AVNElite wrote:
Have you found it? I'd love to see the game. What rating were you at the time?
No, my sister lives more than a thousand kilometers away. Canada is BIG.
I was rated around 1900, IIRC.
What is the biggest upset in OTB play ever?
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I was rated 1690 and a 1200 player manager to get a draw off me. I had to swindle him to get the draw, sacced a piece in a way that looked like a blunder so I could deliver perpetual check.
Oct 24, 2021
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#24
Harmon-Beltik at the 1963 Kentucky State Championship. Beltik was rated 2150 and Harmon was unknown and unrated.
Oct 24, 2021
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#25
NikkiLikeChikki wrote:
Harmon-Beltik at the 1963 Kentucky State Championship. Beltik was rated 2150 and Harmon was unknown and unrated.
Oh, come ON now... we can do better than THAT.
Albin Planinc at the Vidmar Memorial, Ljubljana, 1969.
Planinc was untitled. No title at all, not even CM or FM. He worked at a bicycle factory as a lathe operator, and was the only player who couldn't take any time off to prepare for the tournament.
He took first place, ahead of a whole field of Grandmasters (Gligoric, Unzicker, Byrne, Tringov, Matanovic, Georghiu, Barcza, Parma, Robatch...)
Beat that.
Tournament cross-table for the 1969 Vidmar Memorial.
Oct 24, 2021
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#26
@blueemu - Planinc won the Slovenian championship the year before. He was untitled, but he was certainly not unknown. Harmon was prepubescent, at least before the tournament started, wearing sensible shoes, fighting a distraction caused by a boy, and was forced to look at Beltik's very unattractive teeth.
Beat THAT!
Oct 24, 2021
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#27
NikkiLikeChikki wrote:
@blueemu - Planinc won the Slovenian championship the year before. He was untitled, but he was certainly not unknown. Harmon was prepubescent, at least before the tournament started, wearing sensible shoes, fighting a distraction caused by a boy, and was forced to look at Beltik's very unattractive teeth.
Beat THAT!
She was also a fictional character, which must have increased the pressure on her.
EDIT:
Isn't winning the Slovenian Championship a bit like being the biggest frog in the puddle in my back yard?
Oct 24, 2021
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#28
You take that back! You take back that Beth was fictional! You take it back NOW!
Oct 24, 2021
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#29
NikkiLikeChikki wrote:
You take that back! You take back that Beth was fictional! You take it back NOW!
I notice you aren't taking umbrage at my anti-Slovenian slurs.
Oct 24, 2021
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#30
Honestly, I don't know the size of the puddles you get in your backyard. For all I know they could be Homerically large puddles surrounded by sirens.
I'm sure that Carlsen, Anand, and other world champions lost to a lot of players when they were really young and not as strong as they later became. So all of those games can be regarded as pretty big upsets in a way.
Oct 24, 2021
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#32
blueemu wrote:
NikkiLikeChikki wrote:
Harmon-Beltik at the 1963 Kentucky State Championship. Beltik was rated 2150 and Harmon was unknown and unrated.
Oh, come ON now... we can do better than THAT.
Albin Planinc at the Vidmar Memorial, Ljubljana, 1969.
Planinc was untitled. No title at all, not even CM or FM. He worked at a bicycle factory as a lathe operator, and was the only player who couldn't take any time off to prepare for the tournament.
He took first place, ahead of a whole field of Grandmasters (Gligoric, Unzicker, Byrne, Tringov, Matanovic, Georghiu, Barcza, Parma, Robatch...)
Beat that.
Planinc's win at Ljubljana 1969 is my favorite underdog chess story. During the tournament, he actually continued working his day job at the bicycle factory but finished first ahead of 10 GMs. His play was exquisitely inventive, but his career was unfortunately cut short by mental illness. He died at age 64, just as Fischer, Steinitz, and Staunton had done.
Anyone interested in seeing some of Planinc's brilliant play can watch this video in which IM Andras Toth analyzes two of his games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=canz515ftQg
All these chess players dying at the same age as the number of squares on a chessboard makes me want to take up bughouse.
Oct 24, 2021
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#34
Ubik42 wrote:
All these chess players dying at the same age as the number of squares on a chessboard makes me want to take up bughouse.
If you play three-dimensional chess (on an 8 x 8 x 8 board), you'll live to be 512 years old!
brianchesscake hat geschrieben:
I'm sure that Carlsen, Anand, and other world champions lost to a lot of players when they were really young and not as strong as they later became. So all of those games can be regarded as pretty big upsets in a way.
I beat two guys in classic OTB who are now in the Top 100, Matthias Bluebaum in 2008 with Black - 1.c4 g5 - and Jonas Buhl Bjerre in 2014 with White - 1.c3 2.Na3. Both were 10 years old and FIDE 2050 by then (I was - and am still - around FIDE 1900). Not a huge upset per se but I might have contributed my part in sharpening awareness for non-classical openings on their way to the top. I consider these matches as greater achievements than beating a 2450 IM in a league match in 2014.
I beat a 1200 in a friendly as a 200, dont think that counts tho 
I WON WITH 2138 WHEN I WAS 1318 IN FIDE OTB
I beat a 2346 player when I was maybe 1775. That was in a classical otb rated tournament. Sometime like 1995-1997.
Post your biggest upset.
I drew Tal in a simul in 1988, when he was ranked 4th in the world.
That was just a simul, though.
This is pretty impressive actually. Did you write down the game?
I've got a copy of it somewhere, yes... perhaps packed away at my sister's house.
It was 32 years ago, and I've moved house several times since then.
Have you found it? I'd love to see the game. What rating were you at the time?