Just like I do in my Hall of Fame-series, where I showcase my best performances to the community, there should also be a spot for my biggest failures. 

In contrast to the achievements that I’m proud of, my failures didn't get that same treatment. Ever since the introduction of the library I have been bookmarking games I’m proud of, which over time grew into a nice collection. On the other hand, my bad games were only a learning opportunity for me.  There was no need to save these games, I'd rather forget them.

My memory held on to the most embarrassing and the most interesting ones.  Some of them were actually quite funny.  The ones that were funny enough are on this list. And the ones that are embarrassing enough to be funny are included too. 

TOP 10 FAVORITE FAILS

#1 Famous Fail (game)

#2 Loose like this, is that like Legal? (game)

#3 Duckfest Domination, but deficient (game)

#4 Lazy London (game)

#5 Missing Mate Matters (game)

#6 Aloha, Goodbye (game)

#7 The Tale of the Turn 4 Win (game)

#8 Camacho Conversion Cringe (game)

#9 Lose Yourself (game)

#10 To be determined

It's not an entire top 10 list yet. These are my favorites so far, but I have more that could be added to the list.

#1 Famous Fail

This one is famous. The OG game was played in Cologne in 1912, with Muhlock as White against Borislav Kostics as Black.  It's called the Blackburne Shilling Gambit.

It’s covered in one of Ben Finegold’s lessons called ‘Every Opening Trap To Crush Your Opponent’ on chess.com. In lesson #7 Smothered Mate: Every Opening Trap, starting around the 6:50 minute mark. It's also in the chess.com lessons "Chess Traps and Miniatures Part 1 - Quick Knockouts", lesson #4 'Muhlock - Kostics, Cologne 1912'.

Working on these lessons, sometime late in '23, I discovered a rapid game that I had played in December '20, around 3 years earlier, that followed this famous example game move for move.

Game

This game has both sides attacking each other's kingside. Whoever can maintain the attack with more threats, such as checkmate, wins. White's play is described by the chess.com coach as greedy, which is probably true. However, Danya's comment did hurt a tiny bit.

I’ve seen a lot of kids games go like this

 - Daniel Naroditsky

But I don't mind. I'm not embarrassed, literally thousands of players have fallen for this trap. Actually, hundreds of thousands of players. 

#2 loose like this, is like legal?

This game did not exactly follow any famous game like the first game did. But when I looked at this game later, I did recognize a famous pattern.

This game I played in February '21 is one of the worst games I ever played and I got checkmate on the 7th move.  What makes it even worse is that is was a daily game. There really is no excuse.

Game

It reminded me of the famous game by François Antoine de Legall de Kermeur, who has the Legal's Mate named after him. It's not the same mate, I don't know how this one would be called, but it's painfully close. 

It's a different mate, but the Bishop eagerly taking the "free" Queen is exactly the same.

#3 Deficient Domination

This was a rapid game I played in December '22, a game I convincingly won. 

At first glance this was an overwhelming victory. First, my opponent missed that I could play a fork and lost a full Bishop.  Second, a couple of moves later, my opponent blundered a full Knight for no reason. After that I simply overran my opponent's defenses.

Game

Overwhelming victory, completely dominating my opponent from start to finish. My position was better in almost every position. Almost every position of the game. 

#4 Lazy London

This was a rapid game I played in September '21. After a horrible blunder on the second move I resigned early.

Game

There is this prejudice in the chess community that playing the London takes no skill, that they're just blitzing out moves without thinking.  I always hate that. It's such an unfair prejudice.

#5 Missing Mate Matters

This was a rapid game I played in April '22 where I missed a crucial move. Can you do better than I did?

Puzzle

Missing mate is always a bad thing. It's a sign of incompetence, lack of focus and laziness, sometimes its even embarrassing. Yet, most of the time it's harmless.

When checking chess.com's Insights you'll find that the majority of cases it was simply because the player went for another line that was also a forced mate. You can miss multiple ‘mate-in -3’s in the same game when your checkmate approach is not the most efficient (promoting a pawn to a second Queen for example). 

More problematic is when a player misses a checkmate opportunity and as a result gives the opponent a chance to keep fighting. Still, players get away with this most of the time, as the game will be won anyway. On this rare occasion, missing the mate did end up costing me the game. Despite playing two brilliant moves.

Game

#6 Aloha, Goodbye

This game was already featured here. Everything was going well until I lost focus for a single moment and got punished for it. Deservedly. 

#7 Turn 4 Win Talote

This is the position after 29 moves played. My opponent found the correct move. Can you?

Puzzle

A breakdown of the entire game isn't necessary. It's a painful game to watch anyway. To understand why this game is embarrassing you only need to see the position after move 4.

After 22 seconds the game was practically over.

At least it should have been.

Not because I missed the hanging Queen. I took it.

#8 Camacho Conversion Cringe

This one actually hurts. 

This game was bad overall, but despite the chaos I managed to get a winning position after all. It went on to become an overwhelmingly winning position. Then the position became unlosable. Literally, I could no longer lose the game.

The worst thing that could happen was a stalemate. Which is a legit concern with more than 20 points of material advantage. But as it turned out, it wasn't my only concern. My other concern was my clock running out...

Game

This game was played on Lichess. I've added the time situation to the PGN here, but the game with timestamps can be found here.

#9 Lose Yourself

This was a Blitz game from October '21. The opening was solid for both players. In the middle game I was able to win a piece after playing a fork.  However my opponent fought well and put me under continuous pressure. I was able to keep my positional advantage, but lost valuable time in the process.

Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

- Eminem

With the prospect of losing on time looming over me, I had to come up with a way to checkmate my opponent before my time ran out.  It looked like I did find a way. Until I didn't.

Game

WRAP-UP

That's all for now.

Thank you so much for reading,

Feel free to share your worst game in the comments.

I would love to see yours.