Grandmasters being checkmated

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Here is a webpage with some recent checkmates in grandmaster matches - http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscol ... id=1000533

I had long assumed that checkmates were an extremely rare occurrence in grandmaster chess matches since (I'd assumed) a grandmaster would always realise a few moves in advance that their position was hopeless and so resign rather than bother playing on to the end.

I remember in the Blade Runner movie where JF Sebastian defeats Tyrell in a correspondence chess match with Roy Batty's help. Tyrell is supposed to be a genius but he cannot even foresee that JF Sebastian is about to checkmate him in one move! What a doofus!

Interesting collection. I wonder how many grandmasters have never been checkmated.

Sure, mates are rare, but you could be flat out losing and still play on to try to salvage a draw or maybe even win; I'm not a grandmaster but in a relatively high rating tournament, I was down an entire rook for no compensation, and I checkmated a guy despite a completely lost position. He missed one of the easiest moves you can do as well. I seriously would have lost if he chose that move. There is always a chance your opponent slips up. I easily could have resigned because of the material disadvantage

There is a chess clock and time could be an issue. There are also drawing rules and stalemates, Numerous times, especially in my endgame book, stupid mistakes (even by grandmasters) make you throw away the game. If you are going to resign, you have to make sure your opponent knows the moves as well. Usually resignations happen because they see simple tactics and no one on that level will miss it. You MUST know your opponent would make the moves you see. You have to make them earn the win.

Sometimes you might allow a checkmate to be played out if it's just a few moves away and makes a nice picturesque position.

It's different in GM play, since at that level they know their opponent will be able to convert a win with piece up (except in rare cases where you can simplify into a difficult or even drawn endgame, or where the weaker side can make a fortress, etc). In a position that is flat out losing, a Grandmaster will always resign. To do otherwise would be disrespectful to their opponent.


Right, but in a truly won position, a grandmaster will be able to finish it using no time on the clock.

Not exactly true. In Mark Dvoretsky's endgame book, there are numerous examples of grandmasters doing dumb things to blow the win, and they are not difficult endgames at all and they are downright winning, believe it or not. Someone in the book tried to get cute while up a Queen and blew the win. I do not think a single chess player out there would ever blame someone for being disrespectful if their opponent needs to convert a win under time pressure, which could lead to mistakes.

It might depend a bit on the specific position. There are definitely situations where a grandmaster (or even a lowly class player like myself) is guaranteed to be able to convert the win no matter how little time is left on the clock (remember most tournaments use time delays, so you always at least have enough time to physically move the pieces without losing any time) and it would just be ridiculous for anyone to keep playing it out. There are other positions that are clearly winning but still take a bit of accuracy to convert- in those cases, the losing side might have a chance if there is time pressure.

It was a Queen against 3 pawns. I know all about time delay and stuff; I actually won a U1600 chess tournament with a 995 rating. I am going to wave my **** and say I was one of the top 3 high school chess players in the city of Philadelphia at the time with 2 Top 3 finishes in the city championship. I was on the Top 50 list in the ENTIRE United States in my age group. But that was a LONG time ago. Do you live in the United States?

Nice. I did something similar. I had about a 960 rating and dominated a tournament with a 1750-ish performance.

Queen vs 3 pawns depends very much on where those pawns are placed. If they are connected advanced pawns, they are probably better than the queen. Two passed pawns on the sixth beat everything, up to a royal flush. So I can see continuing that position, since it can be tricky to pick off all the pawns.


Yeah, I live in the US. I have very little tournament activity, so my official rating still has not caught up to my own improvements (I had 2 very poor tournaments in high school, and didn't play another rated event for several years, so those first two tournaments are still overly influential in my rating) but my rating puts me in the top quintile of active tournament players. My official rating is 1540 right now, but my real playing strength is probably somewhere in Class B.

Do you have a FICS account? We should play sometime.

I am a 1720 that plays like a 1500 now. I went 5-0-1 at Team Amateur East on 4th board and showed once again I am lights out in team play (I went something like 45-1-2 in match play in the city league; I lost my first game). I was going to kill my teammates in high school because we only won one championship despite having the best 2 boards in the city in a five-board match. We seriously had 3 guys that could not win. We lost to the same team 3 TIMES in one season, including in the championship match. How can a guy get smothered mated in the middle of the board when he plays the French Defense!?!?!? That is how we got second place.

What is the link to the FCIS?

I hate when that happens. My high school team missed an important win because our fourth board somehow failed to convert king+rook vs lone king. And I just now delivered a violent miniature to my opponent in a team match that was already lost, 2.5-1.5, now that I won.


http://www.freechess.org/
It's like ICC, but without the very expensive subscription required. The pool of players there for standard chess is as strong as (or perhaps even stronger than) current USCF tournament players.

I was a Sicilian Dragon expert in high school. My coach got mad at me if I did not win in 15-20 minutes in a 30-min per side match. I never lost on either side against a school that won national championships and were literally trained in that opening. Outside of that variation I am very sketchy. Blitz is not my best friend, but on the former chess.net I got a 2200 rating in 15 minute games. I got a ! ! from Fritz because of a pseudo-double rook sacrifice on my back rank, so that was the most spectacular thing I have done in the game. And it was a king move as well.

Chess was just an excuse to get drunk and go on vacations at my school. We had chess hooligans destroying the chess room, and we even had a hazing incident. The chess team also came out for the Pep Rally once and only once. I was a small celebrity at the school.

I would consider myself somewhat an expert on the White side of the Dragon. I play the Yugoslav Attack, and regard my opponent playing the Dragon to be equivalent to almost a 200 rating point handicap. At my last tournament, I managed to hold a draw against a young player who was much stronger than me because she played the Dragon... 300-point rating underdog and I had a superior position for much of the game.

I also enjoy King's Gambit. At the final tournament for the local conference my school played in (11 matches in one day) I won a game in the King's Gambit only using 29 seconds on my clock (with no time delay, and I was taking notation). I had a really fun Muzio Gambit blitz on FICS the other day.

There is a 'main line' in one Dragon variation where it is Black to move and lose (MCO definitely underestimates it). Yet everyone plays it against me when I am white and I need to make a SERIOUS blunder not to win. I decimated two 2000-rating players in blitz back-to-back with it. I line I use when I am black is now played by Magnus Carlsen, but I did it about a decade before him.

Which lines are those?