English Chess Forum

Chigorin's 32. Bb4 against Steinitz, moving the defender to allow mate in two.

Kramnik's 34... Qe3 against Fritz, overlooking mate in one.

Any other candidates?

My 5..Nf6?? as alluded to recently...

Does resigning in a drawn or won position count?

Pah!

I can trump all of these but it would take me years to write them all.

Petrosian v Bronstein, 1956 Candidates Tournament

And in its own way the grand-daddy of them all, von Popiel v Marco

Allowing mate in one two pieces up in a rapidplay years ago, blundering a rook when playing a rook ending a pawn up with an IM norm at stake, the list is endless. Probably the funniest is the following gem though:

1 e4 d6 2 d4 Nf6 3 Nc3 g6 4 Nf3 Bg7 5 h3 0-0 6 Be3 d5 7 e5 Ne4 8 Nxe4 dxe4 9 Ng5 c5 10 dxc5 Qc7 11 Bc4 Nc6 12 e6 f5 13 0-0 which was quite a theoretical line many years ago. Then my opponent surprised me with Rf6 (Bxb2 and f4 are two moves that have been played before) and I thought I'd stumbled on a brilliant response with his back rank being undefended and uncorked 14 Qd6??? Even funnier was that I got up from the board feeling really pleased with myself and thinking it was that good a move no one will be believe I've thought of it over the board!

On my return I noticed a lot of smiling and laughter around my board and it gradually dawned on me that after 14...exd6 15 e7+ that he has the rather obvious Be6 and I'm suddenly completely lost. I decided to call it a day at that point rather than struggle on a queen for a rook down. I think the game only lasted about 20 minutes. For the record it was against Aron Cohen at the Warwickshire Open in 1993.

A thread about blunders.....and I blunder the post....

OK it starts here.

If you had seen what I have seen.......

Players resigning in won in postions, players missing a mate in one
for them only to be mated the very next move, resigning when stalemated.

Think of any blunder and I'm sure I could most likely supply 3 examples
a lot of which have never been seen before.
I collect these sad tales of misery.

(I only have one example of some guy castling twice,
Heidenfeld - Kerins, Dublin 1973 anybody...?)

Kramnik.
He is in danger of being the Chess equivalent to Chris Waddle
(remembered for missing that penalty).
That missed mate in one is following him around like a shadow.

Loads of other GM's have missed a mate in one for and against them.
It's a shame Kramnik's made the most headlines.

I missed a few mates in one OTB.
One popped up mid-combination, I stuck to a mate in a four missing a mate in one,
The other I thought I had mated him (missing a genuine mate in one in the process)
Luckily I won that one but on another occasion I thought I had actually mated
someone. (I had not, I had sacced a piece at the start of the combo and used
it again at the end!).

A contender for the worse move ever was Bisguier who woke up Fischer
when he was sleeping at the board. Fischer awoke and beat him.

LozCooper wrote:On my return I noticed a lot of smiling and laughter around my board

That's a bit rude, isn't it? Smiling, OK, but laughing? Though I must admit I have failed to suppress a snigger in the past when opponents have left pieces en prise when playing blitz. I usually return the compliment later in the game.

What was REALLY bad about the Bisguier-Fischer one is that it was the title decider - whoever won would be US Champion

There are also a few examples of people being offered a draw, telling their opponents to make a move first (as per the rules) and then resigning upon the reply

I forgot to mention that as I'd played all the previous moves before I actually blundered my queen on the first move I thought about

There are some awesome contenders here.

I lost on time once, with 5 minutes to make my last move before the time control!

I once put a mate in 1 en prise after thinking for 10 minutes: Black Bishop on b7 and queen on h5 against my castled king with pawns on f2 and g2. My h pawn was on g5 and I had a knight on e5 (most of the pieces were still on the board). It seemed like a good idea to boot his queen away as it had to go back to e8, so I played g4??? The queen arrived on h1 before I punched the clock, he must have known what I was thinking about. I had even taken care to guard the h3 square the move before to prevent ...Qh3 and Qg2 mate!!

I was thinking more of worst moves in top level games, but submissions from club level are more than welcome.

There's something of a common theme to a lot of these - endgame with only one or two pieces each but plenty of pawns, either level material or one player just a pawn up, king advances to attack the pawns, but just happens to advance to the one square where there are enough pawns surrounding it for a lone piece to be able to deliver mate. I was on the wrong end of one such when I was a junior (don't have the game score, but it was a bishop ending with the king getting trapped in the centre) and very nearly another one last season...

Jones, M - Johnson, M, Coventry League 2009



Black has just played 32... Bd5-g2.

First glance at the position: Aha! Now I can play 33. Kc4, then after Ba3 the c5 pawn falls. It's probably still drawn, but at least it's easier to defend than the current position, a pawn down.

Second glance at the position: Wait a minute, 33. Kc4 loses on the spot to 33... Bf1#. I played 33. Be3 instead and the game was drawn a few moves later.

Having managed to avoid that one, my worst blunder at senior level has to be one from three years or so back - my opponent had just moved a pawn, and I thought he'd overlooked the fact that I could capture it en passant; in fact I was the one who'd overlooked something, namely that his pawn move had discovered an attack on my queen. I also missed a back rank mate in an email game, which is quite an achievement when you have three days to think about each move.

Michael Jones wrote:There's something of a common theme to a lot of these - endgame with only one or two pieces each but plenty of pawns, either level material or one player just a pawn up, king advances to attack the pawns, but just happens to advance to the one square where there are enough pawns surrounding it for a lone piece to be able to deliver mate.

I've had games where I've nearly fallen for things like that (probably some where I did fall for it, but I've carefully forgotten those ones). Mid-board mates in the late middlegame/early endgame are relatively common, I agree.

Michael Jones wrote:I also missed a back rank mate in an email game, which is quite an achievement when you have three days to think about each move.

There are some blunders you just don't see until someone else or your opponent points them out to you, no matter how hard you look. My chess blindness tends to be missing quiet moves that mess up a combination, or where what looks like a kingside attack turns out to be a move that wins a pawn somewhere else. I also frequently make moves where I think I'm attacking with a protected piece, but it turns out the piece can just be captured as the protection is not really there. The other combinations I find it difficult to see for some reason is the one where a piece can capture something like an a3-pawn, and the recapture with the b-pawn leaves a piece on c3 undefended. Overloaded pawns, I guess.