Chess Comeback Stories
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What is your greatest comeback in a chess game? I'm interested in hearing players' stories of times that the opening or mid-game didn't go your way and you were able to recover and gain a draw/mate. What enabled your success? What strategies did you employ?
Jul 9, 2017
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#2
I've had some good comebacks, but it's usually because my opponent makes a critical mistake, not because I took over and outplayed them. I've lost a few that way as well. Maybe a result of relaxing a bit when up in material. Once I did do a stalemate I'd seen in a chess puzzles before, where no matter where the enemy king went I would check him with my rook, and if he took the rook it was stalemate, if he didn't I'd just keep checking.
I recently fell into a trap where I lost a rook and a bishop in the early mid-game, but as a result of laying the trap my opponent left their King exposed. I focused on putting pressure on the opponent's King while setting a trap for their Queen, and eventually turned the tables back and achieved Mate.
Jul 10, 2017
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#4
Once in OTB I blundered a piece against an opponent rated roughly the same as me. I managed to trade all pawns and turn that game into a draw.
Oct 7, 2017
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#5
I had a game a while ago that was memorable. I got into a position where I was down 8 pawns worth of material but I was able to threaten checkmate with an advanced pawn and my queen. The opponent was able to eliminate my king's cover and check it repeatedly. If I ever got out of check I'd be able to win. The other player moves his Queen onto my back rank simultaneously pinning my Knight to my rook and my king to my queen. I block check with the knight that's pinned revealing my rook. My opponent loses if he takes my rook because I'm still threatening mate. Now he has to answer the attack on his queen and the threat of mate. Or at least he thinks he does. He can actually force mate from the resulting position as I realized afterwards but he doesn't see it. Instead he takes a line that removes my pawn and stops the threat of mate but he sacrifices his queen in the process. I'm now up by the equivalent of 1 pawn. The game continues and I eventually win. It was only possible because he missed mate. He needed to believe that he had to sacrifice his queen to avoid losing.
atotalscrub schreef:
I had a game a while ago that was memorable. I got into a position where I was down 8 pawns worth of material but I was able to threaten checkmate with an advanced pawn and my queen. The opponent was able to eliminate my king's cover and check it repeatedly. If I ever got out of check I'd be able to win. The other player moves his Queen onto my back rank simultaneously pinning my Knight to my rook and my king to my queen. I block check with the knight that's pinned revealing my rook. My opponent loses if he takes my rook because I'm still threatening mate. Now he has to answer the attack on his queen and the threat of mate. Or at least he thinks he does. He can actually force mate from the resulting position as I realized afterwards but he doesn't see it. Instead he takes a line that removes my pawn and stops the threat of mate but he sacrifices his queen in the process. I'm now up by the equivalent of 1 pawn. The game continues and I eventually win. It was only possible because he missed mate. He needed to believe that he had to sacrifice his queen to avoid losing.
nice. when the situation is complicated, make it more complicated and return the pressure.
Oct 7, 2017
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#7
How about this one?
It happened yesterday night on another website. The opponent was rated 2179... :-)
Three-minute blitz, and you don't have to tell me - I know I'm a patzer... :-)
Oct 7, 2017
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#8
An interesting idea for white was the absurd-looking move 26. Qb5!
Check this out:
26...Bxb5 27. Kxg2 Bxf1+ 28. Kxf1 bc with material equality and a fascinating endgame ahead!
It was hard to see.
I think 26. Qb5 has to be played, no matter how ridiculous it looks. White has large material ahead (full queen ahead for pawns), so White can afford to give back some material. Perhaps it would be easier for White, rather than Black, to find this resource since White is the player who is forced to find defensive moves to save the game desparately. Having said that, I will probably miss the move. I am not so sure if 26. cxb6 instead works though.
In bullet anything can happen. This was a 1|0 bullet game and my opponent had 16 seconds left while I had 3 seconds left in the final position, and I was scrambling to find moves to prolong the game.
I just played my moves instinctively and as quickly as possible to prolong the game in a hopeless time situation. My final move was no different, as I had intended to fork the king and bishop to win the bishop and then delay the game by a few more moves. Never did I expect that the fork also happened to be mate.
I also had another game described in this forum topic https://www.chess.com/forum/view/more-puzzles/quest-for-survival-in-a-winning-game where my opponent nearly turned the tables round, giving me a big shock.
I have many more of such stories on both sides, way too many to keep track - I have recovered from losing positions and I have thrown games away in winning positions.
Oct 7, 2017
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#11
26. cxb6 - nice idea! I didn't see it. White will win this very easily after the further 26...Rxc2+ 27. Qxc6 Rxc6 28. (anything)xc7 (the point!).
solskytz wrote:
26. cxb6 - nice idea! I didn't see it. White will win this very easily after the further 26...Rxc2+ 27. Qxc6 Rxc6 28. (anything)xc7 (the point!).
