49
I believe that the game you speak of is the extremely famous Lasker-Thomas match in which Lasker forces Black to accept his queen "sacrifice" on move 11. It is followed by a king hunt in which Black's king is forced to the last rank by White, who then finishes the game with the king giving a discovered check from the unmoved a8 rook. The game is ...
40
Yes, there has been a stalemate in a serious game that is under 30 moves long. According to Tim Krabbe's record site, the fastest such game is 27 moves.
[Title "Sibilio-Mariotti, Ravenna 1982"]
[fen "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e5 c5 4. b4 cxb4 5. d4 Nh6 6. a3 bxa3 7. c3 Nf5 8. Nxa3 ...
31
I want to offer a semi-realistic example. I think I have seen something like this in a game by masters in some book, but of course I cannot recall where. But this is something that at least can be realistically missed in calculations from far away.
[FEN "6k1/5ppp/6r1/3b4/4r3/8/1Q5P/1R5K w - - 0 1"]
White just gives a back rank mate, right? :)
...
29
This does sound like the famous game between Edward Lasker (not the world champ) and George Alan Thomas.
[FEN ""]
[Event "Casual game"]
[Site "London ENG"]
[Date "1912.10.29"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Edward Lasker"]
[Black "George Alan Thomas"]
1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Bxf6 Bxf6 6. e4
fxe4 7. Nxe4 b6 8. Ne5 O-O 9. Bd3 Bb7 10. Qh5 Qe7 11. ...
26
Shirov resigned: the thinking was that despite both sides left with pawns and a knight, the advantage went to Black.
Black has an extra pawn and Black's pawn chain is mutually supporting. White is down a pawn and they are split. White's king is buried too deeply in the corner to either prevent a black pawn advance to promotion or to save White's pawns.
...
19
If you really mean "dubious", then no one really fits this description since Steinitz, who liked to, for example, go for walks with his King when playing the King's Gambit as White. But people didn't really know better back then.
If you're willing to relax "dubious" to "offbeat", the first player that comes to mind is Bent Larsen, one of the strongest ...
19
Sure it's possible, in fact it's possible that this kind of "inevitability" happens earlier in the game, with many more moves to go until mate.
See example here.
[FEN "K1k5/P1Pp4/1p1P4/8/p7/P2P4/8/8 w - - 0 1"]
[Event "White to play and win"]
1. d4 b5 2. d5 b4 3. axb4 a3 4. b5 a2 5. b6 a1=Q 6. b7#
17
Short answer: Since after the bishop recapture on f8 (and not the rook recapture!) white is tactically and positionally completely busted, with 5 active black pieces against a completely exposed king in the centre and no foreseeable chance of consolidation in order to eventually benefit from the material advantage.
First observations:
15...Bxf8 is with ...
13
Black has (almost) three connected passed pawns which will be unstoppable.
White is not going to promote his pawn without the king, which is far away and likewise is not going to get a passer on the a or b file soon.
13
[FEN "kq6/8/K7/PQ6/8/8/8/8 b - - 0 1"]
1... Qb7+ (1... Qa7#) 2. Qxb7#
Black could mate with 1...Qa7# or lose with 1...Qb7#, when White's only legal reply is 2. Qxb7#.
12
22...Rd2 saves the queen, but black is still down a massive amount of material. After white takes the rook on d2, he has two rooks for just a bishop. With such a huge material deficit, there is no possible hope of defending with normal play. The only chance for black would be to have an immediate attack on the king or other very strong compensation, which is ...
11
Among World Champions, Alekhine was a top bluffmaster. Capablanca once remarked that "Alekhine's game is 20% bluff".
Here's one example of his bluffs.
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"]
[White "Alekhine"]
[Black "Erich Cohn"]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. e5?
This was played in Alekhine vs ...
11
There are Several reasons for identical games:
The fact that we databases and computers allows us to find the best move in known positions. (if both players knows the theory in the same level - it might lead to a known draw).
Hence some players might follow a known game between two great players, which might result with identical games.
The fact that ...
9
Bobby Fischer's games in the 1965 Capablanca Memorial gained fame because he was denied a visa to travel to Cuba, and was the only player in the tournament who had to play all of his games from New York by telephone. It was especially grueling because those games typically lasted 8 hours or more due to the communications lag.
9
Several reasons I can see:
In closed positions like you have here, piece development is not as important as in open positions.
To me it seems that black played his King's Indian set up, more or less ignoring what white is playing, which generally is not a good idea.
Black should/could have attacked the center in the beginning more aggressively, thereby ...
9
First, by far the most popular chess YouTuber is Agadmator. His channel does a nice job of going over famous games, and explaining them.
Other good videos are what are called "banter blitz". Banter blitz is when players, and you want to watch Masters, explain what they are thinking aloud as they are playing. You can then get a better idea of what we see, ...
