Chess Blindness

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Chess Blindness - examples

I saw the following game at the Canadian Open in 1997 in Winnipeg. Aron was playing late arrival Alexander Shabalov and the following opening was played ...

Shabalov,A (2585) - Kapstan,A (2180) [B06]
Canadian op Winnipeg (7), 17.07.1997

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.Bg5 c6 5.Qd2 h6 6.Bh4 b5 7.f4 a6 8.e5 d5 9.a4 b4 10.Nd1 a5 11.Ne3 ...

Aron then played 11... e6 and promptly resigned, having left his Queen en prise.

At least he had a bit of a conversation with the Latvian-American GM afterwards. But that's still gotta hurt.

**************************************************

Perhaps the reason Aron missed the discovered attack was a little nervousness in playing the GM. In one of my first games against a Master I accepted a draw in an easily won position. I figured if a much higher rated player offered a draw then the position must be a draw.

How wrong I was. lol.



Hanrahan,N (1698) - Babb,J (2161) [C68]
LD Classic 1996 (1), 1996
[Hanrahan]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.d4 exd4 6.Qxd4 Bg4 7.Qxd8+ Rxd8 8.Nbd2 Bb4 9.c3 Bc5 10.0-0 Nf6 11.Re1 0-0 12.h3 Bxf3 13.Nxf3 Rfe8 14.Bg5 h6 15.Bxf6 gxf6 16.Kf1 Re6 17.Re2 a5 18.Rae1 Red6 19.e5 fxe5 20.Rxe5 Rd5 21.Re8+ Kh7 22.Rxd8 Rxd8 23.Re5 Rd5 24.Ke2 Bd6 25.Rxd5 cxd5 26.Nh4 c6 27.Nf5 Bc5 28.f4 Kg6 29.g4 a4 30.Kd3 Bf8 31.c4 dxc4+ 32.Kxc4 Kf6 33.Kd3 h5 34.b3 hxg4 35.hxg4 axb3 36.axb3 Ba3 37.Kd2 Ke6 38.Ne3 Bd6 39.Ng2 Kd5 40.Kd3 Kc5 41.g5 Kb4 42.Kc2 b5 43.f5 c5 44.g6 fxg6 45.fxg6 Bf8 46.Ne3 Ka3 47.Nf5 c4 48.bxc4 bxc4 49.Kc3 Ka2 draw agreed?!

Instead, I had the simple 50.Kxc4 Kb2 51.Kd5 Kc2 52.Ke6 Kd3 53.Kf7 Ke4 54.Kxf8 Kxf5 55.g7 for the win. Ugh.

[Garland Best]

Re: Chess Blindness - examples

Then there is playing on autopilot. My game last week went as follows:

1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. 0-0 Nxe4 6. d4 b5 7. Bb3, at which point I'm thinking "yeah, yeah, all book, played this dozens of times, push the d pawn and play Be6", and then promptly played d6?? instead of d5. After Bd5 I could have resigned on the spot.

[Hans Jung]

Re: Chess Blindness - examples

http://www.chesstalk.info/forum/show...uis-Chess-Club Hikaru Nakamura himself comments on my chess blindness. Have a look. I guess my chess blindness is approaching legendary status but not in a good way.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Chess Blindness---No other examples???

When my blood sugar is bad (either very high or very low) my thinking often follows suit and resembles someone who is inebriated. I had a tournament a couple of years ago in Detroit where my blood sugar was up and down and I lost three games in a row in a quad. In one game in that tournament, the third round, I resigned thinking that I was a rook down when in fact material was just about even. My normal default policy is to never resign if there is even a glimmer of hope and examples like this one reinforce that I shouldn't vary that policy. My opponent, a young girl who is one of Michigan's rising stars was very puzzled by my resignation.

[Gordon Ritchie]

Re: Chess Blindness

Follow this link to "The Top 10 Biggest Blunders by Grandmasters" including Carlsen, Kramnik, etc.
http://thechessworld.com/learn-chess...nders-at-chess

[Roger Patterson]

Re: Chess Blindness

Here's one. In a recent morning game at the Spice Cup in St Louis I played as Black 1.e4 d6 2.d4 e5 3.Nf3 Nbd7 4.Bc4 Be7?? and my FM opponent sank into thought for 5 minutes but with a weird smile on his face and then played 5.dxe5 Nxe5 (if 5...dxe5 6.Qd5) 6.Nxe5 dxe5 7.Qh5 and all of a sudden Im down a pawn and lost horribly. Unforgivable for a master and I had played the correct theory dozens of times. Ironically I found several games in databases with the same move order and most not punished! As a master tournament player I am embarrassed to admit chess blindness in the past had happened too frequently and still happens! I agree with Egidijus above - hopefully others will rise above their embarrassment and share.

