Saturday, 29 April 2023

Shortest unique game?

 This was originally going to be a post about a 'proof game', then a post about sharp practice, but it is now something even more interesting.

A brief report from one of the club events in Canberra mentioned a game that ended in mate after 4 moves, and involved a queen sacrifice. As the moves weren't given I tried to work out what had happened. Unable to do this, I then searched for 4 move games ending in mate in Hugebase, and came up empty. Finally I spoke to one of the players involved or explained what had happened .

The game began with 1.e3?! f5 2.Qh5+ g6. At this point White then picked up the bishop on f1, but quickly put it back. Looking across to his opponent, he sheepishly picked up again and played 3.Be2 The unsuspecting Black thought White had blundered the Queen and played 3 ... gxh5?? and was hit with 4.Bxh5#  Black, who filled me in on what had happened, thought the whole thing quite funny, and blamed himself for not spotting the ruse. 

As I have been unable to find a game resembling this in Chessbase, I am now wondering whether this qualifies at the shortest unique game even played? Earlier examples are welcomed

1 comment:

MachoM said...

What a story ... I understand that the names of the players remain a secret.