Sunday, May 4, 2008

CHESSBASE: BAKU's BLUNDER of the TOURNAMENT

Bacrot-Inarkiev produce the "blunder of the tournament" (Bacrot), which sadly ended the most exciting game of the round. "This is the result of the Sofia rule," Inarkiev said afterwards, "he has used all his energy and in that position he had already spent a lot of time."


The "unglücksrabe" (German: unlucky raven) Etienne Bacrot in his game against Inarkiev

Bacrot,E (2705) - Inarkiev,E (2684) [C69]
FIDE GP Baku AZE (11), 03.05.2008
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Nxe5 Qd4 7.Nf3 Qxe4 8.d3 Qg4 9.Nc3 Be6 10.Re1 h6 11.h3 Qh5 12.Re5 g5 13.Ne2 Qg6 14.Ned4 Bd7 15.Qe2 f6 16.Ne6 Kf7

Here White missed a good opportunity, as tournament annotator Sergey Shipov and Fritz explain: 17.Nxc7! Rc8 18.Ne6 Bd6 19.Nc5 fxe5 20.Nxd7 Kg7 21.Ndxe5 Qe6 22.b3! and White keeps on attacking, having two pawns for an exchange and a great advantage in the centre (Shipov); +/– 1.11 depth 18/39 at 2,869,000 positions per second (Deep Fritz 10). But Inarkiev missed it. 17.d4 Bd6 18.Nc5 fxe5 19.Nxd7 Qf5 20.Ndxe5+ Kg7 21.Nc4 Rf8 22.Nxd6 cxd6

23.Qe7+?? 0-1. You figure out the refutation. Hint: a black knight is somehow involved. [Click to replay]

The whole tragic scene was caught by Peter Doggers in his video report given at the top of this page:


Etienne Bacrot executes the move 23.Qe7+ and both players calmly write it down


Bacrot starts to think and then suddenly realises what he has done. Wang Yue and
Peter Svidler on the adjacent table notice that something extraordinary has happened

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