Superbet Chess Classic, Round 7: Two Short Draws, Two Long Wins, and (at least) Two Blunders

We're into the home stretch of the 2022 Superbet Chess Classic, and Wesley So and Levon Aronian continue to lead the way. They both drew their games, quickly, against Bogdan Deac and Fabiano Caruana, and waited to see if anyone could close to within half a point of them. (Deac and Caruana started and finished the round a point behind them.)

Ian Nepomniachtchi could have done so, had he won with the white pieces against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov. After Mamedyarov's 35...h6?? he had a chance to do so, but missed it. Nepo wasn't worse after the mutual oversight, but he played very poorly in the second time control, and went on to lose.

Another player with a chance to close to within half a point of the leaders was Leinier Dominguez. He and Alireza Firouzja had a complicated and lively game that was almost perfectly played until Dominguez's 35...Nc6??, falling for a standard tactic in a very non-standard situation. Unlike Nepo in his game, Firouzja spotted the problem and exploited it to the full, getting back to 50% for the event.

That left only Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with a chance to cut the leaders' edge to half a point. He seemed the least likely candidate to do so, as he was on the black side of a very drawish line of the Meran against Richard Rapport. A speedy repetition seemed possible until Rapport uncorked the blunder 28.Nd5?? That word, "blunder", gets overused in chess circles - and I'm probably guilty of that as well. We're all spoiled by computer evaluations, and can now recognize immediately that a certain move was a big mistake, objectively, even in cases where it might have taken grandmasters weeks or months to notice the error and demonstrate the refutation. Rapport's blunder today, however, was, as they used to say, the genuine article. No analytical confab or 3600-level computer analysis was required for this one. Errare humanum est strikes again.

In sum: with two rounds to go, So and Aronian lead MVL by half a point; lead Caruana, Firouzja, and Deac by a full point; Nepo, Mamedyarov, and Dominguez by a point and a half; and poor Rapport by two points.

Today's games, with my comments, are here; these are the pairings for round 8:

• Mamedyarov (3) - Dominguez (3)
• So (4.5) - Firouzja (3.5)
• Vachier-Lagrave (4) - Deac (3.5)
• Caruana (3.5) - Rapport (2.5)
• Nepomniachtchi (3) - Aronian (4.5)

Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi, Game 9: Nepo Blunders Again; Carlsen Leads 6-3 **UPDATED** Game and Analysis Added

The drama is over. As in game 8, Ian Nepomniachtchi blundered in a perfectly healthy position, and with today's loss goes down three points with just five games to play. Up to that point it had been an interesting game, with Nepo enjoying a plus most of the way. Champ Magnus Carlsen had been under pressure both on the board and on the clock, but after 26.Bxb7 (perfectly fine) Ra4 27.c5?? c6 the game was essentially over, as the white bishop was trapped and would be lost by force. Nepomniachtchi found the trickiest possibility available, but despite Carlsen's relative lack of time he was able to work everything out and win the game just before the time control.

Will there be any real games the rest of the way, or will the match end with a series of pro forma draws? My guess is that Nepo will be satisfied with a draw tomorrow, if he can get to move 40 without blundering (Carlsen hasn't been pushing for a win the last couple of games; he's just taking advantage of Nepo's unforced errors), and will push one last time on Friday, after the rest day on Thursday.

I'll update the post with the game later today.

**UPDATE** Here's the game, with my comments.

Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi, Game 8: Nepo Blunders, Goes Two Down

The match isn't over, but Magnus Carlsen may have gotten his first glimpse of the finishing line. The players both seem to be very tired - Carlsen is, by his own admission, and it's not a difficult inference to make about Ian Nepomniachtchi's condition, either - and perhaps the difference in today's game was that Carlsen was more aware of his limitations and made the right adjustments, while Nepo didn't.

Carlsen returned to 1.e4 and Nepo repeated the Petroff. Carlsen varied from game 4 with 3.d4, and played an extremely innocuous line. It was quickly clear that he was fine with a draw, though he would play on given a chance. The challenger, by contrast, played very enterprising chess. Maybe he didn't break the bounds of acceptable risk, but he was doing what he could to unbalance the position. Carlsen's reaction wasn't to play for the maximum, but to keep control. And then, out of nowhere, Nepomniachtchi blundered - really blundered (in contrast with the exaggerated sense of that term that's now commonplace, when a grandmaster reports "blundering" some minor point on the 15th move of a variation, where that word is incorrectly used as a synonym for "overlooked"). He lost an important pawn to a two-move idea, with the longest relevant variation going only one move further. (And these were all obvious moves, too.)