I've been on the white side of that several times against master level players.

If you will look into your databases, you will be surprised by the number of people who (as black), including a grandmaster, played 11.....Bd6 in the following well known position. Although, in the GM game, the opponent didn't play the refutation so maybe it was a mis-entered game.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Chess Blindness

This game appears in 3 different databases that I looked at - reaching the position given by Roger. Two other games in "my" database continued with 12. Rxd5. In one, Black resigned immediately; the other continued for about another dozen moves before Black resigned. In another game, White played 12. Bxd5 and eventually lost.

[Event "ARG-ch"]
[Site "Buenos Aires ARG"]
[Date "1999.12.03"]
[Round "12"]
[White "Campora, Daniel"]
[Black "Spangenberg, Hugo"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C89"]
[WhiteElo "2543"]
[BlackElo "2531"]
[PlyCount "31"]
[EventDate "1999.11.19"]
[EventType "tourn"]
[EventRounds "13"]
[EventCountry "ARG"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O b5 6. Bb3 Be7 7. Re1 O-O 8. c3
d5 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Nxe5 Nxe5 11. Rxe5 Bd6 12. Re1 c6 13. d4 Qh4 14. g3 Qh3 15.
Be3 Bg4 16. Qd3 1/2-1/2

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Chess Blindness

Blunders and hanging pieces, including a Queen, were common in correspondence chess as well. One would think with the time available that sort of thing would not happen. But it did at all levels of play.

If a player did not believe he had made the move he could ask for a photocopy. If the dispute got to me as arbiter I'd ask for the correspondence to be mailed to me so I could ensure there was no tampering.

I once hung a mate pretty much on the move. I saw it but after looking at the board for about half an hour forgot.

It's Kindergarden chess. Make a move and your opponent busts you on the next move.

[Louis Morin]

Re : Re: Chess Blindness

Hopefully others will rise above their embarrassment and share.

OK then, here is probably my worst blunder. I was rated about 1400 at the time, and had king, queen, and pawn vs king and pawn. Unfortunately, my opponent was not resigning... he was still trying to promote his pawn. I got frustrated and even though this was not necessary at all, I sacrificed my queen for his pawn, thinking that he would resign immediately since I now queen my remaining pawn (his king was way out of the queening square).

But things did not go as planned. My opponent looked at me as if I were crazy, captured my queen, and offered a draw. I did not understand at first. After all, I was a pawn up, and this pawn was already on the seventh rank and about to queen. So what was wrong? I raised my hand... and suddenly a very big sweat went all over my face.

I had just realized that the remaining pawn was HIS pawn, not mine!!!

Fortunately, his king was so far away that I was able to win his remaining pawn. But this was only luck. I could easily have lost with a queen up.

[Digeng Du]

Re: Re : Re: Chess Blindness

More than once during endgames I've forgotten which way my pawns were supposed move. I would look at a bunch of lines only to realize at the end that all my calculations were nonsense...

[Bob Armstrong]

Re: Re : Re: Chess Blindness

I have a penchant for looking down the diagonal my B is on, and thinking it is on the next diagonal - I've even moved my B illegally as a result of this. Have to always double check on analysis involving B's.

Bob

[Steve Douglas]

Re: Re : Re: Chess Blindness

Several years ago at one of the Guelph International's, I was playing in a game with opposite-side castling. I had been able to invade my opponent's position and was comfortably on my way to winning but the position was still complicated and I was having some difficulty finding the right continuation. i made what I thought was a reasonable move and my opponent quickly whipped a Bishop across the board, capturing a pawn with check, while at the same time opening a discovered attack against my Queen. My heart sank and I almost resigned on the spot. I chose to play on even though my attack was now fizzled and my opponent had a distinct material advantage.

About three moves later I looked at the board and realized that the Bishop check couldn't have happened since the Bishop would have had to "jump" one of my pawns in the middle of the board. I double-checked my scoresheet to make sure the pawn had been there at the time of the check and then pointed it out to my opponent. He checked his scoresheet and then we eventually re-set the position to what it was before his check. I eventually won the game.

Both of us missed that it was an illegal move. I'm just happy that I didn't resign.

Steve