15 November 2009

A Chess960 Catastrophe

Talk about opening disasters! The diagram shows the position after three moves each in a game between two 2700+ players from Mainz 2005. White played 4.Nc5, threatening the royal fork on d7 (plus the small matter of a smothered mate). However Black responds, White has 5.Qb5, reinforcing the fork and adding mate on b7 to Black's woes.

4th FiNet Chess960 Open (2005 Mainz)
Bacrot, Etienne

Aronian, Levon
(After 3...Bd8-f6)

The start position was RKRBNQBN (SP941) and the initial moves were 1.e4 e5 2.Nd3 Ng6 3.f4 Bf6. Black's last move led directly to disaster, but the preceding moves 1...e5 and 2...Ng6 were probably not the best either. After 1.e4, the CCRL engines (see the 'Resources' link in the sidebar) prefer 1...f5 and 1...Ng6. Is the position after 1...e5 definitely lost? Perhaps the losing move was 2...Ng6; more analysis required.

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1 comment:

HarryO said...

Eh Mark thanks for this example back in 2009. I have been keen to take a look at it for a long time. Here's what I can come up with:
http://chess960jungle.blogspot.com/2011/06/tricky-tricky-chess960-part-2.html

Cheers
Harry

12 June, 2011 01:12

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