It didn't take someone long to identify the provenance of this position. It's from a 1918 game between Jose Raul Capablanca and Frank Marshall and shows the position at the end of the 24th move. The full game is displayed at the bottom of this post (for some reason the names are not being displayed: Capablanca is White). I located the game at chessgames.com, a site that with an impressive database of games that is freely accessible and downloadable. I've registered on this site and look forward to accessing more games. There is a premium membership option but I'll be exploring the free options.
Here is an excerpt about the so-called Marshall Attack that was employed in this game, taken from Wikipedia from the Wikipedia article about the Ruy Lopez.
One of Black's more aggressive alternatives is the Marshall Attack: after 3...a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 Black plays the gambit 8...d5, sacrificing a pawn. The main line begins with 9.exd5 Nxd5 (9...e4?!, the Herman Steiner variation, is considered weaker) 10.Nxe5 Nxe5 11.Rxe5 c6 (Marshall's original moves, 11...Nf6, and 11...Bb7 are considered inferior, but have also yielded good results at top levels of play for Black. GM Joel Benjamin suggests that 11...Bb7 is inferior due to 12.Qf3).
To the casual observer it might seem that Black has been careless and lost a pawn; however the sacrifice has also stripped White's kingside of its defenders, given Black a lead in development, and rendered White's 8.c3 irrelevant. Since Black's compensation is based on positional rather than tactical considerations, it is difficult or perhaps impossible to find a refutation. Black generally goes all-in with a massive kingside attack, which has been analysed to great depth (sometimes beyond move 30) with no definite conclusion as to the Marshall's soundness. The Marshall Attack is a very sharp opening system in which a great amount of theoretical knowledge is vital, and many White players, including Garry Kasparov, avoid it by playing one of the anti-Marshall systems, 8.d4, 8.a4 or 8.h3 instead of 8.c3.
This gambit became famous when Frank James Marshall used it as a prepared variation against José Raúl Capablanca in 1918; nevertheless Capablanca found a way through the complications and won. It is often said that Marshall had kept this gambit a secret for use against Capablanca since his defeat in their 1909 match. The most common counterclaim is that Marshall had used a similar approach in 1917 against Walter Frere. However Edward Winter found no clear evidence of the date for Frere vs Marshall; several games between 1910 and 1918 where Marshall passed up opportunities to use the Marshall Attack against Capablanca; and an 1893 game that used the same line as in Frere vs Marshall.
Improvements to Black's play were found (Marshall played 11...Nf6!? originally, but later discovered 11...c6!) and the Marshall Attack was adopted by top players including Boris Spassky, John Nunn and more recently Michael Adams. In the Classical World Chess Championship 2004, challenger Peter Leko used the Marshall to win an important game against World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. Currently, Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian is one of the main advocates for the Marshall Attack.
[Event "New York"]
[Site "New York, NY USA"]
[Date "1918.10.23"]
[EventDate "1918.10.23"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Jose Raul Capablanca"]
[Black "Frank James Marshall"]
[ECO "C89"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]
[PlyCount "71"]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3
O-O 8.c3 d5 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Nxe5 Nxe5 11.Rxe5 Nf6 12.Re1 Bd6
13.h3 Ng4 14.Qf3 Qh4 15.d4 Nxf2 16.Re2 Bg4 17.hxg4 Bh2+ 18.Kf1
Bg3 19.Rxf2 Qh1+ 20.Ke2 Bxf2 21.Bd2 Bh4 22.Qh3 Rae8+ 23.Kd3
Qf1+ 24.Kc2 Bf2 25.Qf3 Qg1 26.Bd5 c5 27.dxc5 Bxc5 28.b4 Bd6
29.a4 a5 30.axb5 axb4 31.Ra6 bxc3 32.Nxc3 Bb4 33.b6 Bxc3
34.Bxc3 h6 35.b7 Re3 36.Bxf7+ 1-0
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