Friday
Nov272009
This Week's ChessVideos Show: Some Amusing Moments from the World Cup
Friday, November 27, 2009 at 7:24PM A little light entertainment this week, as I present a couple of miniatures and an act of priceless self-destruction from the ongoing World Cup in my ChessVideos show this week. You can watch it here: it's free and available on-demand for the next month or so.
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Reader Comments (2)
Hi Dennis,
i actually watched your video. It was good but listenning your comment of Alekseev- Fressinet, it seems you pick on the guy making him look like stupid. I think it is an unfair statement to say he killed himself, i just think Alekseev played very well reducing any possible counterplay to nearly zero, and the quote said "better a bad plan than no plan at all": Fressinet was in a must-win situation which makes you take stupid risks sometimes. Alekseev won this match just because he played better than Fressinet...
best,
Vaseline Poopalov
Yes, Fressinet had a motive for trying to imbalance the position, but not all risks are created equal. Further, it wasn't the only way to play while still hoping for a win. Finally, the rapid tiebreakers were four games long, not two, so he still had another White game left - hardly a must-win situation yet. Fressinet is not a stupid chess player at all, but sometimes even great chess players do stupid or at least self-destructive things, and this was such an occasion.