Good grief. What a blunder. I was playing a 12 minute game of chess against a human opponent on playchess.com and got to the following position –
I was playing white and it was my move. I had about 3 minutes on my clock and my opponent had about 1.5 minutes. So no time pressure. So what did I play?
49. b7??
Really stupid move or what? Can you see why? Black can checkmate in a single move with 49 … Ng2#. Here is the position at the end:
I couldn’t believe it 🙁 I should have played 49. Rxf4 Kxf4 50. Kxe2 and then advanced the pawn on the b-file to Queen it. More study required I think to spot obvious mating positions. Here is the full game if anyone is interested:
[Event “Rated game, 12m + 0s”]
[Site “Beginners”]
[Date “2006.12.05”]
[White “Canicula”]
[Black “Coriolis”]
[Result “0-1”]
[WhiteElo “1251”]
[BlackElo “1283”]
[ECO “C42”]
[Annotator “Robinson,Ian”]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. d3 Be7 5. Be2 O-O 6. Be3 Nc6 7. O-O Be6 8. Ng5
d5 9. f3 d4 10. Nxe6 fxe6 11. Bg5 dxc3 12. bxc3 b5 13. d4 b4 14. c4 exd4 15. e5
Nd7 16. Bxe7 Qxe7 17. f4 Rf7 18. Bh5 g6 19. Bf3 Rxf4 20. Qd2 Raf8 21. Bxc6 Nxe5
22. Rxf4 Nxc4 23. Rxf8+ Qxf8 24. Qf2 Ne5 25. Qxf8+ Kxf8 26. Be4 c5 27. Re1 Kf7
28. h4 c4 29. h5 b3 30. axb3 cxb3 31. cxb3 d3 32. Kf2 Ng4+ 33. Kf3 gxh5 34.
Bxh7 Kf6 35. Ra1 Ke5 36. Bxd3 Kd4 37. Bc4 e5 38. Rxa7 e4+ 39. Ke2 Ne3 40. Bf7
Nxg2 41. Bxh5 Nf4+ 42. Kd2 e3+ 43. Ke1 Nxh5 44. Rd7+ Ke4 45. b4 Nf4 46. b5 e2
47. b6 Kf3 48. Rf7 Ke3 49. b7 Ng2# 0-1
BTW the chess boards above are taken from the excellent Sigma Chess.
UPDATE: It’s not all doom and gloom. I won my most recent game –
[Event “Rated game, 8m + 0s”]
[Site “Beginners”]
[Date “2006.12.05”]
[White “Canicula”]
[Black “G¸nni”]
[Result “1-0”]
[WhiteElo “1169”]
[BlackElo “1378”]
[ECO “B06”]
[Annotator “Robinson,Ian”]
1. e4 g6 2. Nf3 Bg7 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Bd3 d6 5. O-O Bxc3 6. bxc3 e5 7. Bb2 Bg4 8.
Bc4 Qd7 9. d4 exd4 10. cxd4 Bxf3 11. Qxf3 Nxd4 12. Bxd4 O-O-O 13. Bxh8 Ne7 14.
Qxf7 Rxh8 15. Qe6 b6 16. Qxd7+ Kxd7 17. Rae1 Rf8 18. f3 Rf4 19. g3 Rf6 20. f4
c6 21. g4 b5 22. Bd3 a6 23. g5 Rf7 24. f5 gxf5 25. exf5 Nd5 26. g6 hxg6 27.
fxg6 Rg7 28. Rf7+ Rxf7 29. gxf7 1-0