Blunder (chess)
Encyclopedia
In chess
, a blunder is a very bad move. It is usually caused by some tactical oversight, whether from time trouble
, overconfidence or carelessness. While a blunder may seem like a stroke of luck for the opposing player, some chess players give their opponent plenty of opportunities to blunder.
What qualifies as a "blunder" rather than a normal mistake is somewhat subjective. A weak move from a novice player might be explained by the player's lack of skill, while the same move from a master might be called a blunder. In chess annotation
, blunders are typically marked with a double question mark, "??", after the move.
Especially among amateur and novice players, blunders often occur because of a faulty thought process where they do not consider the opponent's forcing moves. In particular, checks, captures, and threats need to be considered at each move. Neglecting these possibilities leaves a player vulnerable to simple tactical errors.
One technique formerly recommended to avoid blunders was to write down the planned move on the scoresheet, then take one last look before making it. This practice was not uncommon even at the grandmaster level. However, in 2005 the International Chess Federation (FIDE) banned it, instead requiring that the move be made before being written down. The US Chess Federation
also implemented this rule
, effective as of January 1, 2007 (a change to rule 15A), although it is not universally enforced.
in Havana, Cuba. Chigorin is a piece up (Steinitz lost a knight earlier in the game) despite being a pawn down and his bishop being forced to stay on d6 to protect both the rook on e7 and the pawn on h2 from a possible mate. If he won, he would tie the match and send it to overtime. After 31...Rcd2, Chigorin played 32.Bb4??, a blunder thought by many as the greatest blunder ever in a World Championship. Steinitz replied with 32...Rxh2+, and Chigorin resigned the game immediately and lost the match. Otherwise, after 32...Rxh2+, the game would follow as 33.Kg1 Rdg2#.
in Amsterdam
. Petrosian, playing White, enjoys a clear advantage with strong knight
s, active rook
s and plenty of mobility while Black's position is congested and hardly able to move. In fact Bronstein, playing Black, has for the last seven moves been making only apparently aimless knight moves, Nc6-d4-c6-d4, and now has played ...Nd4-f5, threatening White's queen, while White has been slowly strengthening his position. White can now easily preserve the positional advantage by a move like 36.Qc7, but overlooking that the queen was en prise, he played 36.Ng5?? and resigned after 36...Nxd6.
and Bobby Fischer
from the 1966 Piatigorsky Cup
is an example where a player in a bad position breaks under the pressure. According to Mednis
, Fischer's decisive error came earlier in the game and here the black pawn on f4 is about to fall. Fischer played the blunder 30...Nd6?? cutting the game short. After Najdorf played 31. Nxd6, Fischer resigned because he realized after Najdorf's response that 31...Qxd6 32.Nxb7 wins a piece because 32...Rxb7 33.Qc8+ is a fork
which wins the rook on b7, so White wins at least a minor piece.
Najdorf commented on Black's 29...Rb8: "There is no satisfactory defense. If 29... Ba8 then 30. Nb6 or 30. Qf5 would win. ... I had to win minor material (the pawn at f5) but this [30... Nd6?] decides immediately. Fischer, demoralized because of his inferior position, did not notice the simple point."
between Viktor Korchnoi
, the challenger and defector from the Soviet Union, and the World Champion, Anatoly Karpov
. Karpov, playing Black, is hoping for a back rank mate with his rook with the possible move 39...Rc1#. However, Korchnoi could've prevented this by moving his g-pawn (but not the h-pawn because 39.h3 or h4 leads to 39...Rc1+ 40.Kh2 Nf1+ 41.Kg1 Nfg3+ 42.Kh2 Rh1#), providing an escape square for his king. Korchnoi did not notice Karpov's mate plan with his knights however, and played 39. Ra1??. It allowed a nice finish for Karpov, 39...Nf3!+, and Korchnoi resigned the game. Otherwise, the game would end as a result of the blunder as 40. gxf3 Rg6+ 41. Kh1 Nf2# or 40.Kh1 Nf2#. Karpov went on to win the match retaining the chess crown until he was defeated by Garry Kasparov
in 1985.
