The Open File - Take His Rook, Archil!
Submitted by
NM Zug on Tue, 07/14/2009 at 3:48pm.
The Open File
by Life Master Mike Petersen (Zug)
Take His Rook, Archil!
In the Tenth USSR Championship in 1937, the following position came about in the game Ebralidze-Ragozin with Black to move:
Ragozin attempted to defend himself by playing the following crazy move: 40. ... Rc7?? intending after Rxc7 to recover the Rook by playing Bd6+ followed by Bxc7. There's only one problem, though. The Bishop is pinned against the king! An amazing blind spot...but it gets even more amazing. Ebralidze didn't take the rook right away, but sat staring at the position! Some of the spectators got so carried away they shouted, "Take his rook, Archil!" But Ebralidze merely glared them into silence and returned to the game, and then moved his attacked rook away! He hadn't noticed the pin! This story is famous and is even related in the excellent book, "Think Like a Grandmaster" by Alexander Kotov. So why do I repeat it here? Good question. I'll tell you why. EXACTLY the same thing has happened to me!
Here is the position from Petersen-Culver in the 1988 Florida State Championship:
Now, both of us were strong players. I was rated in the mid 2200's and Bill Culver was rated in the high 2100's, so what follows is eerie. I noticed that Bill was threatening to play Bxc5, forcing me to capture with the b-pawn, which would result in the ending rook, bishop pawn and rook pawn against rook, which is possible to draw. Well, I knew this and sat staring at the board wondering how I could prevent it, when suddenly it came to me. I saw that if I played Re5, Black would capture and I could play Nd7+, recovering the rook. But, just like Ragozin, I didn't notice that the knight would be pinned! So, nonchalantly I played the move Re5?? Of course, the moment my hand quit the piece, I noticed the obvious quality of the move. The end. I died inside. My stomach fell down below my shoes. The blood drained from my entire body. I couldn't even look at the board, never mind Bill, so I looked up at the spectators. They just stared back at me, slack-jawed in amazement at my howler. But something funny was happening. Several seconds had passed, and my rook was still sitting stupidly on e5, untouched by enemy hands. I finally risked it and stole a peek at Bill. He was sitting with his head buried in his hands, obviously studying the position. Was it possible that he didn't see it? I looked up at the spectators again. Let me tell you, they were marvelous. Not a peep out of any of them. I had nothing to do but wait for the ax, so I just stared off into space. We waited. Bill studied. We waited. Bill studied some more. And then...and then he MOVED HIS ATTACKED ROOK TO G6!! Pandemonium! I almost collapsed with relief. The onlookers howled out, "Oh no!" almost in unison. Bill looked up, and then he realized what he had done. It wasn't a pretty sight watching Bill suddenly whack his hand down to start my clock and then bring it back up to whack himself on the head. The entire tournament was stopped by all the noise. Never had I seen anything like it. Somehow, Bill and I finally continued the game. I won the game in a fog. I hardly remember moving the pieces. What happened? Bill said he never even analyzed the rook capture because of the knight fork. Neither of us had noticed in time that the knight would be pinned. An amazing case of double-blunder. Let me tell you, if I had known that I was going to suffer the absolute worst two minutes of my chess career in Jacksonville that day, I never would have entered the tournament!
So, Culver and Petersen join Ragozin and Ebralidze in chess history. Somehow, though, I don't think we'll make it to "Think Like a Grandmaster" because, for that day anyway, we didn't think at all.
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