re: Books about the history and beauty of Chess

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Levitsky versus Marshall, also known as the Gold Coins Game, is a famous game of chess played by Stepan Levitsky and Frank Marshall. It was played in Breslau (now Wroclaw) on July 20, 1912, during the master's tournament of the DSB Congress. According to legend, after Marshall's winning last move of the game, gold coins were tossed onto the board by spectators, although this is contested by other accounts.

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After the game started with a French Defence, Levitsky made some suboptimal moves, and then a big mistake allowing Marshall to win a piece. Levitsky tried to counterattack, but Marshall's unexpected winning move put his queen—his most valuable piece—on a square where it could be captured by three of Levitsky's pieces. Legend says that this move immediately triggered a shower of gold.

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Qg3!!(see diagram)

Black moves his queen to where it may be captured three ways. Some annotators have even given this move three exclamation marks ("!!!"). Tim Krabbé considers it the third-most stunning move of all time. Black threatens ...Qxh2#. All three ways of capturing the queen lose, and other escape attempts fail as well:
24.hxg3 Ne2#
24.fxg3 Ne2+ 25.Kh1 Rxf1# (a back-rank mate)
any move by White's rook on f1 loses to 24...Qxh2+ 25.Kf1 Qh1#
24.f4 (or 24.f3) Ne2+ 25.Kh1 Qxh2#
24.Qxg3 (relatively best) Ne2+ 25.Kh1 Nxg3+ 26.Kg1 (if 26.fxg3 Rxf1#) Nxf1 27.gxh3 Nd2 with an easily won endgame, or 26...Ne2+ Kh1 followed by moving the rook on h3 away.
0–1

Levitsky resigned.

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The "shower of gold"

It is unclear whether the legend that the winning queen move triggered a shower of gold coins is true. Marshall insisted that "the spectators ... threw gold pieces on [his] board at the conclusion of [his] brilliant win over Levitsky", but Israel Horowitz reported that "Marshall's wife, Caroline, disclaims even a shower of pennies." Eric Schiller wrote, "others say they were just paying off their wagers."

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