for the British GM Chandler. Susan Polgar has just played the wily trap 53...Ng8-h6!?, hoping to turn the game around. Chandler though, realizes that after 54.gxh6+ Kxh6 he will be left with the considerable material advantage of a rook pawn and bishop
against a bare king
. However, since the bishop is unable to control the promotion
square h8, Black will draw if she is able to get her king to control h8 due to the wrong rook pawn
fortress
. But Chandler calculates further, and realizes that it is he who will win control over the h8 square after 55.Kf6, and thereby win the game.
Therefore Chandler played 54.gxh6+??, but instead of the expected 54...Kxh6 came 54...Kh8! This is in fact almost the same king, bishop, and rook pawn versus bare king situation as Chandler had calculated that he would avoid, and the small difference that White has two rook pawns rather than one has no effect on the result. Black controls the h8 square and cannot be chased or squeezed away from it, and so White cannot promote his pawn. After 55.Bd5 Kh7 56.Kf7 Kh8 the players agreed to a draw
.
Chandler had numerous moves which would have maintained his winning position, the fastest according to the Shredder tablebase http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html are 54.h4 and 54.Bf5.
position.
in 2002, is one of the very rare circumstances where a grandmaster makes the worst move possible, the only one allowing checkmate
on the next move. In this queen endgame, White has some advantage after 69.fxg6+ fxg6 70.Kf4 due to Black's weak pawn on c6. However, Beliavsky playing White played 69.Kf4??, overlooking the response 69...Qb8#. According to Johannessen, it took a few moments for both players to realize that it was checkmate, and Beliavsky was a good sport over this mishap.
tournament from 2003-4. The position here looks a little drawish, with both sides trying to stop passed pawns from promoting. For the past three moves, Cherniaev pressured Conquest's king with 85.f6+ Kg6 86.Bd3+ Kf7 87.Nd6+. Conquest could've continued the game with 87...Kf8, providing a reasonable square to take over the promotion squares. However, he played 87...Ke6??, not noticing the response 88.Bf5#.
competed in the World Chess Challenge: Man vs. Machine, a six-game match against the chess computer Deep Fritz in Bonn
, Germany. After the first game had ended in a draw, Kramnik, playing Black, was generally considered in a comfortable position in Game 2, and he thought so himself apparently, as he refused a draw
by avoiding a potential threefold repetition
on 29...Qa7. Kramnik's troubles began when he decided to play for a win and pushed his a-pawn, 31...a4. Commentators, including American grandmaster
Yasser Seirawan, voiced concerns about Kramnik's intentions and the situation became more uncertain as the game went on with 32.Nxe6 Bxe3+ 33.Kh1 Bxc1 34.Nxf8, turning it into a likely draw. The game could have ended with 34...Kg8 35.Ng6 Bxb2 36.Qd5+ Kh7 37.Nf8+ Kh8 38.Ng6+.
However Kramnik's next move, 34...Qe3?? (a move which was awarded "???" originally, by ChessBase on a story covering Kramnik's blunder), came as a big surprise and was described as the possible "blunder of the century" by Susan Polgar
, as Kramnik—incredibly—overlooked a mate in one. Deep Fritz immediately ended the game with 35.Qh7#, checkmate
. Seirawan later called Kramnik's move "a tragedy."
ChessBase
described the events as follows, "Kramnik played the move 34...Qe3 calmly, stood up, picked up his cup and was about to leave the stage to go to his rest room. At least one audio commentator also noticed nothing, while Fritz operator Mathias Feist
kept glancing from the board to the screen and back, hardly able to believe that he had input the correct move. Fritz was displaying mate in one, and when Mathias executed it on the board Kramnik briefly grasped his forehead, took a seat to sign the score sheet and left for the press conference, which he dutifully attended." during which he stated that he had planned the supposedly winning move 34...Qe3 already when playing 29...Qa7, and had rechecked the line after each subsequent move. After an exchange of queens Black would win easily with his distant pawn; after 35.Qxb4 Qe2 or 35.Ng6+ Kh7 36.Nf8+ Kg8 black also wins eventually.
