"What Was I Thinking" - 2

Here are two more examples from Master Play that shows that everyone suffers from "Chess Blindness" occasionally. And these examples weren't from Game 30's!


In the above position from Stahlberg vs Averbach - Beverwijk, 1963; the obvious move is King takes Bishop. Averbach under the illusion he was threatening mate; played Bh3. Stahlberg replied Qxh6+ with mate to follow.

Alekhine who defeated Capablanca to become the 4th Chess Champion of the World was noted for his brilliant combinations. It is hard to believe that in the above position from a game with Buerger at Margate, 1937; Alekhine as Black played Qxf4??. I'm sure his heart stopped as Buerger picked up his Knight...and probably did a flutter beat as Buerger played NxBe4??!

Probably one of the worst double blunders in Chess History!

So.....come on out to the Club and you just might be on the receiving end of an "over the board chess gift" during this Holiday Season!

We've All Had A "What Was I Thinking" Moment

If you think you are the only chess player to "hang a piece", miss a mate in one, or blow a won game - you are wrong! Masters do it more frequently than you can imagine. Here are a few examples with the possible "patzer prize move of the year" going to a former World Champion.

...............................Alexey Shirov vs Vladimer Kramnik - Shanhai 2010

In the above position with Black to move; former World Champion Kramnik dropped a piece with 37...Ne7. He resigned after 38.Nd6+.






................................................Gilbaud vs Lazard - Paris 1924

See diagram above - White resigned after only 4 moves in this game; 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nd2 e5 3.dxe Ng4 4.h3 Ne3!!. White either loses his Queen or gets mated if he takes the Knight; one of the shortest recorded tournament games between two masters.

...............................Rubinstein vs Nimzovitch - San Sebastian 1912

Nimzovitch and Rubinstein were playing in the last round with Nimzovitch leading the tournament by 1/2 point. Despite needing only a draw to win the tournament Nimzovitch launched an all out attack which resulted in the lose of a Knight. In the diagrammed position above Nimzovitch played 25....Bc5?? over looking that he was allowing his opponent a mate in 2! Yet..Rubinstein played 26.Bd4??? instead of taking the forced mate; and the game continued 14 more moves before Nimzovitch resigned making Rubinstein the tournament winner.

Here is the complete game score:

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 d6 3.Nf3 Nbd7 4.Nc3 e5 5.e4 Be7 6.Be2 0-0 7.0-0 Re8 8.Qc2 Bf8 9.b3 c6 10.Bb2 Nh5 11.g3 Nb8 12.Rad1 Qf6 13.Nb1 Bh3 14.Rfe1 Nf4 15.dxe5 dxe5 16.Nxe5 Rxe5 17.Bf1 Nd7
18.Qd2 Bxf1 19.Rxf1 Nh3+ 20.Kg2 Ng5 21.f4 Qg6 22.fxg5 Rxe4 23.Qxd7 Re2+ 24.Rf2 Qe4+ 25.Kg1 (see diagram above)...Bc5?? 26.Bd4??? Bxd4 27.Qxd4 Re1+ 28.Rf1 Rxf1+ 29.Kxf1 Qh1+ 30.Kf2 Qxh2+ 31.Kf3 f6 32.Qd2 Qh3 33.Qd7 f5 34.Nc3 Qh5+ 35.Kg2 Qxg5 36.Qe6+ Kh8 37.Ne2 Qh5 38.Rd7 Re8 39.Nf4 Rxe6 40.Nxh5 1-0

ALPHABET SOUP

While looking through the books in the club library recently Andrew Lee and I ended up in a conversation about Eugene Znosko-Borovsky.Which led me to post this blog.

If you throw in Znosko-Borovsky's middle name, Alexandrovich, and take into account the different spellings found on line you must use all but 8 of the 26 letters in the alphabet. If Eugene played in our Club today I have no doubt that he would be labeled "ski" the very first night!

In his book "How To Play The Chess Openings", Znosko-Borovsky bemoans the fact that his fellow Chess Masters teased him relentlessly over the title of his previous book, "How Not To Play Chess".

I personally greatly enjoyed "How To Play The Chess Openings"; however, since it is not yet available in "algebraic" the "computer generation" and a few others in our Club will miss out on a great chess book. Znosko-Borovsky drew on his personal games against such greats as Capablanca and Aleckine to show the pawn structures resulting from different openings and the strengths or weaknesses of the various pawn formations that you could expect to encounter. IT'S TIME TO BECOME BI-LINGUAL!

So much for the history; now for the trivia: Irving Chernev reports in his classic book: Wonders and Curiosities of Chess, that in a tournament held in St. Petersburg in 1903, "no less than three Znosko-Borovskys won prizes."