Nepo didn't put up the best defense afterwards, either, and Carlsen showed good if not especially crisp technique to finish the game in the second time control. He now leads the best-of-14 game match 5-3, and as he has only lost a grand total of two games in his four and a half world championship matches, the challenger's chances are almost negligible, especially now that Carlsen will play with an extra layer of caution. But we'll see, and Nepo has a rest day to lick his wounds, regain his strength, and find a promising line for his next white game.

Here's round 8, with my notes. For those who need a chess fix tomorrow, recall that there will be Speed Chess Championship matches between Ding Liren and Levon Aronian, and between Hikaru Nakamura and Anish Giri, tomorrow.

2019 Wijk aan Zee, Round 11: Giri Gets a Gift, Co-Leads with Carlsen

Well, that was embarrassing. Sam Shankland lost by resigning to Anish Giri in a theoretically drawn position. What's worse is that he didn't have to find anything. All he had to do was retreat the king, and the job would be done. It's remarkable that so studious a player as Shankland was unfamiliar with this particular fortress - it's a bit like Viktor Korchnoi once asking an arbiter if castling queenside was legal if the rook passed over an attacked square. That's chess for you: there's so much to know that it's possible for a 2700 not to know an elementary draw known to many club players.

It was a big gift for Anish Giri, who thereby caught up with Magnus Carlsen in first place with two rounds to go after the latter drew quickly and easily with Black in a Sveshnikov against Teimour Radjabov. They are half a point ahead of Ian Nepomniachtchi, who bounced back from yesterday's loss by defeating Vladimir Fedoseev. Nepo had a serious, evening winning advantage early on in an Advance Caro-Kann, let it slip, and then won the game a second time when Fedoseev faltered just before (and after) the time control.

Ding Liren and Viswanathan Anand are a further half a point behind. Ding drew with Richard Rapport in all of 16 moves, while Anand came close to achieving something with White against Jan-Krzysztof Duda. Close, but Duda had the one tempo he needed to equalize.

The last two games were decisive. Santosh Vidit Gujrathi defeated the plummeting Shakhriyar Mamedyarov with Black, and pretty easily, too. Meanwhile, Vladimir Kramnik finally won a game - with great difficulty - against Jorden Van Foreest. Kramnik was winning smoothly early on, and was on the way to what would have been an attractive attacking game. He missed his best opportunity, and after further inaccuracies Van Foreest equalized. But Kramnik started grinding and kept on grinding, and in the second time control Black made several errors to lose in a double bishop ending. Even with the win Kramnik is still alone in last place, half a point behind Van Foreest and Mamedyarov. Both Kramnik and Mamedyarov have lost 23 points in what has proved to be a disastrous event for them. (Tournament site here, games here, with notes to Kramnik's and Giri's games.)

But enough about their woes. The race for first is where the action is, and five players are still in the hunt. Better still, the pairing for the last round is Giri-Carlsen. First we have round 12, and here are the pairings:

• Carlsen (7.5) - Duda (5)
• Ding (6.5) - Anand (6.5)
• Vidit (6) - Rapport (5)
• Van Foreest (4) - Mamedyarov (4)
• Fedoseev (4.5) - Kramnik (3.5)
• Shankland (4.5) - Nepomniachtchi (7)
• Radjabov (5.5) - Giri (7.5)

Just think: if Carlsen and Giri draw, Nepomniachtchi wins, and either Ding or Anand wins, there will be a four-way tie for first entering the last round. And if we add to that a draw between Van Foreest and Mamedyarov and a Kramnik win there will be a five-way tie for last. It's impossible to happen in this event, but has a tournament ever finished with half the players tied for first and the other half tied for last? My favorite oddball super-GM tournament result was Linares 2001, when Kasparov finished in first with a +5 score while the other five players (Polgar, Karpov, Leko, Shirov, and Grischuk) tied for second=last place with -1 scores.

This Week's World Chess Column: Miniatures Lost by Elite GMs

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.

World Cup 2015: Round 7 (Finals), Day 3: Karjakin Still Alive After Svidler's Back-to-Back Blunders

Easy come, easy go. Peter Svidler got a free half point in game two after Sergey Karjakin's 37.Rb5?? (compounded by 38.Rd5??), and today Svidler returned the favor with interest, losing a winning position and then a drawn position after his own back-to-back blunders. As with Karjakin's errors yesterday the mistakes were unforced and occurred with the victim having plenty of time left on the clock. Fatigue has set in, and nerves are apparently getting the best of the players as well.

