Friday, February 02, 2007

The Most Fantastic Moves Ever

Via Dennis Monokroussos' outstanding Chess Mind, we found Tim Krabbe's Top Ten here. Explore the whole great Chess Curiousities site--we'll be adding it to the sidebar shortly.

I think every chessplayer has an affinity for moves that look ridiculous, crazy or 'impossible' and turn out to be excellent. The very best are the ones that look like the worst move on the board, but turn out to be the best move on the board...

'Fantastic' has the same root as fantasy, and we could all do with some development in this area, except perhaps for Alekhine, Marshall and Kasparov and their ilk. So here are a couple that didn't make the Top Ten, but that I found particularly enchanting:



21. Qa8!! and Black resigned (1-0)

Panczyk-Schurade, Zakopane 1978




1.Bg5!! h1Q 2.Qe8+ Kg7 3.Qg6+ Kf8 4.Qxf6+ Kg8 5.Qd8+ Kg7 6.Qe7+ Kg8 7.Qe8+ and Black resigned (1-0)

Simagin-Bronstein, Moscow 1947

If you don't find these inspiring, there are 108 more over at the link. You'll have to go there to see #1, as well.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Robert, as you may have noticed, I changed the name of my blog from "The Sage In The Tower" to "Pale Rider" so as to better accomodate the new theme for the blog.

By the way, good post. You might also begin to study the world of Chess Studies as there are many fantastic moves there also.