Share your favorite chess anecdote

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zetamarina

Jun 17, 2009

Deep Bluster

In 1996, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov agreed to a best-of-seven tournament against Deep Blue, IBM's famous chess-playing supercomputer. Kasparov won the tournament four games to two.

The following year, IBM chairman Louis Gerstner and his blue-suited colleagues organized a rematch against an improved machine, aptly entitled "Deeper Blue." How did Gerstner rate their chances? "I just think we should look at this as a chess match between the world's greatest chess player," he declared, "and Garry Kasparov!"

(In fact, Kasparov lost.)

zetamarina

Jun 17, 2009

Fool's Mate

For 35 years the legendary French chess master Gibaud was revered for losing a game (to Labard) in just four moves. He was outdone, however, in 1959:

"Loss in three moves! The 1959 US Open Championship can only be remembered for one game and one player. While 'fools mate' has been known for many years, it takes a player of real skill and dedication to pull it off within a tournament. For this, Trinka must be applauded.

White: Masefield
Black: Trinka

1: e4 g5
2: Nc3 f5
3: Qh5 mate

[Alternatively:
1: P-K4 ... P-KKt4
2: Kt-QB3 ... P-KB4
3: Q-R5 ... Mate]

zetamarina

Jun 17, 2009

[Trivia: Because they were short of foreign players, the organizers of the 1965 Baku International Chess Tournament invited Geoffrey Hosking, an Englishman studying at Moscow University, to take part. (Hosking later learned that a Russian friend had put his name forward on the basis of his performance in a friendly vodka-fuelled match.) Hosking lost all twelve games and played so badly that the Tournament Bulletin refused to publish any of the details.]

Yep, who understans those Russians?

Lol....me russian

zetamarina

Jun 17, 2009

Egggg. you guys, don't have anything to post?

sloUdn

Jun 27, 2009

zetamarina wrote:

Egggg. you guys, don't have anything to post?

you are a interesting wealth of information on chess; the next match with Big Blue should be with Zetamarina...:)

Knightsight

Jul 3, 2009

I was playing in a tournament match and the game was intense. So intense that my opponent after moving, hit not his clock, but the clock of the game taking place next to us!

Suddenly horrified, my opponent pressed the opposite timer to correct the clock but then realised that as they were electronic clocks the move counter would now be incorrect.

As he tried to apologise to the players on the adjacent game, they didn't even look up from their board. One of them just waved him away. So I guess their game was just as intense as ours lol.

zetamarina

Jul 5, 2009

Knightsight wrote:

I was playing in a tournament match and the game was intense. So intense that my opponent after moving, hit not his clock, but the clock of the game taking place next to us!

Suddenly horrified, my opponent pressed the opposite timer to correct the clock but then realised that as they were electronic clocks the move counter would now be incorrect.

As he tried to apologise to the players on the adjacent game, they didn't even look up from their board. One of them just waved him away. So I guess their game was just as intense as ours lol.

Wow, how funny, thanks for sharing this, really flavorful anecdote