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By Larry Parr
Chess Life Editor 1984 - 1988
Author
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WORSE
THAN A CRIME?
(Continued)
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WHEN
CHESS GODS BLUNDER
(II)
If naive trust is touching, then Emma-Stein (Mar del Plata, 1966) is the
ultimate tearjerker. Black, the great Soviet champion Leonid Stein, is not in time
pressure and leisurely considered his 34th move for 20 minutes.
GM
Leonid Stein (to play)
IM
Jaime Emma
34. ... Qc2??
Why only two question marks? After
all, White can now play 35. Nxc2, a move that requires nothing more than basic
motor skills. Yet there are
mitigating circumstances: 1.
White’s Knight is hidden on e1among pieces of its own color; and 2.
The geometry of the capture on c2 is just a trifle unusual.
Stein made the blunder because he was searching for a win after pushing
Black around for the entire game. A
good idea suggested by GM Evans is 34. ... Bc8, followed by ... Bh3+.
35. Rd7??
Once again, only two queries. Is
this an instance of bleeding heart liberalism, a loss of standards in an age of
decadence? Have even we chessic
avatars begun to grovel slavishly before the altar of the common man?
Are we so debased as to quote - Heaven forbid - the poetry of Carl
Sandburg? Such as this bit from
“The People, Yes”: “The
people will live on./ The learning and blundering people will live on./ They
will be tricked and sold and again sold/ And go back to the nourishing earth for
rootholds.”
And so, yes, IM Emma fails to take the Queen.
And yes, this fine player saw that the Queen could be captured.
And yes, he reflexively moved his attacked Rook because he could not
believe that GM Stein could make such a blunder after prolonged, apparently
serene reflection. These points all
argue in favor of three question marks. Yet
White was under great pressure in this game, and Black was cruising to yet
another dynamic victory of the kind that the Soviet grandmasters of the 1950s
and 1960s almost routinely achieved against Western punching bags.
IM Emma’s 35. Rd7?? was not only an example of blind acceptance of
authority, it was a reflexive flinch from a battered human chess being.
C’mon, give this beaten down guy a break.
Okay?
One last point: IM Emma resurrects himself in the play that follows.
A lot of YOU guys would have let the draw go against Leonid Stein after
the shock of committing such a blunder. Hey,
no sanctimonious outrage here, no casting the first stone!
You KNOW that you would have let the draw slip!
35. ... Qh2 36. Rxf7 Qh1+ 37.
Kf2 Be4 38. Nf3 Qxf3+
39. Qxf3 Bxf3 40. Kxf3 Nxc1 41.
Rxa7 Na2 42. a5 bxa5
43. Rxa5 Nxc3 44. Rxc5 Kg8 45.
Rc8+ Kf7 46. c5 Nd5
47. Rd8 Ne7 48. g4, draw
Final
position.
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