The Love for Wood
That is the enigmatic title of a Dutch documentary from 1979, filmed mostly in and around that year's Dutch chess championships, and features mostly Jan Timman, Hans Ree, Ulf Andersson, Jan Hein Donner and Max Euwe. You can watch it below - just make sure to switch on the English subtitles (unless of course you understand Dutch).
A number of games are shown or referred to, and I've done my best to compile them for you, here.
Here's a bonus of sorts. Early on in the film Donner says that "[i]n the split second you touch the piece you'll see more than you have seen in the past 30 minutes or hour in which you have been thinking." This is of course an exaggeration, but it is true that players very often recognize their move (or their intended move) to have been a mistake the instant after they touch the piece or worse, release it and hit the clock. As if on cue, I had paused the film above shortly after seeing Donner's comment, and then before having the chance to return to the documentary watched the following blitz game online:
At 2:10 Alexander Morozevich, with Black, plays ...a5, and after thinking for 24 seconds his fellow GM, Vladimir Belous, plays the queen from d1 to d2, and only then recognizes that it's a blunder - Black will play ...g5 winning a piece. At least that's what I assumed. It makes sense of the move he finally does play another 20 seconds later, Qc1. Ironically, though, three moves later Belous plays e3, allowing ...g5 anyway. I'm not completely sure he intended it as a piece sacrifice, both because his compensation dries up pretty quickly and because I think I detected a tiny expression of surprise/shock right after he made his move - but I could be wrong, and will leave it to you to decide. At any rate, I suspect that many of you could share horror stories of moves recognized as blunders a moment after it is too late.
Reader Comments (4)
Wood is English for "hout" - and "hout" is Dutch chess slang for the chess pieces. I wrote this before I started the documentary - and sure enough the second sentence contains the word "stukken" - pieces.
My horror story.
I had spent about 20 minutes calculating a Nxf7 sacrifice. I did a good job navigating the complexities of Rxf7. Immediately after I took the pawn with the Knight I realized I had neglected to calculate Kxf7, which cost me the game.
Definitely saw it after he moved the queen to d2. He even mutters something under his breath. From what I can interpret of the body language he seemed psychologically thrown by the mistake and couldn't recover.
Donner was master of the politically incorrect - there's a good selection of his quotes on his Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Hein_Donner
The funniest is where he scolds someone for losing to a 'Chinaman' and then does just that himself. The game score is even there.