 25.Kh1 Rxf1#.

24.Qxg3 Ne2+ 25.Kh1 Nxg3+: Black wins the queen back, with a won endgame.

Levitsky resigned. Annotators have given 23...Qg3 two or three exclamation marks, and Tim Krabbé ranked it the third most stunning move of all time. Christian Hesse disagreed, calling it overrated, because 23...Qb4 also wins. Stockfish takes a side: 23...Qg3 is the strongest move, about five pawns better for Black, but 23...Qb4, 23...Qa3 and 23...Qb2 all win too, each by more than four pawns.

How we checked

The moves are from Wikipedia's page on the game. We replayed every one with python-chess: all are legal.
The engine: Stockfish 16.1 checked every move at depth 22, and the key moments again at depth 24 to 26. "A pawn better" is Stockfish's measure of the position, not a count of material.
The history and the named opinions (Tamburro, Krabbé, Hesse, the gold-coins story) are from the Wikipedia article.

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