Chess journalist Alexander Roshal
attempted to explain the blunder by saying that the mating pattern of a queen on h7 protected by a knight on f8 is extremely rare and not contained in a grandmaster's automatic repertoire.
played White against Ernesto Inarkiev
. On move 23, he checked the Black king with 23. Qe7+??. Both players calmly wrote down the move. Bacrot then realized that his Queen was under attack by the Black knight, and resigned.
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
, a blunder is a very bad move. It is usually caused by some tactical oversight, whether from time trouble
Time trouble
In chess played with a time control, time trouble, time pressure, or its German translation Zeitnot, is the situation where a player has little time to complete the required moves. When forced to play quickly, the probability of making blunders is increased, so handling the clock is an important...
, overconfidence or carelessness. While a blunder may seem like a stroke of luck for the opposing player, some chess players give their opponent plenty of opportunities to blunder.
What qualifies as a "blunder" rather than a normal mistake is somewhat subjective. A weak move from a novice player might be explained by the player's lack of skill, while the same move from a master might be called a blunder. In chess annotation
Punctuation (chess)
When annotating chess games, commentators frequently use question marks and exclamation points to denote a move as bad or good. The symbols normally used are "??", "?", "?!", "!?", "!", and "!!". The corresponding symbol is juxtaposed in the text immediately after the move When annotating chess...
, blunders are typically marked with a double question mark, "??", after the move.
Especially among amateur and novice players, blunders often occur because of a faulty thought process where they do not consider the opponent's forcing moves. In particular, checks, captures, and threats need to be considered at each move. Neglecting these possibilities leaves a player vulnerable to simple tactical errors.
One technique formerly recommended to avoid blunders was to write down the planned move on the scoresheet, then take one last look before making it. This practice was not uncommon even at the grandmaster level. However, in 2005 the International Chess Federation (FIDE) banned it, instead requiring that the move be made before being written down. The US Chess Federation
United States Chess Federation
The United States Chess Federation is a non-profit organization, the governing chess organization within the United States, and one of the federations of the FIDE. The USCF was founded in 1939 from the merger of two regional chess organizations, and grew gradually until 1972, when membership...
also implemented this rule
Rules of chess
The rules of chess are rules governing the play of the game of chess. While the exact origins of chess are unclear, modern rules first took form during the Middle Ages. The rules continued to be slightly modified until the early 19th century, when they reached essentially their current form. The...
, effective as of January 1, 2007 (a change to rule 15A), although it is not universally enforced.
Mikhail Chigorin vs. Wilhelm Steinitz
The position here was taken from Game 23 of the 1892 World ChampionshipWorld Chess Championship 1892
The fourth World Chess Championship was held in Havana between January 1 and February 28, 1892. Holder William Steinitz narrowly defeated challenger Mikhail Chigorin.-Results:...
in Havana, Cuba. Chigorin is a piece up (Steinitz lost a knight earlier in the game) despite being a pawn down and his bishop being forced to stay on d6 to protect both the rook on e7 and the pawn on h2 from a possible mate. If he won, he would tie the match and send it to overtime. After 31...Rcd2, Chigorin played 32.Bb4??, a blunder thought by many as the greatest blunder ever in a World Championship. Steinitz replied with 32...Rxh2+, and Chigorin resigned the game immediately and lost the match. Otherwise, after 32...Rxh2+, the game would follow as 33.Kg1 Rdg2#.