In the game, Svidler chose an unusual approach for a situation where a draw would be good enough to finish the match. If he wanted to go for a solid sideline against the Sicilian, 3.Bb5+ would have sufficed. If he wanted principled chess, then 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 would have made sense, especially since Black would have had to avoid many, many lines where Black's only way to avoid a loss or a seriously worse position is to allow a forced draw. Instead, Svidler chose option #3, 3.d4 cxd4 4.Qxd4, a line that promises White neither an advantage nor an especially safe position.

That's not to say that Svidler was worse after the move either. Both sides played very well, and Karjakin's efforts to create complications didn't extract any errors from Svidler. Karjakin then had to overpress, as normal moves would result in an easy draw for his opponent, but after overpressing he was lost. The critical moment started after Karjakin's 27...exd5, which was objectively bad but the only way to keep any drama in the position. Svidler had 13 minutes left on the clock, and after just 30 seconds or so played the terrible 28.Rxf2?? Instead, 28.Qd2 would have forced Black to sac a piece and hope to scramble for a draw after 28...Nxh3+ 29.gxh3, whlie 28.Qc3 would have won the game with ease.

After 28.Rxf2 Svidler sprung up from the board, then rushed back to see 28...Qh4! He turned red, buried his face in his hands, and shook his head repeatedly. In short, he did everything...except take his time and regain his composure. Instead, after less than a minute and a half in total he played 29.Qd2??, losing almost trivially. Had he managed to regain his bearings he would have played the obvious 29.Qxe8, when after 29...Qxf2+ 30.Kh2 Qxb6 (or 30...Rxb6) Black has practical chances but a draw is the likeliest (and objectively correct) result.

But he instead played 29.Qd2?? and again shot up like a jackrabbit. After a few seconds, probably spent quadruple checking to make sure that it really was his lucky day and he wasn't missing anything, Karjakin played 29...Rxf2. Svidler hopped back on stage and rushed to the board, played 30.Qc3+, and hopped back up and away. A few seconds later Karjakin responded with the blindingly obvious 30...d4, and Svidler looked up at the projected demo board on the screen in absolute horror, came back to the board and resigned after a few seconds. Svidler's bouncing up and down - his "ants in his pants", as the old-timers would say - looked fairly ridiculous under the circumstances, and it's hard to believe that he would have blown the game the way he did had he just stayed at the board and worked his way through the initial shock of seeing 28...Qh4.

But let's be fair: who among us hasn't blown a critical game at some point in his life, or lost a game from a winning position? Been there, done that, and so has pretty much everyone else. And before we feel too bad for Svidler, we should remember that he's still in good shape, only needing a draw in game 4 tomorrow to win the match and the World Cup title. And no matter what, he (and Karjakin) are headed for the Candidates' tournament next year, and that's the big prize.

Here is today's game, with my notes.

The Worst 2400+ Game All Year?

This game is so unbelievably bad as to be genuinely suspicious. The game wouldn't do credit to 1400s, let alone 2400s - but you make the call.

The Mind Says Move Here, the Hand Demurs - And Other Tales of Horror

We've been examining a variety of chess blunders lately, and will continue to do so in this post. The primary focus has been on blunders that transcend the purely chess aspect, and reflecting on my experience in the game I've thought of three more examples of quite different sorts.

Let's start with the most painful example, from a local g/10 I lost in 2011. The following is an approximation of the position:

I'm White and on move, and while winning would be difficult with less than a minute on my clock (likewise for my opponent) and without an increment, it's clear that I shouldn't lose it. This came at the end of a forcing sequence, and my intention a few moves back was to play either 1.Bd6 or 1.Bb6 - I can't remember now - and it still was upon reaching the position. So I reached out, grasped the bishop, and played...1.Bd4?? My opponent was understandably stunned and suspicious, but after a few seconds of checking and double-checking he took the rook and managed to win before running out of time. I've had some painful losses in my life, but this one, in an otherwise mostly meaningless game, was the only one that literally gave me nightmares!

What was the cause? Maybe the importance of centralization and the aesthetics of putting a bishop on a great square like d4 worked like a sort of muscle memory? Beats me, but it's a horrible feeling when you don't understand why you did something.

The second case is one that faithful comment-readers may have wondered about. Neal Bonrud regularly comments to this blog, but back in 1999 we played in a small tournament in Las Vegas. Things were going well for me on the white side of a French, and this was the position after 29 moves; the first time control was at move 30, and I had plenty of time to make a decision - something like seven minutes.

