Traps, Tricks & Mistakes: Moving without Looking

In chess, there are blunders, mistakes and ridiculous mistakes.

Don’t think that the latter is the exclusivity of beginners because from time to time, even GMs are responsible for them.

And not only in low-level tournaments. Even at the top, we find baffling moves.

Judge by yourselves what happened in the Candidates tournament which took place in 1956 in Amsterdam.

In that tournament Tigran Petrisan took part. He became chess World Champion 7 years later, but in this tournament is the protagonist of today’s unforgettable pearl.

According to some reports, the story of this game is that Petrosian walked away from the board and when he returned he made his 36th move assuming what Bronstein’s move had been, without looking and even without bothering to sit down. When Bronstein picked the queen, Petrosian resigned immediately. The most astonishing is that Petrosian had plenty of time, while Bronstein has only some seconds left. That means that even if Petrosian had kept playing, he’d have won on time.

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