jstevens1
♡ 192 ( +1 | -1 ) Messrs Short & Korchnoi Cop Old Matey!Those two guys sound like a firm of Solicitors but they are not. They are grandmasters. It is very rare that you will see grandmasters being checkmated but I have just found a regicide manual titied "Danger in Chess" by Amatzia Avni and it is about these two grandmasters who literally bumped into Old Matey.
I will now talk about Nigel Short:-
1. Nigel Short is playing white against a guy called Belyavsky in Linares 1992. The position on the board before the checkmate in a 2 piece endgame is as follows:-
White: 1 white pawn on b5, one white bishop on d3, one white knight on e3, white king on e5, white pawns on g2 and h3.
Black: 1 lsb on b7, one black knight on e8, black king on f8, black pawns on f7, g5 and h4.
Here it comes: Nigel Short plays 1. Nd5 and black replies with f6+. Short plays 2. Ke6?? and is checkmated by Bc8!
2. Now for Victor Korchnoi. Victor Korchnoi is black in a Q & P endgame against a guy called Rogers. This match was played in Biel 1986.
The pieces are set up as follows:-
White: white queen on a5 and white pawns on a3, c4, f3, g2 and h4, white king on h2.
Black: black king on d6, black pawns on d2, e6, f7 and f4 and a black queen on e3.
Now come the following moves:-
Korchnoi played 1. ........ Qd4, Rogers replied with Qd8+ and Korchnoi moved his king to c5, the move was given a double question mark as white delivered mate with 2. Qc7#.
Hope you guys can follow all that!
Don't we all get that horrid sinking feeling when your opponent calls mate on you when playing OTB or you unexpectedly get a pm from gameknot saying "Game Lost (checkmate), new rating ....." (thanks in part though to the checkmate detector on analyse the board all my losses on gameknot have been resignations!) but I have been snap mated when I played chess OTB so I did get that experience. But at least if it happens to you you can now say, it happened to a grandmaster!
Hope you've enjoyed your Christmas and have had some really nice presents!
grundnorm
♡ 29 ( +1 | -1 ) Nigel Short mated again....This time smothered (surely Short must have seen?) playing against Jan Timman, the Dutch GM. Tilburg 1990
vulpecula
♡ 24 ( +1 | -1 ) world championship mateI don't really want to troll through all the past games, and I don't ask or expect anyone else to but, does anyone by chance know the last time a world championship game ended with mate ? - just curious
ionadowman
♡ 125 ( +1 | -1 ) The interesting thing ...... about the two checkmates Joanne describes is that both occur deep in the endgame in situations where one wouldn't be looking for checkmates. Short-Belyavsky: w B, N & 3P each, but White has the more space. No harm in White attempting to extract a bit more from the position. What's the danger? You certainly wouldn't expect even a help-mate to be possible with the White K in the middle of the board and so little material about. But there it is, in just 2 moves.
Rogers-Korchnoi: b Black has a pawn within one square of promotion. Surely he must win? But promotion is not immediately possible: 1...d1=Q?? 2.Qd8+ Kc5 3.Qxd1 etc. Naturally, one doesn't expect bad things from the lone, unsupported White Queen, so after 1...Qd4, Korchnoi must have thought that White would either take up a passive position by 2.Qd1, or run out of checks. Clearly he had no reason to concern himself after 2.Qd8+, surely?? H'mmm - 2...Ke5 don't look so good: 3.Qg5+ Ke6 (not 3...f5?? 4.Qg7+ wins for White) 4.Qd8+ with a perpetual. Well, it stands to reason that with more room on the Q-side the Black king will be safer there: 2...Kc5 3.Qc7# Remarkable.
ionadowman
♡ 89 ( +1 | -1 ) Looking at the Timman-Short game...... It is clear Short saw it coming from at least move 25, and probably a move or two earlier. This kind of smothered mate is a very well known motif (though the setting is slightly unusual), but it is no less spectacular for being familiar. I have no doubt Short played it to mate as a courtesy to his opponent and also to the paying fans, who like to see this kind of thing. Good on him. Here's the position again after Black's 24th move: Timman-Short w 25.e7 Re8 and now checkmate is forced: 26.Qc4+ Kh8 27.Nf7+ Kg8 28.Nh6+ Kh8 29.Qg8+ Rxg8 30.Nf7#
Just to illustrate how often that mating motif crops up, this was from a Blitz game on GK nearly 3 years ago. I had the Black pieces: b 1...g3+ 2.Kg1 Qd4+ 3.Kh1 Nf2+ 4.Kg1 Nh3+ 5.Kh1 Qg1+ 6.Rg1 Nf2#