Jud McCranie wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
That was my understanding, too. Dan Heisman also advises against
what he calls `hope chess'.

When I was young, one of my friends said "always give check - it
might be mate." That is along the same lines, and not good advice.

On the other hand, `always check -- it might be mate' is good advice,
as long as you interpret `check' to mean `verify' rather than `attack
the king'. That is, always consider all the checks because one of
them might be mate.

GM Kramnik? I'm talking to you. Poor guy.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Pickled Smokes (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ pack of cigarettes but it's preserved
in vinegar!

wrote:
Yes, it must be the case that he didn't see the threat at all. A common
mistake that was recently discussed is that you forget to start with
the first step of your plan (moving your king) and instead start from
the 2nd step and thus blunder, but moving the queen to there doesn't
make any sense anyway. Unless.... what if the 1st move was not king to
f8, but pawn to g6, followed by 35.Nxg6+ Kg7 36.Nf4 and THEN Qe3. But
it's highly unlikely anyone would make the mistake of starting from the
THIRD step of their plan... and i'm not even sure if that position
works out favourably.

If this had happened in one of my games, you could put it down to a
mating move disguised as simply taking a rook.

I think that is exactly what happened, and I did the same kind of thing
in a recent ICC game where I had 'played' a6 visually in my head, to
keep a Knight out of b5, but instead played a central-breaking move
....e5. Imagine my surprise when my opponent played Nb5 - a move I was
aware of, knew I had to defend against, but did not because my mind's
eye got ahead of itself.

It happens.

Kramnik is hardly going to fold over this setback, as there is nothing
on the line, and I'm sure he was yucking it up afterwards with Fritz's
programmers at a local pub afterwards.

http://chess-training.blogspot.com

On 28 Nov 2006 06:30:12 -0800, "
wrote:


Kramnik is hardly going to fold over this setback, as there is nothing
on the line, and I'm sure he was yucking it up afterwards with Fritz's
programmers at a local pub afterwards.

http://chess-training.blogspot.com


You consider 500,000 bucks "nothing" ? As I understand it, he gets
half a million for playing, half a million more if he wins the match.
This could be a *very* expensive blunder.

David Richerby wrote:
Jud McCranie wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
That was my understanding, too. Dan Heisman
also advises against what he calls `hope chess'.

Sanny's chess engine often seems to play 'hope chess'.

When I was young, one of my friends said "always give check - it
might be mate." That is along the same lines, and not good advice.

On the other hand, `always check -- it might be mate' is good advice,
as long as you interpret `check' to mean `verify' rather than `attack
the king'. That is, always consider all the checks because one of
them might be mate.

GM Kramnik? I'm talking to you. Poor guy.

No human player has complete immunity
against 'chess blindness'.

I wonder to what extent Kramnik, who was not in zeitnot,
went through his normal 'blunder-checking' routine.
Evidently, even after he had written down his move,
Kramnik still did not notice that he had blundered.

If Kramnik had been in Keres's place against Botvinnik
in 1948, then I suppose that some people would jump to
the conclusion that he must have been forced to lose.

--Nick

wrote in message
oups.com...
Jeremy Silman advises against making threatening moves hoping your
opponent will miss the threat, but the World Champion missed a one move
mate. So I'm rethinking this advice. If the WC can miss a one move
mate, who knows what my opponent might miss?

Silman is correctly advising against going for cheapos when better moves are
available. It's very good advice. I have lost a hundred games by not
following it.

My thinking goes something like this. "Hmmm, there's a 2-move swindle that
wins a piece. No, it's too rudimentary, even for my 1535-rated opponent. On
the other hand, I have fallen for tactics of similar depth and I'm rated
1900. Besides, if I don't try it now the opportunity will be lost. Hmmmm.
What the hell, I'll do it."

What distinguishes a "cheapo" from a normal threat is that the former is
usually the 4th or 5th best move, or a distant second-best. What you're
doing when you play such moves is cheat yourself of the opportunity to
improve your position on the off chance that your opponent is asleep. That's
VERY bad chess. If it's a close call, however, or if two moves are (by your
judgement) indistinguishable in strength, you should always prefer moves
that give your opponent something to worry about. The more threats players
have to worry about, the more likely they will begin feeling pressure and
eventually crack.

In the game you're referring to Fritz's move was not an attempt at a cheapo,
it was the best move on the board that happened to threaten a mate-in-one.
It was only a coincidence that most D players should have noticed Qh7#. Poor
Vlad just had a blind spot.

Mike Murray wrote:
On 28 Nov 2006 06:30:12 -0800, "
wrote:


Kramnik is hardly going to fold over this setback, as there is nothing
on the line, and I'm sure he was yucking it up afterwards with Fritz's
programmers at a local pub afterwards.

http://chess-training.blogspot.com


You consider 500,000 bucks "nothing" ? As I understand it, he gets
half a million for playing, half a million more if he wins the match.
This could be a *very* expensive blunder.

