Winning (and losing) quickly at CC

It is still possible to win (or lose) quickly at correspondence chess. While there is a belief that *all* CC is played with computers, this belief is misplaced in most instances. Having said that, the quality of CC has increased because of computers, or more correctly, computer databases.
These days most players have access to reasonably similar collections of games, meaning that opening choices should be a little sounder. Also, keeping track of your analysis is a lot easier, as you can just enter, save and review variations, before choosing your move.
Nonetheless, even with these advantages, quick losses still occur. The most common cause of the quick loss is CC is the dreaded loss on time. This sometimes occurs when a player 'silently withdraws' from an event, but simply losing track of a game and forgetting to move is another cause (and one of which I have been guilty).
The second cause is the bane of online players everywhere, the mis-click. And while online CC has a 'enter and confirm' system, I have still seen plenty of games decided this way.
And the third is the good old 'miscalculation'. Often our biggest mistakes happen when we think we've found the best move, only to find we've missed something along the way. This happens quite a lot in non-engine assisted CC, especially when one player fails to look that one move further.
The featured game for this article comes from the 2016 Australian Interstate Teams. I'm pretty sure that this falls under section 2(the 'mis-click'), as White's 12th move is difficult to explain otherwise. After that, all Black needed to do was head for the kingside and mate the undefended king.


Hughes,David (1752) - Gray,Garvin (1993)
AUS/2016/IT (AUS) ICCF, 30.06.2016