Monday, May 5, 2008

Grandpatzer Blunders

It doesn’t happen very often, but every once in a while even GM’s will make horrendous, patzer-style blunders. Case in point: As Chessbase reports, Etienne Bacrot (rated 2705) had the white pieces against Ernesto Inarkiev in round eleven of the FIDE Grand Prix in Baku and reached the following position.



He picks up his queen and plays 23.Qe7+??. Hmmmmm….. let’s see… how could black possibly defend against this deadly threat?

Maybe Bacrot should re-read those Heisman articles and do a blundercheck before he moves :-D

12 comments:

wang said...

I think that's what the English refer to as a "Howler"

likesforests said...

23.Qe7?? I feel bad for Bacrot. What an embarrassing way to lose in a big tournament. It doesn't help that the whole episode was videotaped. I hope he's able to regain his composure and play his usual game in later rounds.

Robert Pearson said...

I've posted one of these from time to time at my blog, just as an encouragement to all that you shouldn't think you're irredeemable--these guys always come back from it, and so must we!

Chessaholic said...

wang: a howler indeed...

likesforests: yup, must have been pretty embarrassing... but as wahrheit said - one of the great things about many top level players is their mental strength and their ability to rebound, so I'm sure he'll be fine...

wahrheit: I'll have to go dig up some of your older posts!

drunknknite said...

I wish there was a video of him playing this move...

Robert Pearson said...

Chessaholic, check under the "Homer Nods" label.

Chessaholic said...

kevin - there is. Check out the link in my post, the first video on that page shows him playing the move about 3/4 into the video...

wahrheit - will do!

drunknknite said...

That is priceless, he just resigns immediately. Very nice.

It was nice to see Carlsen dressing up for his games now that he is top seed. That's kind of funny too, I like him in a hoodie better.

Also, if our club had chairs like that I think my performance would be much better.

drunknknite said...

I was just thinking about this and I wonder what he did after he left the tournament hall.

I personally have burned score sheets before (makes me feel a little better). But I wouldn't be surprised if I put a hole in a wall over that one.

By the way, he has a blog. But it's more just his games, no annotations and no real 'feeling'.

Chessaholic said...

hahaha you burned score sheets? That's truly funny. Maybe I should give that a try, I have many that I wouldn't mind never seeing again...

drunknknite said...

yeah, the most recent time was in october during the western states, i was the only 4-0 in my section, i dropped a piece in 12 moves on sunday morning, i was pissed, i went to a remote area of town, parked my car, and watched that thing burn... made me feel better even though i thought i had just ruined my chances at the tournament, i ended up winning that evening and taking sole first though...

i actually checked out bacrot's blog a little more and it turns out he has a lot of analysis in the theory and news sections, it is a very useful site.

Chessaholic said...

lol that sounds like the kind of "therapy" that might just work :)

I just checked out bacrot's blog and you're right - lots of cool analysis. Gonna bookmark that one for sure.