Tigran Petrosian vs. David Bronstein
The position in the diagram here arose in the 1956 Candidates TournamentCandidates Tournament
The Candidates Tournament is a chess tournament organized by the world chess federation FIDE since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship...
in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
. Petrosian, playing White, enjoys a clear advantage with strong knight
Knight (chess)
The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. Each player starts with two knights, which begin on the row closest to the player, one square from the corner...
s, active rook
Rook (chess)
A rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes...
s and plenty of mobility while Black's position is congested and hardly able to move. In fact Bronstein, playing Black, has for the last seven moves been making only apparently aimless knight moves, Nc6-d4-c6-d4, and now has played ...Nd4-f5, threatening White's queen, while White has been slowly strengthening his position. White can now easily preserve the positional advantage by a move like 36.Qc7, but overlooking that the queen was en prise, he played 36.Ng5?? and resigned after 36...Nxd6.
Miroslav Filip vs. Klaus Darga
This game is taken from a 1961 tournament between Filip and Darga. Darga, playing Black, had a close mate coming up when he played 30...Bb7. However, Filip tried to keep the game alive with 31. Rc7+ Kg6 32. Qg8+ Kf5. On move 33, Filip could have kept the game alive with 33. g4+, which could have involved a queen exchange. But he blundered with 33. Qxh7+??, and Darga responded with 33...Kg4. Filip then resigned because he realized that there was no way he could stop Black's king from reaching the h3 square even if White played 34. Rc4+, Rg7+, Qg7+, or Qg6+. Either way if White played one of those four moves, the game would go on as 34...Kh3 35. Kf1 Qd1#.Miguel Najdorf vs. Bobby Fischer
This game between Miguel NajdorfMiguel Najdorf
Miguel Najdorf was a Polish-born Argentine chess grandmaster of Jewish origin, famous for his Najdorf Variation....
and Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer
Robert James "Bobby" Fischer was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author...
from the 1966 Piatigorsky Cup
Piatigorsky Cup
The Piatigorsky Cup was a triennial series of double round-robin grandmaster chess tournaments held in the United States in the 1960s. Sponsored by the Piatigorsky Foundation, only two events were held, in 1963 and 1966. The Piatigorsky Cups were the strongest U.S. chess tournaments since New...
is an example where a player in a bad position breaks under the pressure. According to Mednis
Edmar Mednis
Edmar John Mednis was an American International Grandmaster of chess born in Riga, Latvia. He was also a popular and respected chess writer.-Biography:...
, Fischer's decisive error came earlier in the game and here the black pawn on f4 is about to fall. Fischer played the blunder 30...Nd6?? cutting the game short. After Najdorf played 31. Nxd6, Fischer resigned because he realized after Najdorf's response that 31...Qxd6 32.Nxb7 wins a piece because 32...Rxb7 33.Qc8+ is a fork
Fork (chess)
In chess, a fork is a tactic that uses a single piece to attack multiple pieces at the same time. The attacker usually hopes to gain material by capturing one of the opponent's pieces. The defender often finds himself in a difficult position in which he cannot counter all threats. The attacking...
which wins the rook on b7, so White wins at least a minor piece.
Najdorf commented on Black's 29...Rb8: "There is no satisfactory defense. If 29... Ba8 then 30. Nb6 or 30. Qf5 would win. ... I had to win minor material (the pawn at f5) but this [30... Nd6?] decides immediately. Fischer, demoralized because of his inferior position, did not notice the simple point."
Viktor Korchnoi vs. Anatoly Karpov
This position is from Game 17 of the 1978 World ChampionshipWorld Chess Championship 1978
The 1978 World Chess Championship was played between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi in Baguio City, Philippines from July 18 to October 18, 1978. Karpov won.- Qualification :...
between Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Korchnoi
Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi ; pronounced in the original Russian as "karch NOY"; Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й, born March 23, 1931 is a professional chess player, author and currently the oldest active grandmaster on the tournament circuit...
, the challenger and defector from the Soviet Union, and the World Champion, Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once...