8
After White's 22. Bc1, it seems like responding with Rd2 would keep the game alive for Black.
This is an entirely wrong assumption. Black has no counterplay whatsoever, while White holds the initiative. Being down material, Black has no resources/time to repel the coming attack, nor to organize a defense/counterplay. Because his queen is trapped he will be ...
8
The question therefore is, where did Kasparov misplay the position?
No, he did not. All the lines give Black equal chances, no matter what move White chose to play.
How did he lose his small positional advantage.
He did not lose advantage because there was none in the first place. White position just looks "prettier". He can not stop the freeing d5 ...
8
There's this game by Frank Marshall, about which he claimed his last move excited the spectators in such a way, they showered him with golden coins. However, I've also read the coins were not intended for him, but tossed on the table by those who bet against him, for the winning gamblers to collect. But it was an amazing move though. More info here:
http://...
8
The oldest recorded game with the modern rules for moves is this game played in 1475. Although it's not clear if castling and en passant were in force.
[FEN ""]
[Event "Valencia "]
[Date "1475"]
[White "Francesco di Castellvi"]
[Black "Narciso Vinyoles"]
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd8 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.h3 Bxf3 7.Qxf3 e6 8.Qxb7 Nbd7 9.Nb5 Rc8 10.Nxa7 Nb6 ...
8
A game between McDonnell and De La Bourdonnais is very famous. Although no promotion was executed on the board, it is definitely the theme of the game.
[FEN ""]
[Event "London m4 ;HCL 18"]
[Site "16"]
[Date "1834.??.??"]
[EventDate "?"]
[Round "62"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Alexander McDonnell"]
[Black "...
7
Not to rain on your hopes - but the problem you're looking for at first appeared in:
Troitzky, A. (1924), 500 Endspielstudien, Verlag Kagan, Berlin
Troitzky was an impeccable note-taker when it came to chess. This book was End Game Studies and show endgame positions with only with a few endgame moves. It didn't show complete games.
...
7
The game Lasker - Thomas, Lasker could have ended with a castling checkmate, but instead he played “18.Kd2#.” Some versions of that game I've seen may have ended with “18.O-O-O#.”
[Title "Edward Lasker-George Alan Thomas, London, Casual Game, 10/29/19"]
[FEN ""]
1. d4 e6 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bg5 Be7 5. Bxf6 Bxf6 6. e4 fxe4 7. Nxe4 b6 8. Ne5 O-O 9. Bd3 ...
7
These players are just pretty weak. 5...Bg4 should already have been punished by Bxf7, many more blunders follow.
Qg6 is a double attack against c2 and g2, that's probably motivation enough.
6
Albert Einstein vs Robert Oppenheimer - Einstein won obviously :)
None of them is a professional chess player, but the game is so famous, simply because everyone wants to see Einstein playing chess!
6
Thomas Wilson Barnes used 1. e4 f6?! to beat Paul Morphy.
[FEN ""]
[Event "London m1"]
[Site "London"]
[Date "1858"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Paul Morphy"]
[Black "Thomas Wilson Barnes"]
[ECO "A00"]
[PlyCount "100"]
1.e4 f6 2.d4 e6 3.Bd3 Ne7 4.Be3 d5 5.Nc3 dxe4 6.Nxe4 Nd5 7.Nh3 Be7 8.Qh5+ g6 9.Qh6 Bf8 10.Qh4 Bg7 11.O-O O-O 12....
6
"That is, from an experienced player's viewpoint, why do we assume that staying alive with Rd2 is not worth the effort, and how would White be sure to win regardless?"
I don't want to speak for you but it seems you're getting more at a philosophical question about whether or not to resign than asking about the position.
For an under 1200 section, this ...
6
I just saw this question, and while someone came up with the game you were looking for, here is a game with what many consider THE most spectacular queen sacrifice ever. It is a positional sacrifice for two minors on move 12! I thought everyone might enjoy this.
If you do have never heard of Rashid "SuperNezh" Nezhmetdinov, despite never getting the GM ...
5
I have an old book in my house, 500 King's Gambit Miniatures, and in the first pages the games, at the least, didn't pass 30 moves. I think it is a very good definition.
5
Here is a famous game between two famous players that ends with “30...0-0.”
[Title "Timman-Kasparov, Eurotel Trophy, 1998"]
[FEN ""]
1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.e3 b5 6.a4 b4 7.Nb1 Ba6 8.Qc2 b3 9.Qd1 e6 10.Be2 c5 11.O-O Nc6 12.Ne5 Rc8 13.Na3 cxd4 14.Naxc4 Qd5 15.Bf3 Ne4 16.Nxc6 Rxc6 17.Nd2 f5 18.Re1 d3 19.Nxb3 e5 20.Bd2 Rb6 21.Bxe4 fxe4 22.Nc1 ...
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