Saturday 19 September 2009

Games that astonish me

Sometimes I come across a game that I find quite astonishing. Not because of the strength of the moves or the beauty of the play, but more in the "How the hell did that happen?" kind of way. Yesterday in the InventiChess tournament in Antwerp, Etienne Bacrot crushed Gabriel Sargissian in 18 moves. Surprising enough, but he did it with the Four Knights Opening! Now I understand that in the hands of the modern GM any opening can be dangerous, but c'mon, the Four Knights?
Anyway, here is the game in all its brief glory.

Bacrot,Etienne - Sargissian,Gabriel [C48]
InventiChess 2009 Antwerp, BEL (1.4), 18.09.2009

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bb5 Nd4 5.Bc4 Nxf3+ 6.gxf3 Bc5 7.Rg1 Nh5 8.d4 Bxd4 9.Ne2 d5 10.Bxd5 c6 11.Nxd4 cxd5 12.Rg5 exd4 13.Rxd5 Qb6 14.Rxh5 Be6 15.b3 0-0 16.Bb2 g6 (D)
17.Bxd4 Qc7 18.Bf6 1-0


Capturing the rook leads to mate after Qd2, while other attempts to stop the White queen getting to h6 lead to ruinous material loss.

1 comment:

Paul said...

Chess is full of surprises...:-)