| May-20-12 | | luzhin: 47...f6 BEFORE playing Rxc4 would have been advisable. Come to think of it,so would 23...Qxf1+ -- but, hey, this is blitz. |
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| May-20-12 | | Illogic: 22. f3 was better, giving the e4 knight a needed defender. On move 23, Rf3 was Krush's best try, with the point that Qxh2 is no longer mate after the exchanges on e4. From move 27 on, Irina was playing on the increment, and still managed to defend a bad position well enough to cause Anna to burn all of her clock off, leading to the eventual blunder. This game will get eviscerated by kibitzers, but credit to Irina for defending and better handling this high-pressure situation. |
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| May-20-12 | | HowDoesTheHorsieMove: luzhin: <this is blitz.>
No, it's rapid. They each get 25 minutes, plus a 5 second increment. 23...Qxf1 really should have been found, especially given how long Anna thought about it. |
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May-20-12
 | | Peligroso Patzer: <23...Qxf1 really should have been found, especially given how long Anna thought about it.> From the account of a friend (who followed the game in real time) I understand that Krush was already in severe time pressure by move 23, but to miss <23. ... Qxf1+> when you have a reasonable amount of time on your clock is a blunder a Class "B" or even Class "C" player should be embarrassed to make. According to the same friend, Krush and Zatonskih did shake hands after the game, but set a new world record for the shortest ever handshake: 3.4 nanoseconds. |
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| May-20-12 | | Edeltalent: Time wasn't really a factor concerning Qxf1. Krush had about 5 min left before playing Ng5. Zatonskih had over 10 min and actually spent at least two minutes to ponder over Bxc2. At the end, both were playing more or less on the increment, but as they had played a couple of moves really quickly I would think Zatonskih had at least 15-20s before Rxc4. Both errors seemed more a matter of nerves than anything else. |
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| May-20-12 | | LivBlockade: 23. Rf3 would have been a good practical try, but if Black can find 23... Rxe4; 24. Nxe4 Bxe4; 25. Qxe4 Qxh2+ 26. Kf1 Bd6! she should win easily:
click for larger view(Analysis after 26... Bd6)
White is up the exchange, but has no reasonable move and will likely lose one of the rooks. For example, 27. Rc1 Qh1+; 28. Ke2 Qg2+; 29. Ke1 Nh2 and the pinned Rook on f3 is lost. |
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| May-21-12 | | knightsacrifice: Yes Krush didn't have much time left at 23., but Anna had still like 5min and thought at least 2-3 of that and then played ..Bxc2. The audience and commentators where shocked to say the least, as in "oh no...". The rook drop at the end was about as awful but both were playing on the increment so that happens. Still, 2 great players. |
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| May-21-12 | | beenthere240: Who knew that knights could go backwards! |
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Aug-13-12
 | | FSR: Monday puzzle after 23.Ng5. |
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Aug-13-12
| | FSR: According to the August Chess Life, p. 22, Zatonskih thought for a few minutes, then played 22...Bxc2?? How does a 2500 player think a few minutes and miss a move a 1500 would be embarrassed to miss? |
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Aug-13-12
 | | OBIT: <FSR> I remember when this position came up during the St. Louis Chess Club broadcast with "Bennifer" - Ben Finegold and Jennifer Shahade. I had a bad feeling Zatonskih was going to miss the move when she didn't play it within 30 seconds. This strikes me as one of those moves where, if a player doesn't see the move fairly quickly, there is a good chance it won't get played. And, the fact that the game was being played at a fast time control only makes this more likely. |
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Aug-13-12
| | FSR: <OBIT> It seems to me that you're mixing two different causes of blunders - (1) the blindness that afflicts all of us at least once in a while (two (in)famous examples are the Petrosian-Bronstein queen-hang and Kramnik's king-hang against Deep Fritz) and (2) time pressure. When a strong player makes a "category 1" blunder, it may not matter if the player takes three minutes or an hour on the move. If you don't see the winning move straight away, there's a good chance you'll never see it. (Correspondence chess is another story. If you put aside a position and are able to look at it afresh the next day, you may say, "What was I thinking?! Of course I play X and win!" or "Of course I can't play the line I was looking at! I get mated by ...Qxf1+!" K Thompson vs F Rhine, 1992 |
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Aug-14-12
| | FSR: <OBIT> On second thought, it's not quite as clear a dichotomy as I made it out to be. If Zatonskih had been able to think for 10 minutes instead of three, it's conceivable she would have come to her senses. I doubt it, but it's possible. I suspect that the odds would be increased if something had happened to derail her train of thought - say, a distracting noise in the playing hall. |
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| Aug-14-12 | | Travis Bickle: I remember playing & watching both Anna Zatonskih & Irina Krush at 2 minute blitz on the old WCN chess site, and both were very good blitz players against the club members, but Anna is not as fast as Irina at 2 minute blitz. Anna Z is much stronger at classical time controls. |
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Kibitzing
sac: 27.Rxe3