When Grandmasters Blunder Like an 800

If you're reading this: you're a human. (Unless you're the Chess.com anti-slur algorithm.) We're all human, and no human is perfect. We all make mistakes - in life and in chess, assuming they are two separate things. Sometimes, even Grandmasters and World Champions make blunders. And not a pawn blunder or a positional mistake: these blunders are full-out queen and Mate-in-1 blunders! Among the names in our list are Carlsen, Karpov, Petrosian and Kramnik!

My inspiration for this blog post came from a game I stumbled upon while writing my Maroczy post. It was Maroczy-Showalter, from the Paris 1900 tournament. Showalter (who was no amateur, he was one of the top masters of his time) made quite a big blunder, and it amused me quite a bit.

That inspired me to look for other instances of GMs and strong masters blundering games away. After lots of research, here are some more blunders, in no particular order, made by top GMs. Tell me in the comments if I missed anything. Enjoy!

I can probably guess what you're thinking: HAHAHAHA! I wouldn't have made these blunders myself and I SUCK! That, at least, was what I thought when I made the blog post. Well - that's simply not true. Even if you're 1400, you will still make blunders. Even if you're 1700, you will still make blunders. Even if you're 2000, you will still make blunders. Even if you're 2300, you will still make blunders. Even if you're 2600, you will still make blunders. 

The thing that separates these rating groups is the frequency of these blunders (among other factors, of course). A 1700 will blunder less than a 1400, a 2000 will blunder less than a 1700, and a 2300 will blunder less than a 2600, but nevertheless they all make blunders. The reason I   made this blog post because blunders by GMs are rare - very rare. If something is common, it isn't interesting anymore. For example, if this post was of MY blunders, it wouldn't be interesting at all! 

Conclusion: Everyone is human. 

BONUS BLUNDER made by a computer (!)

Yes, you read that right. Even non-human things blunder, (it's called a bug - computers were made by humans after all, so even computers aren't perfect) it seems. Deep Fritz played a 6-match game against Vladmir Kramnik (the undisputed World Champion at the time). The final score was 3-3, with two wins for Deep Fritz, and the other four draws. Kramnik, who was as I said before, the undisputed World Champion at the time, could not win a single game against Deep Fritz, who wasn't even the strongest computer at the time. The only possible way for a human to win against a computer - is if the computer is bugged. After all, computers are nearly perfect and can calculate and memorize much more than any human can, right?

Version 9.0 of the computer program Shredder was let into the Copa Mercosur (not to be confused with the football cup), hosted in Buenos Aires in 2005. Unsurprisingly, it topped a group of GMs and strong IMs with 8 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss. Here is the loss, brought about by an inexplicable glitch in which the computer 'forgets' to recapture a bishop. If you're interested, here's a link to the draw as well.

Thanks for reading everyone, have a great day, and make sure to look left, look right, and look left again before you make a chess move (you'll blunder anyways, trust me).