"Nothing on the line" as in he is risking losing NOTHING.

You cannot lose that which you do not have. He is not putting up 500K
and does not "lose" it if he does not win the match. It's purely an
incentive to win. Do you think he'd play the match if he was getting
nothing for playing, i.e., as you might put it, "zero for playing,
half a million [more] if he wins the match."

That match would never take place. He can simply win the extra 500K,
but he can never lose 500K he never had.

That's what I mean.

http://chess-training.blogspot.com

wrote in message
oups.com...

Mike Murray wrote:
On 28 Nov 2006 06:30:12 -0800, "
wrote:


Kramnik is hardly going to fold over this setback, as there is nothing
on the line, and I'm sure he was yucking it up afterwards with Fritz's
programmers at a local pub afterwards.

http://chess-training.blogspot.com


You consider 500,000 bucks "nothing" ? As I understand it, he gets
half a million for playing, half a million more if he wins the match.
This could be a *very* expensive blunder.

"Nothing on the line" as in he is risking losing NOTHING.

You cannot lose that which you do not have. He is not putting up 500K
and does not "lose" it if he does not win the match. It's purely an
incentive to win. Do you think he'd play the match if he was getting
nothing for playing, i.e., as you might put it, "zero for playing,
half a million [more] if he wins the match."

That match would never take place. He can simply win the extra 500K,
but he can never lose 500K he never had.

That's what I mean.

http://chess-training.blogspot.com


And that sums it up very nicely :-)

He earns half a million for simply turning up.

Regards

Regards

In article ,
"Ange1o DePa1ma" wrote:

If it's a close call, however, or if two moves are (by your
judgement) indistinguishable in strength, you should always prefer moves
that give your opponent something to worry about. The more threats players
have to worry about, the more likely they will begin feeling pressure and
eventually crack.

Indeed, I'd go further to say that, even if the "cheapo" is easier, your
opponent is more likely to fall for it if your opponent also improves
your position in other ways.

-Ron

The following discusses pretty much the same thing I said here (below)

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3512

An interesting thing mentioned here is that Yasser Seirawan, who was
commenting on the match, did not notice the blunder either.

wrote:
wrote:
" That must rank as the worst blunder in WC history, perhaps in
Grandmaster chess period(?).

It's not a blunder in World Championship history: this isn't a World
Championship match. "

That's true. The worst blunder in a match played by a reigning world
champion. There's, that's more accurate.

When I first saw the game I thought, surely there must be some mistake
in the transmission of the moves.

From chessbase:

"Kramnik played the move 34...Qe3 calmly, stood up, picked up his cup
and was about to leave the stage to go to his rest room. At least one
audio commentator also noticed nothing, while Fritz operator Mathias
Feist kept glancing from the board to the screen and back, hardly able
to believe that he had input the correct move. Fritz was displaying
mate in one, and when Mathias executed it on the board Kramnik briefly
grasped his forehead, took a seat to sign the score sheet and left for
the press conference, which he dutifully attended."

He must have thought he was winning, as Qe3 (assuming w couldn't do
anything to him) was threatening a back rank mate and the trading off
of queens. So the computer would have to trade off queens, and then
the ending would be an easy win. But you would think that Kramnik
would have checked for checks w could make, to guard against a
perptual. What must have happened is that he regarded Qh7 as
impossible, since (in his mind), he could just chop it off with his
King.

There's an interesting psychological phenomenon that the hardest moves
to see are Bishop moves which retreat. There's a famous Sam Lloyd mate
in two problem which uses this theme. In this case we have the Knight
retreating (to guard the square). I'm sure if the Knight were on g5
instead of f8 that Kramnik would not have had the same hallucination.

Having a Knight on the 8th rank threatening mate in this way is a bit
unusual; but still, one wouldn't expect any good play (let alone WC) to
miss a mate in one in any circumstance, especially when not in time
pressure!

Ange1o DePa1ma wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Jeremy Silman advises against making threatening moves hoping your
opponent will miss the threat, but the World Champion missed a one move
mate. So I'm rethinking this advice. If the WC can miss a one move
mate, who knows what my opponent might miss?

Silman is correctly advising against going for cheapos when better moves are
available. It's very good advice. I have lost a hundred games by not
following it.

My thinking goes something like this. "Hmmm, there's a 2-move swindle that
wins a piece. No, it's too rudimentary, even for my 1535-rated opponent. On
the other hand, I have fallen for tactics of similar depth and I'm rated
1900. Besides, if I don't try it now the opportunity will be lost. Hmmmm.
What the hell, I'll do it."


You should be flogged by going for a cheapo against someone rated 400
points lower than yourself. I always wait for them to do something
stupid. Why beat them to the punch? Seriously, I usually try to steer
toward a favorable endgame. They usually have no clue in the endgame.
However, invariably along the way.....

On a side note a friend of mine was fond of saying, "If you opponent
does something stupid, then don't try to immediately punish him. It is
probably just a prelude to something even more stupid."


Jimmy Boy