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By Larry Parr
Chess Life Editor 1984 - 1988
Author
WORSE
THAN A CRIME?
(Continued)
WHEN
CHESS GODS BLUNDER
(IX)
The game Szabo - Keres (Candidates’ Tournament, 1953) provides a good
example of how to handle a blunder committed by a super grandmaster.
First, the beneficiary has to notice the mistake, which means having
enough respect to take your opponent seriously but not so much respect as to be
blinded to crude error on his part. Secondly,
the beneficiary should consider carefully whether his great adversary has, in
truth, let loose with a thunderous howler.
Consider Paul Keres’ impeccable reaction in the following position:
GM
Laszlo Szabo - GM
Paul Keres, Candidates’
Tournament, 1953.
Keres
Szabo
(to play)
5.
Qa4+??
The game began with the moves, 1. d4 d5
2. Nf3 Nf6 3. c4 dxc4 4.
Nc3 a6 - a standard line of the Queen’s Gambit Accepted.
White should now play 5. e3, when Black cannot hold the gambited pawn by
5. ... b5 because of 6. a4 c6 7.
axb5 cxb5 8. Nxb5. Szabo’s check with the Queen is a massive blunder.
5.
........ b5
Cool as a cucumber, Keres considered this cruncher for 15 minutes.
If 6. Nxb5, then 6. ... Bd7 wins a piece. “Practically speaking,”
Bronstein wrote in the tournament book, “the shortest game of the tournament
even though it did continue until the 41st move.
After ... [5. Qa4+] Szabo might as well have resigned, since in effect he
is now giving Keres odds of pawn and move.
One wonders how, after prolonged consideration, Sazbo could blunder a
pawn as early as move five.” Of
course, there is no need to wonder that men do blunder!
QUICK GLANCE
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