Basically the extra White bishop decides the game. Also, the same White bishop defends the White king from a possible second-rank attack by the two Black rooks. Even in the 26. Qb5 idea, I think it is much easier to play for White with the extra piece since Black's pawns are neither passed not dangerous enough.
As White I would probably play 26. cxb6, whereas as Black I would probably be too complacent to notice either of the two saving moves by White, happily thinking that mate is unstoppable.
Destroyer_Mark_1420 wrote:
I know a guy who didn't play for 20 years. He came back and beat a 2600.
Perhaps the player has not played competitively for 20 years, but has been training very hard during those 20 years.
Destroyer_Mark_1420 wrote:
But it's still a comeback story:
True. Unfortunately, the author of the post intended the topic to be as decribed in post #1 - a comeback within a single game.
This also means that my post #10 does not answer his question in post #1, since mine was a comeback in a losing-on-time game.
Oct 7, 2017
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#15
eric0022 wrote:
solskytz wrote:
26. cxb6 - nice idea! I didn't see it. White will win this very easily after the further 26...Rxc2+ 27. Qxc6 Rxc6 28. (anything)xc7 (the point!).
Basically the extra White bishop decides the game.
You get the same extra bishop in the 26. Qb5 variation - but if the game is decided there, you need to tell me in favor of whom.
Also, the same White bishop defends the White king from a possible second-rank attack by the two Black rooks. Even in the 26. Qb5 idea, I think it is much easier to play for White with the extra piece since Black's pawns are neither passed not dangerous enough.
Still, there are three of them and they are pretty solid. I think that a draw is the likely outcome.
As White I would probably
Probably?
Now that I know about these two remarkable ideas, what doubt can there be (that it must be 26. cb)?
Why give up such an amazing protected passed pawn, that really makes your extra piece decisive?
play 26. cxb6, whereas as Black I would probably be too complacent to notice either of the two saving moves by White, happily thinking that mate is unstoppable.
I didn't see any of them during the game :-)
I even annotated it for another thread yesterday night - and still didn't see it...
Only tonight, after I posted it here, I suddenly saw 26. Qb5 - and you came up with the amazing 26. cb, that was totally transparent to me (even though you didn't see the key idea, which is move 28).
solskytz wrote:
eric0022 wrote:
solskytz wrote:
26. cxb6 - nice idea! I didn't see it. White will win this very easily after the further 26...Rxc2+ 27. Qxc6 Rxc6 28. (anything)xc7 (the point!).
Basically the extra White bishop decides the game.
You get the same extra bishop in the 26. Qb5 variation - but if the game is decided there, you need to tell me in favor of whom.
Good point, what I wrote is rather ambiguous, since both 26. Qb5 and 26. cxb6 (and the relevant follow-up moves, which you detailed earlier) leaves White a bishop up, but outcome is different in the number of pawns held by White and Black.
Also, the same White bishop defends the White king from a possible second-rank attack by the two Black rooks. Even in the 26. Qb5 idea, I think it is much easier to play for White with the extra piece since Black's pawns are neither passed not dangerous enough.
Still, there are three of them and they are pretty solid. I think that a draw is the likely outcome.
White still has some winning chances though, but Black will definitely put up much resistance to try and hold a draw while the rooks are still on the board.
As White I would probably
Probably?
Now that I know about these two remarkable ideas, what doubt can there be (that it must be 26. cb)?
Why give up such an amazing protected passed pawn, that really makes your extra piece decisive?
I meant that I would probably play 26. cxb6 if I was playing the actual game, but that would be after I convinced myself that Black's threats are not as dangerous as it appears. I like the 26. cxb6 variation where White's newly placed b6 pawn survives after 26...Rxc2+ 27. Qxc6 Rxc6 28. bxc7 (or 28. Bxc7).
play 26. cxb6, whereas as Black I would probably be too complacent to notice either of the two saving moves by White, happily thinking that mate is unstoppable.
I didn't see any of them during the game :-)
I even annotated it for another thread yesterday night - and still didn't see it...
Only tonight, after I posted it here, I suddenly saw 26. Qb5 - and you came up with the amazing 26. cb, that was totally transparent to me (even though you didn't see the key idea, which is move 28).
In the game, many things can happen. I am sure that I would be overjoyed as Black if I played the game, because Black is not the player 'in desperation to save the White king' (if I was in a bad real-life situation, I could get desperate), and I would have therefore not bothered about checking to see if White has defensive moves, and as a result, I would have equally overlooked 26. Qb5 or 26. cxb6 by White. And I am equally confident that if you were playing White instead of Black, you would have seen 26. cxb6 even during the game itself. Well I did not actually think much about 26. cxb6 though since I only listed it as a possibility, and it is good that you have worked out a path in this variation. The abilities to analyse and acknowledge the winning variations also explain why and prove that you are indeed a stronger-than-2000 player as you broke the over-the-board 2000 barrier the other day.
And by the way, <Eric>, "always say check - it might be mate!"
Okay...I try to take note of it, but I may not remember though.
