Home

Message Board

Archives

Leave a message ****

Photo Gallery

  

“It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder,” said the Marquis de Talleyrand about the execution of the Duc d’Enghien.  Talleyrand is right in spirit, though there is one category of crime that does encompass blunders.  We chess people believe that although all crimes may not be blunders, all blunders are certainly capital crimes.  The fatalities are our chess positions.

     Blunders can be divided into two types:  1.  Tasteful, grandmasterly errors that many of us would regard as reasonable, though ultimately mistaken moves if we made them; and 2.  Bad, bizarre and baleful blunders.  These latter blunders look like the scowl on Mike Tyson’s face, and database and news editors have been known to drop certain games discreetly. Among Alexander Alekhine’s missing games is a loss as White to Georg Salwe, which was not reprinted in the newspapers of the time and which caused the Rigasche Rundschau to claim, “Alekhine achieved a tour de force by losing a game on the fifth! move.  His opponent Salwe will hardly be unpleasantly touched by it!”

      Max Euwe, a former world champion, was once asked to name “My Gravest Error.”  He rejected crass oversights, which are accidental blunders.  He wrote, “One might just as well try to explain why a double six came up when two dice were thrown.”  And so he chose an error in judgment, which he made against Vasily Smyslov in the 1953 Candidates’ Tournament.

     Euwe prepared carefully for the Candidates’ because he was making a final attempt “to regain my place among the very top chess-players of the world.”  In rounds one and two, he beat Alexander Kotov and Yefim Geller.  “I was feeling like a newly born hero,” he wrote, “when, in the third round, I was seated opposite Smyslov.  When one is in such a mood, everything succeeds.  In our game I had chosen an enterprising opening, and during the middle game I had sacrificed the exchange.”  The position with White to make his 28th move:  

GM Max Euwe - GM Vasily Smyslov, 
Candidates’ Tournament, 1953.

       Euwe described 28. Qd6 as the “obvious” move.  He noted that White threatens 29. Qf6+ and that Black would have to trade Queens by 28. ... Qa6+  29. Qxa6 Nxa6  30. Nxb8 Rxb8.  He wrote, “I looked at this ending for a few minutes:  a pawn up; bishop against knight.  My prospects were excellent, but doubtlessly against a tough end-game player like Smyslov, there would still be some hard work to do.”  Euwe also looked at 28. Qd2, which “seemed very solid,” though he would be down an Exchange for a pawn.  “Against Smyslov this could lead to an unhappy result,” Euwe noted.

     And so Euwe searched for more in the 28. Qd6 line.  He became fascinated by the variation, 28. Qd6 Qa6+  29. Qxa6 Nxa6  30. Nxe5, threatening both 31. Nf7+ and 31. Nc6; but Black had 30. ... Rd2 “which is rather troublesome.”

    Now comes the intellectual breakdown as described by Euwe:  “I returned to my 28. Qd2 line, and herein lay my grave error.  I quite FORGOT that in the first line with 28. Qd6 Qa6+  29. Qxa6 Nxa6 I could regain the exchange by simply playing Nxb8.  My analysis of Nxe5 instead of Nxb8 had so fascinated me that it had overshadowed and obliterated my original calculation ....  It is very rare that a player forgets the outcome of a variation he has already calculated correctly.”

     Hah!  Rare for Euwe, not for the rest of us.  I’ve forgotten how many outcomes of countless variations that I’ve forgotten.  In the game, Euwe played 28. Qd2 and eventually lost.

     Euwe’s blunder was undoubtedly tasteful, just the kind of mistake that a world champion makes when, on rare occasions, he does blunder.  Now, a declaration:  Lest there be any misunderstanding between author and reader, tasteful blunders will not be the subject of this Chess Beat.  Our subject will be bad, bizarre and baleful blunders.  Which is to say, gut-wrenching and humiliating blunders.

PRE-OPENING BLUNDERS

Some blunders come so early in a game that they are not so much opening blunders as pre-opening catastrophes.  A handful of moves is made, and bingo!, your number is up.  Game over. 