. Karpov, playing Black, is hoping for a back rank mate with his rook with the possible move 39...Rc1#. However, Korchnoi could've prevented this by moving his g-pawn (but not the h-pawn because 39.h3 or h4 leads to 39...Rc1+ 40.Kh2 Nf1+ 41.Kg1 Nfg3+ 42.Kh2 Rh1#), providing an escape square for his king. Korchnoi did not notice Karpov's mate plan with his knights however, and played 39. Ra1??. It allowed a nice finish for Karpov, 39...Nf3!+, and Korchnoi resigned the game. Otherwise, the game would end as a result of the blunder as 40. gxf3 Rg6+ 41. Kh1 Nf2# or 40.Kh1 Nf2#. Karpov went on to win the match retaining the chess crown until he was defeated by Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
in 1985.
Murray Chandler vs. Susan Polgar
In this example, from a tournament in Biel in 1987, the game would not result as a loss for the blunderer, but led to an embarrassing drawDraw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
for the British GM Chandler. Susan Polgar has just played the wily trap 53...Ng8-h6!?, hoping to turn the game around. Chandler though, realizes that after 54.gxh6+ Kxh6 he will be left with the considerable material advantage of a rook pawn and bishop
Bishop (chess)
A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
against a bare king
Bare king
In chess and related games, a bare king is a situation in which one player has only the king left on the board, while that player's fifteen other pieces have been captured....
. However, since the bishop is unable to control the promotion
Promotion (chess)
Promotion is a chess rule describing the transformation of a pawn that reaches its eighth rank into the player's choice of a queen, knight, rook, or bishop of the same color . The new piece replaces the pawn on the same square and is part of the move. Promotion is not limited to pieces that have...
square h8, Black will draw if she is able to get her king to control h8 due to the wrong rook pawn
Wrong rook pawn
In chess endgames with a bishop, a pawn that is a rook pawn may be the wrong rook pawn. With a single bishop, the result of a position may depend on whether or not the bishop controls the square on the chessboard on which the pawn would promote. Since a side's rook pawns promote on...
fortress
Fortress (chess)
In chess, the fortress is an endgame drawing technique in which the side behind in material sets up a zone of protection around their king that cannot be penetrated by the opponent. This only works when the opponent does not have a passed pawn or cannot create one, unless that pawn can be stopped...
. But Chandler calculates further, and realizes that it is he who will win control over the h8 square after 55.Kf6, and thereby win the game.
Therefore Chandler played 54.gxh6+??, but instead of the expected 54...Kxh6 came 54...Kh8! This is in fact almost the same king, bishop, and rook pawn versus bare king situation as Chandler had calculated that he would avoid, and the small difference that White has two rook pawns rather than one has no effect on the result. Black controls the h8 square and cannot be chased or squeezed away from it, and so White cannot promote his pawn. After 55.Bd5 Kh7 56.Kf7 Kh8 the players agreed to a draw
Draw by agreement
In chess, a draw by agreement is the outcome of a game due to the agreement of both players to a draw. A player may offer a draw to his opponent at any stage of a game; if the opponent accepts, the game is a draw. The relevant portion of the FIDE laws of chess is article 9.1...
.
Chandler had numerous moves which would have maintained his winning position, the fastest according to the Shredder tablebase http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html are 54.h4 and 54.Bf5.
Garry Kasparov vs. Kiril Georgiev
This diagram is an example when the blunderer comes so close to winning that he/she makes a very bad move, drawing the game. In this blitz game, Kasparov, playing White, was just two moves away from a win (by 78. Qb4 Ka7 79. Qb7 mate) when he blundered with 78. Qc5??, placing Georgiev in a stalemateStalemate
Stalemate is a situation in chess where the player whose turn it is to move is not in check but has no legal moves. A stalemate ends the game in a draw. Stalemate is covered in the rules of chess....
position.
