Bad Sport

I actually look forward to poor sports because now I can call them out on my blog! The first player is: HermanSteiner. In this equal position where I am black, he played the blunder Rxa6.

After I played Bxb3! and won easily, he proceeds to tell me how lucky I was, calls me "luckyboy," etc.  HermanSteiner, I'm so sorry you blundered. If I'm lucky, ok, but at least I'm not the loser!

Amsterdam 1980

I'm going through some of the big tournaments throughout history and analyzing the decisive games of the winners. I have just reached the year 1980, which had the following major events: Amsterdam, Baden, Bad Kissingen, Buenos Aires, Bugojno, Dortmund, Hastings, Las Palmas, London, Soviet Championship, Tilburg, Vrbas, and Wijk aan Zee. I look at them in alphabetical order, so let's take a look at Amsterdam 1980.

Here is the Cross Table:

Amsterdam, 1980
Average Rating: 2582 (Category 14)

	Player	Rtng	Score	Ka	Ti	So	Ho	Ri	Do	Va	La	Perf Chg
1:	Karpov, Anatoly	2725	10.0 / 14	XX	==	==	=1	10	=1	11	11	2720 -1
2:	Timman, Jan H	2600	9.0 / 14	==	XX	==	=1	==	=1	=1	1=	2682 +15
3:	Sosonko, Gennadi	2545	8.0 / 14	==	==	XX	==	==	==	1=	=1	2637 +18
4:	Hort, Vlastimil	2595	7.5 / 14	=0	=0	==	XX	=1	==	1=	1=	2609 +1
5:	Ribli, Zoltan	2610	7.0 / 14	01	==	==	=0	XX	1=	01	10	2578 -7
6:	Dolmatov, Sergey	2535	7.0 / 14	=0	=0	==	==	0=	XX	1=	11	2589 +11
7:	Van der Wiel, John TH	2465	4.0 / 14	00	=0	0=	0=	10	0=	XX	10	2441 -3
8:	Larsen, Bent	2585	3.5 / 14	00	0=	=0	0=	01	00	01	XX	2389 -36

56 games: +20 =29 -7

I can't really tell you about the history of this tournament, or anything like that. I wasn't even born yet. All I know is that these tournaments in Amsterdam were sponsored by or in some way affiliated with IBM. So, the winner was Karpov and he had 7 wins for me to look at. I'd like to share with you Karpov's win with the black pieces over Bent Larsen. Here is the decisive moment:

Question: White is to move - what is Black's threat?

Answer: 1...Rxe3 2.fxe3 Qxe3+ forking the king and rook.

White just played Nd4 attacking the queen.
Question: What is wrong with that move?

Answer: After 1...Bxd4 2.Bxd4 Qd2 Black has a triple attack.
Question: What are Black's three threats in that position?


Answer: 
1) The Black queen attacks the rook on c1
2) The Black queen attacks the bishop on d4
3) The Black rook threatens 1...Re1+ 2.Rxe1 Qxe1+ 3.Bf1 Ba6

So, if you saw from the diagrammed position: 1...Bxd4 2.Bxd4 Qd2 3.Qf4 Re1+ 4.Rxe1 Qxe1+ 5.Bf1 Ba6, good job because Bent Larsen missed it when he played Nd4.

Here is the complete game: