Fortunes on the chess board can be turned around 180° by just one careless mistake.
AS chess players, it is useful to remind ourselves that we are never infallible. Murphy’s Law always applies: anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
That’s why chess is an interesting game. If everyone plays perfect chess, there isn’t a need to play chess any more. Everything will become so clinical that you can agree to a draw before the first move is made.
How often have you succumbed to a chess mistake? I know that I make mistakes in a chess game all the time. Often after I’ve made a move, I’d think “oh, no” to myself immediately. Why didn’t I see this better move? Why didn’t I anticipate that my opponent will punish me this way?
But it’s too late. The move has been made and the chess clock punched. Even if the chess clock has not been pressed, the piece would have been touched. So willy nilly, the move has to be made. And the mistake can turn a win into a draw or a draw into a loss. It’s so easy that fortunes on the chess board are turned 180° around by a misconceived thought or laziness to think through a plan properly or meandering thoughts or worse, a slip of the finger.
I’m guilty of all four. Of course, my howlers were contained within the confines of the tournament room. Just like the chess pieces being returned to their bags at the end of the tournament, my mistakes would never see the light of another day and they’ll be forgotten soon afterwards.
This is a liberty not shared by those in the full glare of the public. If you are a high-profile player and you make a gross mistake in a tournament game, you can be sure that the mistake will be flashed across the world within seconds. There’s no way that people will not notice mistakes. The player is on centre stage, struggling, while the opponent turns the screw. The relief only comes when the game is over. By then, viewers and commentators alike would have dissected the game and shredded the loser’s strategy to pieces.
I wouldn’t know whether Gata Kamsky felt like that or not, but my sympathies were with him when he lost the fifth game of his match with Veselin Topalov in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Sunday. It was a shocker as a worldwide audience saw him lose a pawn and then suddenly within the space of a few more moves, he was two pawns down.
There was absolutely no compensation for the lost pawns. In an endgame with queens on the board, Kamsky found himself with no opportunity to even salvage a draw through perpetual checks. So after five games of the eight-game Special Candidates match in Sofia, Topalov found himself leading Kamsky with a 3-2 score.
It was the second time in the match that Kamsky was trailing. Earlier in the second game of the match, he revealed one fundamental weakness: he wasn’t an economical user of his time. Often, he’d be sinking deeper and deeper into thought and his clock would tick relentlessly. Faced with an opponent that continually threw problems at him move after move, Kamsky fell into great time pressure and his position collapsed.
However, Kamsky won the fourth game and at the match’s half-way point, both players were level at 2-2.
I mentioned last week that eight games would mean a very short match. There is simply not much of a room for error. A player that loses a game would have to try and strike back almost immediately.
Kamsky was able to do that the first time. But would he be lucky the second time around? Would he become the Comeback Kid? Would Topalov allow him to?
Unfortunately as I wrote this on Tuesday, there were only two more games in this match. By the time you read this story, the match may well be over.
Current form tells me that Topalov would most probably win this match but I wouldn’t be surprised if the match had ended tied at the end of the eight games. If this happens, then today would be the day of the tie-breaks.
Here’s the fifth game where Kamsky fell behind for the second time in the match:
White: Veselin Topalov (2796)
Black: Gata Kamsky (2725)
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. Ngf3 cxd4 5. Nxd4 Nc6 6. Bb5 Bd7 7. Nxc6 Bxc6 8. Bxc6+ bxc6 9. c4 Bd6 10. cxd5 cxd5 11. exd5 exd5
The position after the exchanges in the centre of the board means that Black is left with an isolated pawn. White is going to put it under a lot of pressure but there’s no real danger to Black as he is protecting the pawn adequately.
12. O-O Ne7 13. Nf3 O-O 14. Qd3 Qd7 15. Rd1 Rfd8 16. Be3 a5 17. g3 h6 18. Bb6 Rdc8 19. Bd4 Bc5 20. Bc3 Bb4 21. Be5 Bd6 22. Rd2 Bxe5 23. Nxe5 Qd6 24. Re1 Rc7 25. Qf3 Rf8 26. Kg2 Rb7 27. h4 Qb4 28. Ree2 Qa4 29. b3 Qb4 30. Nd3 Qd6
After 30 moves, the position is still level. Both men are loathe to split the point at this stage of the game. So on we go…
31. h5 Rc7 32. Nf4 d4
Black cannot expect to make any headway with this pawn. Maybe he should have just left his pawn on the d5 square. Keeping the d5 pawn protected by his knight on e7 was better than protecting a d4 pawn with the knight on c6.
33. Re4 Nc6 34. Nd3 Rd8 35. Rc2 Nb4?
And this is the point where Kamsky committed his blunder for all to see. After this move, he lost the isolated d-pawn.
36. Nxb4 axb4 37. Rxd4 Qf8
Black now realised that 37….Rxc2 38.Rxd6 Rxd6 39.Qa8+ Kh7 40.Qe4+ would win the Rook.
38. Rxd8 Qxd8 39. Rxc7 Qxc7 40. Qa8+ Kh7 41. Qe4+ Kg8 42. Qxb4
And the second pawn goes. After this pawn is lost, the resignation cannot be too far away.
42….Qc6+ 43. Kg1 Qc1+ 44. Kh2 Qc2 45. Qe1 (see diagram)
White is not concerned about losing the a2 pawn as 45….Qxa2 46.Qe8+ Kh7 47.Qxf7 has regained it. Moreover, his pawns on b3, f2 and h5 are all under control.
45….Kf8 46. a3 Qb2 47. Qb4+ Kg8 48. Kg2 Qe5 49. Qg4 Qb2 50. °Qc8+ Kh7 51. Qc4 Qxa3 52. Qxf7 Qb4 53. Qc4 Qb7+ 54. Kg1 Qf3 55. g4 1-0