Wednesday, 21 February 2018

Resigning with all the pieces still on the board

It is very rare that one player loses a game, while all 32 pieces are still on the board. Of course with rules concerning the use of mobile phones during the game in force, it has probably become a little more common, but even then it is at least noteworthy.
Here is a remarkable example from 2013, with Vasilly Ivanchuk resigning in 19 moves. Lest you think the early resignation was a function of Ivanchuk's eccentricities, Stockfish has him at -2.6 when he threw in the towel.


Ponomariov,Ruslan (2742) - Ivanchuk,Vassily (2755) [C05]
Makedonia Palace GP Thessaloniki GRE (6.1), 28.05.2013

Start positionPrevious MoveNext MoveEnd positionPlay movesStop playing
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 c5 6. Ngf3 Nc6 7. Nb3 Already White begins to take an unusual path. 7...  c4 8. Nbd2 b5 9. Be2 Nb6 10. Nf1 h5 Black tries a new move here, which is advisable as White has scored 100% +3-0 from the previous position. 11. Ne3 Bd7 12. O-O Be7 13. b3 g6 14. Bd2 a6 15. Be1 Qc7 16. h3 O-O-O?? Castle early and castle often is advice I give to juniors, but in this case Black would have done well not to bring his queen to this side of the board. 17. a4 Kb7 ( 17... bxa4 18. bxc4 Nxc4 19. Nxc4 dxc4 20. Bxc4 ) leaves the Black king exposed. 18. Qb1 Na7 19. a5! and despite all 32 pieces still being on the board, Black resigns. Once the knight on b6 retreats, the pin on the b file allows White to win a pawn and maintain a dominating position. 1-0

1 comment:

Chris Skulte said...

Cool game, thanks for sharing.