28 November 2009

Learn to Castle Correctly (Rules)

Here's a war story from the fourth game of a match between two super grandmasters at Mainz 2004 -- Gerling Match : Chess960 World Championship : Svidler vs Aronian. A problem occurred in the following position.

Chess960 World Championship, Mainz 2004
Aronian, L.

Svidler, P.
(After 32.e5-e6)

The story as told on the Chesstigers.de page involved an error in castling O-O-O.

This position caused quite a stir in the fourth game of the Gerling Match between Levon Aronian and Peter Svidler. Levon Aronian took his rook on a8, jumped over the King and put it on d8. However, he forgot to take his King which had to be placed on c8 to fulfill all the requirements for a-side castling in Chess960. If he would have done that, the game would be over: Qa8 check and mate!

Peter Svidler stopped the clock and arbiter Sven Noppes came to see what was going on. Castling was possible, the mistake Aronian made was that he took his rook first, so he had to castle a-side.

Peter Svidler showed that he is a gentleman on the board and allowed Aronian to correct his move. The Armenian had to play Ra7 and kept the better position. However, after this faux-pas Aronian completely lost control and finally lost the game.

Was this just a mistake by the young Armenian, or did he try to win with a dirty trick? Aronian joked during the press conference : "Off course I wanted to cheat, just like in his game against The Baron in the computer match." Peter Svidler said: "I do not have a problem with Aronians mistake, and when you have only 40 seconds on the clock, like in this case, it is possible that you mix up the castling rules".

The complete PGN game score (SP725, RKBBNQNR), again courtesy Chesstigers.de, is:

[Event "CCM4 - Gerling Match (Chess960 WCh)"]
[Site "Mainz"]
[Date "2004/8/6"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Svidler"]
[Black "Aronian"]
[Result "1-0"]
[FEN "rkbbnqnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RKBBNQNR w HAha - 0 1"]
[Input "DGT1805"]

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Qxf4 Ne7 4.Ngf3 d6 5.d4 f5 6.e5 Nd5 7.Qd2 Nb6 8.Nd3 dxe5 9.dxe5 g6 10.a4 a5 11.b3 Ng7 12.Be2 Ne6 13.Bb2 Nd5 14.O-O h5 15.Nf2 Nb4 16.Bc4 Qh6 17.Qc3 Be7 18.Rad1 Nc6 19.Nd3 h4 20.Bb5 Ncd8 21.Nf2 g5 22. Bc1 Qg7 23.Nd4 Bb4 24.Nxe6 Nxe6 25.Qf3 Bc5 26.Kh1 h3 27.gxh3 Nd4 28.Qd5 b6 29.Rxd4 Bb7 30.Bc6 Bxc6 31.Qxc6 Bxd4 32.e6 Ra7 33.Ba3 Qe5 34.e7 Bc5 35.Nd3 Qxe7 36.Nxc5 bxc5 37.Bxc5 Qe5 38.Qb5+ Ka8 39.Bxa7 Qxb5 40.axb5 Kxa7 41.Rxf5 Rxh3 42.Rxg5 Kb6 43.Rg3 Rh4 44.Rc3 Rh5 45.Rc6+ Kb7 46.Rc4 Rxb5 47.h4 Re5 48.Kg2 c5 49.Kf3 Kc6 50.Kg4 Re2 51.h5 a4 52.bxa4 Kd5 53. Rc3 Kd4 54.Rh3 Rxc2 55.h6 Rg2+ 56.Kf5 Rg8 57.h7 1-0

Not all opponents would be as forgiving as GM Svidler. Learn how to castle correctly in chess960. It's not that difficult!

1 comment:

kokino said...

Funny situation. That's the problem when you play some much online. :) You forget how to move the pieces OTB.