Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Master Lesson Forgotten
Nowadays, the chess community has access to a myriad of books, articles, videos, courses … about all aspects of the game. Many title players have contributed with theoretical innovations, openings, and new ideas. And in the new era of computers, we are witnessing a revolution where engines are breaking established rules.
Together with new chess novelties rapidly coming to the market, there is the big number of tournaments (especially online events) taking place every month. Because of that, the risk exists that by the time a new article is published, it will be already outdated because some of its variations have been already refuted. That is more or less what happened to GM Gawain Jones in his game against GM Fabiano Caruana in 2017.
However, today’s case is even more shocking. It refers to the case of a GM who did not apply the lesson he gave in one of his books.
In 1980 appeared the english version of the book “The Best Move” written by Czech GMs Vlastimil Hort and Vlastimil Jansa. The book is a collection of 230 tests presented as exercises for the reader. All of them are positions appeared in real games. Moreover, all those positions correspond to games played by the authors. The authors disguise the correct answer as much as possible, only presenting the position and asking “What is the best move?”. The reader needs to objectively evaluate the position, work out the idea and give a variation supporting his/her opinion.
The exercise number 7 presents the following position and asks: “Black’s position is a) losing or b) a draw?”
That previous position corresponds to a game played by Hort in 1961. The puzzling is that the other author of the book did not notice that idea in a later game he played in 2005.
Exactly as in the previous game, White cannot win because Black simply keeps the king moving between g4 and h3. And White cannot take the f3-pawn because leads to stalemate.
Why did Jansa resign in a drawing position similar to that one he presented in his book? It was most probably another case of “chess blindness”
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