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?

That must rank as the worst blunder in WC history, perhaps in
Grandmaster chess period(?). I don't recall ever seeing a grandmaster
miss a one move mate, let alone a WC. Although he missed a two move
mate against Topalov (who also missed it), which may have been
portending things to come.

On Nov 27, 1:24 pm, wrote:
Jeremy Silman advises against making threatening moves hoping your
opponent will miss the threat, but the World Champion missed a one move
mate.

When was that? Are you referring to game two of the Kramnik-Topalov
match? Both players made mistakes, but there was no missed mate-in-one,
as far as I know.

So I'm rethinking this advice. If the WC can miss a one move
mate, who knows what my opponent might miss?

I believe What Silman is advising against is making a threatening
move on the chance your opponent will overlook the threat, when in fact
you have a better move available.

That must rank as the worst blunder in WC history, perhaps in
Grandmaster chess period(?). I don't recall ever seeing a grandmaster
miss a one move mate, let alone a WC.

Again, I'm not sure what game and position you refer to. Can you be
specific?
As far as the worst blunders in history, I discussed a few in this
article:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/blundr.txt

Although he missed a two move
mate against Topalov (who also missed it), which may have been
portending things to come.

Presumably he's referring to the Kramnik vs Deep Fritz game that ended
a couple of hours ago when Kramnik forgot to move his king and avoid an
impending mate.


Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 27, 1:24 pm, wrote:
Jeremy Silman advises against making threatening moves hoping your
opponent will miss the threat, but the World Champion missed a one move
mate.

When was that? Are you referring to game two of the Kramnik-Topalov
match? Both players made mistakes, but there was no missed mate-in-one,
as far as I know.

So I'm rethinking this advice. If the WC can miss a one move
mate, who knows what my opponent might miss?

I believe What Silman is advising against is making a threatening
move on the chance your opponent will overlook the threat, when in fact
you have a better move available.

That must rank as the worst blunder in WC history, perhaps in
Grandmaster chess period(?). I don't recall ever seeing a grandmaster
miss a one move mate, let alone a WC.

Again, I'm not sure what game and position you refer to. Can you be
specific?
As far as the worst blunders in history, I discussed a few in this
article:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/blundr.txt

Although he missed a two move
mate against Topalov (who also missed it), which may have been
portending things to come.

On Nov 27, 2:33 pm, wrote:
Presumably he's referring to the Kramnik vs Deep Fritz game that ended
a couple of hours ago when Kramnik forgot to move his king and avoid an
impending mate.

Ah, yes. I was not aware of that. Definitely one to add to the list
of "biggest blunders in chess history."

Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 27, 1:24 pm, wrote:
Jeremy Silman advises against making threatening moves hoping your
opponent will miss the threat, but the World Champion missed a one move
mate.

When was that? Are you referring to game two of the Kramnik-Topalov
match? Both players made mistakes, but there was no missed mate-in-one,
as far as I know.

So I'm rethinking this advice. If the WC can miss a one move
mate, who knows what my opponent might miss?

I believe What Silman is advising against is making a threatening
move on the chance your opponent will overlook the threat, when in fact
you have a better move available.

That must rank as the worst blunder in WC history, perhaps in
Grandmaster chess period(?). I don't recall ever seeing a grandmaster
miss a one move mate, let alone a WC.

Again, I'm not sure what game and position you refer to. Can you be
specific?
As far as the worst blunders in history, I discussed a few in this
article:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/blundr.txt

Although he missed a two move
mate against Topalov (who also missed it), which may have been
portending things to come.- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 27, 1:24 pm, wrote:
Jeremy Silman advises against making threatening moves hoping your
opponent will miss the threat, but the World Champion missed a one
move mate.

When was that? Are you referring to game two of the Kramnik-Topalov
match? Both players made mistakes, but there was no missed
mate-in-one, as far as I know.

He's referring to today's game in the Kramnik--Deep Fritz match. You
really don't want to look at the following position as it will hurt
your brain.

I'm warning you. Under no circumstances should you examine the
following position. I am not responsible for anything that happens if
you do, OK?

5N1k/q5p1/7p/4P3/pp2Q3/8/1P4PP/2b4K b - - 0 34

And, even if you are foolish enough to look at that position, you
definitely don't want to consider the fact that GM Vladimir Kramnik,
World Chess Champion, played 34... Qe3. Just don't do it.


So I'm rethinking this advice. If the WC can miss a one move
mate, who knows what my opponent might miss?

I believe What Silman is advising against is making a threatening
move on the chance your opponent will overlook the threat, when in
fact you have a better move available.

That was my understanding, too. Dan Heisman also advises against what
he calls `hope chess'.


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.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Natural Smokes (TM): it's like a pack
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ of cigarettes but it's completely
natural!

" 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."

On 27 Nov 2006 19:51:03 +0000 (GMT), 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.
--
Replace you know what by j to email

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!

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

David Richerby wrote:
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."

If it were a world championship match, then this might happen:

1) Fritz's manager said that Kramnik's blunder could be
explained by the fact that Kramnik had not recently
visited his private bathroom.

2) Kramnik's manager explained the blunder by saying
that Kramnik was distracted by the extremely unfair
psychological warfare tactics of Fritz.

--Nick

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.