Alexander Beliavsky vs. Leif Erlend Johannessen
This example, from a game played in LinaresLinares chess tournament
The Linares International Chess Tournament , is an annual chess tournament, usually played around the end of February, takes its name from the city of Linares in the Jaén province of Andalusia, Spain, in which it is held...
in 2002, is one of the very rare circumstances where a grandmaster makes the worst move possible, the only one allowing checkmate
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
on the next move. In this queen endgame, White has some advantage after 69.fxg6+ fxg6 70.Kf4 due to Black's weak pawn on c6. However, Beliavsky playing White played 69.Kf4??, overlooking the response 69...Qb8#. According to Johannessen, it took a few moments for both players to realize that it was checkmate, and Beliavsky was a good sport over this mishap.
Alexander Cherniaev vs. Stuart Conquest
This game was taken from a HastingsHastings International Chess Congress
The Hastings International Chess Congress is an annual chess congress which takes place in Hastings, England, around the turn of the year. The main event is the Hastings Premier tournament, which was traditionally a 10 to 16 player round-robin tournament. In 2004/05 the tournament was played in the...
tournament from 2003-4. The position here looks a little drawish, with both sides trying to stop passed pawns from promoting. For the past three moves, Cherniaev pressured Conquest's king with 85.f6+ Kg6 86.Bd3+ Kf7 87.Nd6+. Conquest could've continued the game with 87...Kf8, providing a reasonable square to take over the promotion squares. However, he played 87...Ke6??, not noticing the response 88.Bf5#.
Deep Fritz vs. Vladimir Kramnik
In November 2006, reigning World Chess Champion Vladimir KramnikVladimir Kramnik
Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik is a Russian chess grandmaster. He was the Classical World Chess Champion from 2000 to 2006, and the undisputed World Chess Champion from 2006 to 2007...
competed in the World Chess Challenge: Man vs. Machine, a six-game match against the chess computer Deep Fritz in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, Germany. After the first game had ended in a draw, Kramnik, playing Black, was generally considered in a comfortable position in Game 2, and he thought so himself apparently, as he refused a draw
Draw (chess)
In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...
by avoiding a potential threefold repetition
Threefold repetition
In chess and some other abstract strategy games, the threefold repetition rule states that a player can claim a draw if the same position occurs three times, or will occur after their next move, with the same player to move. The repeated positions need not occur in succession...
on 29...Qa7. Kramnik's troubles began when he decided to play for a win and pushed his a-pawn, 31...a4. Commentators, including American grandmaster
International Grandmaster
The title Grandmaster is awarded to strong chess players by the world chess organization FIDE. Apart from World Champion, Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain....
Yasser Seirawan, voiced concerns about Kramnik's intentions and the situation became more uncertain as the game went on with 32.Nxe6 Bxe3+ 33.Kh1 Bxc1 34.Nxf8, turning it into a likely draw. The game could have ended with 34...Kg8 35.Ng6 Bxb2 36.Qd5+ Kh7 37.Nf8+ Kh8 38.Ng6+.
However Kramnik's next move, 34...Qe3?? (a move which was awarded "???" originally, by ChessBase on a story covering Kramnik's blunder), came as a big surprise and was described as the possible "blunder of the century" by Susan Polgar
Susan Polgar
Susan Polgar is a Hungarian-American chess Grandmaster...
, as Kramnik—incredibly—overlooked a mate in one. Deep Fritz immediately ended the game with 35.Qh7#, checkmate
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
. Seirawan later called Kramnik's move "a tragedy."
ChessBase
ChessBase
ChessBase GmbH is a German company that markets chess software, maintains a chess news site, and operates a server for online chess. Set up in 1998, it maintains and sells massive databases, containing most historic games, that permit analysis that had not been possible prior to computing...
described the events as follows, "Kramnik played the move 34...Qe3 calmly, stood up, picked up his cup and was about to leave the stage to go to his rest room. At least one audio commentator also noticed nothing, while Fritz operator Mathias Feist
Mathias Feist
Mathias Feist is a ChessBase and Fritz programmer. He led the team that programmed Deep Fritz, which has been compared to Deep Blue. He was hired at the end of the 1980s to port the ChessBase program from Atari ST to DOS. He soon became an expert in the area of chess engines and connecting them...
