Saturday
Feb112017
This Week's World Chess Column: Miniatures Lost by Elite GMs
Saturday, February 11, 2017 at 3:22AM
Hou Yifan's five-move loss in the last round of Gibraltar was a protest, not a real game, but it got me curious about very short games lost by elite GMs (I'm arbitrarily defining that as GMs rated at or over 2600) at a classical time control. Some of my surprising (and entertaining and instructive) findings can be found here.
tagged AGON, Hou Yifan, blunders, miniatures
Reader Comments (5)
Thanks, that was fun. Also don't forget Christiansen - Karpov, Wijk aan Zee 1993 (this was the game that immediately came to mind when I saw the topic).
[DM: It's very strange that I forgot that game, especially since I showed it to a student within a week of writing that column! Thanks for the note.]
A very enjoyable column! I recommend everyone take a look.
[DM: Thanks!]
These short games are quite instructive. Great annotations on your part, too.
Do you have Encyclopedia of Chess Miniatures? I've been working through the QID miniatures in that book and was able to replicate the first 11 1/2 moves of Karjakin -- Bindrich (2007) against the top seed in our club championship last Thursday. See "Home Preparation" on my blog for both games.
[DM: I don't think I have that one, for some reason. That's probably something worth rectifying. It sounds like you used the book in a smart way - congrats on the win vs. Cambareri!]
Thanks for the interesting article and selection of games. I'm glad to have found your blog and your lecture on learning from the champions --I just purchased the 6 DVDs yesterday.
I sent you a message on chess.com a few days ago. Would you have a look at it?
Take Care,
David
[DM: I'm practically never on there - writing me via the contact link here is a much better way to get a hold of me. I'll go check now. Hope you like the DVDs!]
Maybe worthy of note?
Richard Reti vs Savielly Tartakower (1910)
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1250654
[DM: Tartakower was certainly a great player, though that was still well before his peak. But more importantly for the criteria of the article, it wasn't a tournament game; in fact, it may have been a rapid game too: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/retitartakower.html.]