CHESS
AMATEURS often adopt an entirely new opening to change their luck. Masters prepare something more sophisticated, such as a sub-sub-variation of an opening. Sometimes the new move they use is a sacrifice of a pawn or even a minor piece.
But what Vasily Ivanchuk did in the fourth round of the Melody Amber tournament in Monaco last month was astonishing.
The Ukrainian grandmaster uncorked a surprise – a sacrifice of his queen for just two pawns – with his 14th move, in place of the previously played 14 Bxf6 gxf6 15 Nd5.
A prepared sacrifice of that magnitude is unprecedented, and 14 Qxe6+!! is the frontrunner for most amazing move of 2008.
In the head-spinning complication, Black, Sergei Karjakin, saw he had to give back the queen in the long run. The options included 15 . . . Bb6 and 15 . . . Qe7 16 Rhe1 Qxe6! 17 Rxe6+ Ne7.
In either case, Black should be OK. Karjakin chose a third method, 15 . . . Qe5? and then 16 Nxg6+ Kf8 17 Ne6+ Kf7! – avoiding 17 . . . Ke7 18 Rhe1!, which is bad.
But he gave the queen back in a sloppy manner (better was 18 . . . Bxf2!) and the upshot was that White entered the endgame with three pawns in return for the Exchange – a winning material advantage.
BRIDGE
“I’VE written you before about my husband the hypochondriac,” a fan’s letter reads. “He has an annual checkup every month. The last time, his doctor gave him a clean bill of health – and he asked for a second opinion. And yes, when we play bridge, what consumes him most is the postmortem.”
My fan says her husband was today’s East. When South opened one heart, most Norths would have issued a direct limit raise, but North’s actual sequence was reasonable. When my fan led the king of spades against three hearts, her husband signaled with the nine.
“I continued with the ace and a third spade,” she says, “and he ruffed. Since cashing the ace of clubs wouldn’t beat the contract, he exited with a trump. That play cost an overtrick: Declarer drew trumps and ran the diamonds to discard two clubs.
“My husband conducted an autopsy, as usual. He wanted to know whether he should have bid clubs; I thought not. But then he asked whether we could have defended better, and all I could do was sigh.”
East-West could do four tricks better. East’s play of the encouraging nine of spades was wrong. East wants a club shift, not a spade continuation, and should signal with the deuce. If West shifts to clubs, East takes the queen and ace and returns a spade. West takes the jack and ace and leads a fourth spade, letting East overruff dummy.
East then leads another club, and declarer can’t stop West from scoring the queen of trumps for down three and a 300-point penalty.