     The following mini-miniature is the shortest decisive game ever played by truly strong masters.  R. F. Combe, the loser, won the British Championship in 1946 on his first and only attempt.  “I should like to record,” wrote A. R. B. Thomas about Combe, “what a great player I thought he was .... [W]orth recording about him is that he played very quickly in 1946, and frequently had a whole hour to spare on his clock.”

R. F. Combe - W. R. Hasenfuss, Folkestone Olympiad, 1933 (English Opening)

     1.   d4 c5  2. c4  cxd4  3. Nf3? e5  

     4.  Nxe5?? 

According to one account, Combe was exhausted by a 12-hour game from the previous round.

     4. ... Qa5+, White resigns

       The players of the following four-mover were also masters, though both were a notch below Combe and Hasenfuss:

A. Gibaud - Frederic Lazard, Paris, 1924 (Queen’s Pawn)

       1. d4 Nf6  2. Nd2 e5  3. dxe5 Ng4  4. h3??    

     4. ... Ne3!!, White resigns

     White either loses his Queen or his King after 5. fxe3 Qh4+  6. g3 Qxg3, mate.  Correct for White on his fourth turn was Ngf3.

     “My head is filled with sunshine,” bubbled Mikhail Tal shortly after winning the 1959 Candidates’ Tournament. 

       What a wonderful line!  I can still remember playing over Tal’s games from a lesser event - the first world student team championship back in 1957.   He didn’t just beat his opponents.  He torched them.  One writer called his play “foolhardy and irresponsible” and claimed that he was successful only because “tested defenders are unable to withstand this terror on the chess board.”  Yet by Tal’s own testimony, this tumultuous incandescence - to mangle a metaphor - began inauspiciously.  Unlike Jose Capablanca, who won the first game he ever played, Tal suffered the horror of Scholar’s Mate (1. e4 e5  2. Bc4 Nc6  3. Qh5 Nf6  4. Qxf7, mate) more than once against family members.  He is the strongest player ever to admit losing a game in four moves.

     In the 1984 U. S. Championship, IM Kamran Shirazi, a great tactician, managed to lose in five moves as White in the Wing Gambit of the Sicilian Defense by overlooking a double attack:

IM Kamran Shirazi - IM Jack Peters, U. S. Championship, 1984 (Sicilian Defense)

  1. e4 c5  2. b4 cxb4  3. a3 d5  4. exd5 Qxd5  5. axb4??  

     5. ... Qe5+, White resigns

     My favorite pre-opening blunder came in Tarrasch-Alapin (Breslau, 1889), which is instructive for players of all strengths:

Siegbert Tarrasch - Semyon Alapin, Breslau, 1889 (Petroff’s Defense)

  1. e4 e5  2. Nf3 Nf6  3. Nxe5 d6  4. Nf3 Nxe4  5. d3!

     A neat bit of gamesmanship.     

     5. ... Be7??  6. dxe4, Black resigns

       Black was so busy writing down the book line of this opening on his scoresheet that he dispensed with the formality of observing his opponent’s moves.  Tarrasch knew in advance that Alapin, a renowned Petroffnik, would play the opening moves automatically.  Writes GM Larry Evans in his The 10 Most Common Chess Mistakes, “This weird mistake came about because Alapin had expected the customary d4 instead of d3.  Imagine his chagrin when he took another look at the board and saw that his knight was en prise.”

       The game Delmar-Marshall (Brooklyn Championship, 1906) may feature the earliest blunder ever committed by a world-class player - not so much a pre-opening blunder but something even worse, nearly a pre-opening-move blunder:

  Eugene Delmar - Frank Marshall, Brooklyn Championship, 1906 (Orangutan Opening)

  1. b4 e5  2. Bb2 Nc6??

      Blunders are possible on move one for Black and on move two for both Black and White (e. g., Fool’s Mate:  1. g4 e5  2. f3??? Qh4, mate).  Are there any documented move-two grandmaster blunders as White?

2. b5 Nce7  4. Bxe5

     White won on move 43.