The un-brilliancy

The most painful losses in chess are often the ones where you decide to go for glory only to find you have miscalculated and turned a good position into a stone cold lose. In Australian sorting slang this is sometimes called "blowing a sandshoe"*

I've done it on a couple of occasions (including a horrible loss in the 2000 Olympiad) so I do sympathise with Nigel Short after his 4th round game against Viswanathan Anand in the London Chess Classic. He had a good position for most of the game, but on move 35 he started his quest for the brilliancy prize, starting a sequence that involved a piece sacrifice. This gave him 2 mating ideas (Qh5 and Qe7) but Anand killed them both with 38. ... Qd6. Down a piece Short was then mated 5 moves later.

Short, Nigel - Anand, Viswanathan

London Chess Classic, 11.12.2010

1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 d6 3.f4 Nc6 4.Nf3 g6 5.Be2 Bg7 6.0-0 Nf6 7.Qe1 0-0 8.d3 e6 9.Kh1 b6 10.Bd2 Bb7 11.Qh4 Ne8 12.Qh3 Nd4 13.Nxd4 cxd4 14.Nd1 f5 15.c4 dxc3 16.Nxc3 Qd7 17.Rae1 Nc7 18.Bf3 Rab8 19.exf5 exf5 20.Bxb7 Rxb7 21.Qf3 d5 22.Rf2 Rbb8 23.Rfe2 Rf7 24.a3 d4 25.Nd1 Qd5 26.Qg3 Rff8 27.h4 Rfe8 28.h5 gxh5 29.Re7 Rxe7 30.Rxe7 Ne6 31.Rxa7 Kh8 32.Nf2 Bf6 33.Nh3 h4 34.Qf2 h6 35.Ng5 Nxg5 36.fxg5 hxg5 37.Bxg5 Bxg5 38.Qe2 Qd6 39.Qh5+ Qh6 40.Qf3 Rc8 41.Qxf5 Rc1+ 42.Kh2 Qd6+ 43.Kh3 Qg3# 0-1

* The source of the expression "to blow a sandshoe" is this accident here.