What should I do? I recall considering 30.Rce3, 30.a4, 30.h5 and probably other moves as well. Can White break through (e.g. with h5 or maybe at some point c4 or even f5)? If not, should he aim to keep squeezing? Open a second front? Find some generic improving move? Finding the perfect move isn't so important here, but I wanted to find the best plan, find the right idea. I kept looking, trying this and then that; always comfortable with my position but unsure of how to convert the advantage into a win. Of course I was keeping an eye on the clock, but there was still enough time left such that I didn't need to make a "practical" decision yet; genuine thought was still possible. So I looked (3 minutes left), looked (2 minutes left), looked (a minute or so left)...and kept looking. At some point I came to a moment of internal resolution and made a decision. I calmly made my move and pressed the clock, and then saw with a mixture of horror and relief that I had done so with one second left. Somehow my focus had grown so deep that I forgot about the clock, and it was just good fortune, sheer dumb luck, that I happened to make the move in time. I'm pretty sure the blood drained from my face for a few seconds after seeing the clock!

The third instance is just amusing, to be filed under "just deserts". I was a piece up in some meaningless, probably unrated online blitz game around 15 years ago, and with two bishops vs. one with no pawn weaknesses and plenty of time on the clock I was a little annoyed that my opponent was playing on. (This is an attitude I've by and large overcome - one simply must in order to play online without going crazy!) The position was something like this:

Here, I uncorked the ridiculous 1.Ke3??, allowing 1...c5 regaining the piece. Argh! Shame on me for switching off mentally, but wait! The game continued 2.Bxc5 bxc5 3.Bd1 Be5 4.Bb3 (something like this - I'm just reconstructing the idea)

and now my opponent played  the incredible 4...Kd6?? Of course I responded with 5.f4! and laughed myself silly as he disconnected. Most people learn better from their own mistakes than those of others, but this is carrying things a bit too far!

...

In the next post, we'll look at another interesting error that likewise transcends the realm of pure chess, but is it a blunder or other sort of mental malfunction? Or is it just the cost of doing business? Stay tuned...

Lost In Translation?

In the e-periodical Chess Today, GM Alex Baburin occasionally devotes an issue to showing recent blunders. Sometimes the blunders are instructive, but on other occasions I suspect the purpose is humor, identification and even a bit of schadenfreude. The following instance, from issue 4640, seems to belong in a category of its own:

Zakhartsov (2560) - Westerberg (2410), Czech Open (rapid) 2013, position after 26.Nc3-a4.

As you might guess from the pawn structure, the position arose from a Benko Gambit. Black is a pawn in arrears, but maintains enough control of the queenside that it's not yet merely a matter of technique. At any rate, Black has two good options here. The conventional option is 26...Qxd2 27.Rxd2 Bxb2 28.Rxd2, and the second is truly fantastic: 26...Qxa4 (this isn't so amazing in and of itself, as 27.bxa4 Rxb2 is obviously winning for Black) 27.Bxf6 and now the spectacular 27...Nc4. There's practically no chance of Black finding the second option, let alone considering it seriously, especially in a rapid game, so let's focus on the first. This was almost surely Black's intention, and then he played 26...Bxb2??

A remarkable blunder, but Baburin offers a plausible explanation. He thinks that Black intended to trade queens first and then take on b2, but somehow skipped a step in the translation from intention to action. (My words, not his.) Interestingly, Baburin claims that this is a common phenomenon.

I believe this has happened to me once or twice, but only in blitz games, and I think it almost happened to me on several other occasions - maybe even in a tournament setting. I also have a somewhat dim recollection of having been a recipient of such errors too. So the experience is a familiar one, but "common" may be overly generous if taken to mean something like "relatively frequent". What about you? Have you experienced this sort of error yourself, either as donor or recipient?

Anand Levels Gelfand and the Match, Winning Game 8 in 17 Moves

An odd world championship match just grew odder still. After 19 years without a win in classical chess against Viswanathan Anand, Boris Gelfand's patient, solid strategy paid off in game 7. He won and took the lead over the champion, 4-3, with just five games to go. At this point he could expect Anand to play more aggressively and to start throwing the kitchen sink at him, so it would have made sense to keep solid, weather the storm and maybe even give Anand the chance to overextend.

So what happened? Just the opposite. Perhaps dizzy from success, Gelfand played uncharacteristically risky chess, like a man who had completely lost his sense of danger. The game grew wild in a hurry, and then Gelfand badly miscalculated a short sequence and lost immediately. What's especially odd is that if Gelfand's normal sense of danger had been present, he would have been more suspicious - surely Anand wouldn't overlook something so simple, would he? He didn't.

The game was thus a disaster, but objectively Gelfand is still in reasonable shape in the match. It's tied at 4-4, with four games to go, and he can head into the rest day with the encouraging awareness that he can beat Anand. For Anand, today's game was an obvious positive, so if he can neutralize Gelfand's opening in game 9 he can look forward to the rest of the match with confidence.

My back allowing, subscribers can look forward to my annotations and video and later this evening.