McDonnell–La Bourdonnais, match 4, game 16

The sixteenth chess game in the fourth match between Alexander McDonnell and Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais played in London in 1834 is famous for demonstrating the power of a mobile central block of pawns.

Its final position is one of the most famous in the history of the game.

[2] Alexander McDonnell from Ireland was a wealthy merchant who was regarded as one of the leading chess players of the time.

Louis-Charles Mahé de La Bourdonnais from France was regarded as the unofficial World Chess Champion.

The two played a series of six matches in London over the summer of 1834.

Of these matches, La Bourdonnais won the first, third, fourth and fifth, McDonnell the second, while the sixth was abandoned with McDonnell leading.

In all they played 85 games, of which La Bourdonnais won 45, McDonnell 27, and 13 were draws.

[3] In the game, La Bourdonnais set up a powerful mobile pawn centre very much in the spirit of his predecessor François-André Danican Philidor, who once remarked that pawns were "the soul of chess".

to set these pawns in motion, leading to a series of complicated tactical threats involving the promotion of the pawns that ultimately overwhelms his opponent.

[1] Garry Kasparov observed that this remarkable game remains forever the "French master's visiting card".

[4] White:[a] McDonnell   Black: La Bourdonnais   Opening: Sicilian Defence, Löwenthal Variation (ECO B32) (Comments in quotation marks are Howard Staunton's original comments in the Chess Player's Chronicle.

Rxd1 e2 (diagram) 0–1 Kasparov notes it is enormously regrettable that both these outstanding players died soon after, while still relatively young.

[17] They are buried near one another in Kensal Green Cemetery, where amongst others they join Charles Babbage, the Victorian computer scientist whose difference engine was a forerunner of the modern chess engine that so enhances an appreciation of their remarkable game.