kept glancing from the board to the screen and back, hardly able to believe that he had input the correct move. Fritz was displaying mate in one, and when Mathias executed it on the board Kramnik briefly grasped his forehead, took a seat to sign the score sheet and left for the press conference, which he dutifully attended." during which he stated that he had planned the supposedly winning move 34...Qe3 already when playing 29...Qa7, and had rechecked the line after each subsequent move. After an exchange of queens Black would win easily with his distant pawn; after 35.Qxb4 Qe2 or 35.Ng6+ Kh7 36.Nf8+ Kg8 black also wins eventually.
Chess journalist Alexander Roshal
Alexander Roshal
Alexander Borisovich Roshal was a Soviet chess player and journalist, the co-founder and editor of the magazine 64.-References:...
attempted to explain the blunder by saying that the mating pattern of a queen on h7 protected by a knight on f8 is extremely rare and not contained in a grandmaster's automatic repertoire.
Étienne Bacrot vs. Ernesto Inarkiev
This game was played in May 2008 at the Baku Grand Prix from the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010. In round 11, Étienne BacrotÉtienne Bacrot
Étienne Bacrot is a French chess grandmaster and currently ranked number one in France.He started playing at 4; by 10 young Bacrot was already winning junior competitions and in 1996, at 13 years of age, he won against Vasily Smyslov...
played White against Ernesto Inarkiev
Ernesto Inarkiev
Ernesto Inarkiev is a Russian chess Grandmaster. He was named after Ernesto "Che" Guevara. In 2006 he came third in the 59th Russian Chess Championship Superfinal....
. On move 23, he checked the Black king with 23. Qe7+??. Both players calmly wrote down the move. Bacrot then realized that his Queen was under attack by the Black knight, and resigned.
Complete game scores of the examples
- Mikhail Chigorin v. Wilhelm Steinitz, Havana 1892
- Tigran Petrosian v. David Bronstein, Amsterdam 1956
- Alexander Beliavsky v. Leif Erlend Johannessen, Linares 2002
- Murray Chandler v. Susan Polgar, Biel 1987
- Alexander Cherniaev v. Stuart Conquest, Hastings 2003-4
- Deep Fritz v. Vladimir Kramnik, Bonn 2006 (chessbase.com)
- Viktor Korchnoi v. Anatoly Karpov, 1978
- Deep Fritz v. Vladimir Kramnik, 2006 (chessgames.com)
- Garry Kasparov v. Kiril Georgiev, 1988
- Miguel Najdorf v. Bobby Fischer, 1966
- Miroslav Filip v. Klaus Darga, 1961
- Étienne Bacrot v. Ernesto Inarkiev, 2008
See also
- Back rank checkmateBack rank checkmateIn chess, a back-rank checkmate is a checkmate delivered by a rook or queen along a back rank in which the mated king is unable to move up the board because the king is blocked by friendly pieces on the second rank . A typical position is shown to the right...
- Chess trapChess trap- List of chess traps :Ordered by chess opening:*Albin Countergambit – Lasker Trap*Blackmar-Diemer Gambit – Halosar Trap*Bogo-Indian Defence – Monticelli Trap*Budapest Gambit – Kieninger Trap...
- Chess blindnessChess blindnessAmaurosis scacchistica is the failure of a chess player, during a chess game, to make a normally obvious good move or see a normally obvious danger. The term was coined by Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch. Similar to chess blindness is the Kotov syndrome, in which a player, after a long period of...
- Kotov syndrome
- Swindle (chess)Swindle (chess)In chess, a swindle is a ruse by which a player in a losing position tricks his opponent, and thereby achieves a win or draw instead of the expected loss. It may also refer more generally to obtaining a win or draw from a clearly losing position. I. A. Horowitz and Fred Reinfeld distinguish among...