Let's Blunder Together
Blunders lay the foundations for exciting Chess and are all too common, especially at an amateur level but they do occur every now and then among professionals as well. Every motivated Chess player strives to reduce them and starve their opponent off opportunities to build an advantage. But of equal importance is the ability to recognize your opponent's blunders and capitalize on them.
As it is sometimes our former drive overshadows the latter. This is especially true when playing opponents stronger than yourself since you do not expect them to err too often. As a result this mindset can lead to missed opportunities to gain an advantage when your opponent does make a mistake, but you overlook it, which is of course a blunder as well.
After losing decisively to Magnus Carlsen in the 2013 World Championship match Vishy Anand fought his way back to the title rematch in 2014 and this time around it proved to be a more closely fought encounter between the two.
"A Game of Blunders"
The start of Game 6 saw both players sitting at a score of 2.5. Anand playing the Black pieces went for the Kan variation (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6) of the Sicilian. Queens were traded off on the ninth move. Magnus held on to the Bishop pair albeit having 2 Pawns lined up on the "c" file. Vishy on the other hand cramped for space looked for consolidation after moving his King to the Queen side without castling and also had to defend his g7 Pawn which had become a weakness after he played h6 to counter Magnus's advance on the King side.
The crux of the game proved to be the twenty sixth move where Carlsen made a staggering blunder when he moved his King to d2 perhaps wary of King safety on the weakened "c" file with doubled Pawns. Regardless, the move was ill timed as it allows blacks Knight on g6 to gobble a couple of Pawns,
check the White King and land to safety at b2 with the line 26....Nxe5 27. Rxg8 Nxc4+ 28. Kd3 Nb2+ 29. Ke2 Rxg8 30. Rxh6. Not only does Black end up with a material gain but also a significantly better position since Whites advance loses momentum on the King side.
However, Anand who is renowned for his skill with the Knights, blundered in return with 26....a4. missing a relatively simple sequence of moves which would have gained him a winning advantage in a game where a draw was probably the best he was hoping for.
Check out Magnus's reaction in the video link below when he realizes his mistake immediately after playing the move and pauses just as he starts to write down his move. You can also see his utter relief after Anand's counter blunder when he puts his head down....
https://livestream.com/accounts/7928738/events/3553668/videos/68208698/player?autoPlay=false&height=360&mute=false&width=640
When asked in the post match conference about when he realized his mistake Magnus said "It's just extremely lucky. Immediately after I made my move".
Anand's response to the same question was "When you are not expecting a gift, sometimes you just don't take it. As soon as I played a5 (to a4) I saw it".
Here is the link to the post match conference video.....
https://livestream.com/accounts/7928738/events/3553668/videos/68205938/player?autoPlay=false&height=360&mute=false&width=640
And the game of course......
After Anand's blunder Magnus maneuvers his Bishops and starts eating Black Pawns and there is nothing much left to play for Vishy at this point. A check from the White Rook on the seventh rank and Black resigns. The win gave Magnus a 1 point lead which he carried forward to the last game of the match where Anand erred again as black giving the Norwegian Grandmaster his second World Chess Championship win. And as they say, the rest is history.
Reference sources:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=84885
https://medium.com/pachyderm-data/when-grandmasters-blunder-a819860b883d (image source)
