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Quirky name, real matters
Quirky name, real matters
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!
Cheers and bye for now.
Joanne
More: Chess Base
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
1.d4 e6 2.c4 f5 3.g3 Nf6 4.Bg2 Be7 5.Nf3 d5 6.O-O O-O 7.b3 Bd7
8.Ba3 Nc6 9.Qc1 a5 10.Bxe7 Qxe7 11.Nc3 Be8 12.Qe3 dxc4 13.bxc4
Rd8 14.Rfd1 Ng4 15.Qf4 Bf7 16.Rab1 e5 17.dxe5 Rxd1+ 18.Rxd1
Qc5 19.Ng5 Bxc4 20.Nd5 Nd8 21.e6 Bxd5 22.Rxd5 Qa3 23.Rd7 Nc6
24.Bxc6 bxc6 25.e7 Re8 26.Qc4+ Kh8 27.Nf7+ Kg8 28.Nh6+ Kh8
29.Qg8+ Rxg8 30.Nf7#
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vulpecula
24 ( +1 | -1 )
world championship mate I 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
Regards, Guy
More: Chess Opening
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.
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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#
Cheers,
Ion
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