This was an actual game between Kramnik and Kasparov in Moscow in 2001. Kasparov missed a checkmate in 4. Can you find it for him?
8/5p1k/4r1p1/2PP1p2/1Q6/1p3bbP/1B2pqP1/R5RK b – – 0 1
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Are you smarter than a WC?
bxg2
True enough. At first I missed that the rook interposing on b8 allows mate on a7, though that is the line I considered after determining that the push didn’t work.
Whites second move is quite nice.
Qxg2 leads to checkmate
Bxg2+ Rxg2 Qf1+ if Rxf1 exQ+ Rg1 Qxh3#
Isn’t it mate in 3?
Oops!Didn’t see the rook come back to g1.It is not mate in 3.
By the way, does anyone know if Kasparov eventually won the game after missing the obvious mate?
Well, I got it but I know I’m not smarter than Kasparov. So, I got suspicious and I found the actual game. It was part of the Botvinnik Memorial Blitz Match. Maybe he was in time trouble or something. Yes, he did win and he did it in four moves. Here is the solution (and the link to the game): Are you smarter than a WC?
Slightly misleading to say Kasparov “missed” the checkmate in 4; especially since this was a 5 minute Blitz game.
Kasparov played the forcing move 52.. re6-e4 which threatened both re4::Qb4 and re4-h4 (with the mate threat rh4::h3##).
Kramnik fled with 53. Qb4-b7, and then Gary conducted the mate beginning with bf3::g2+.
I wonder how long it would take Kasparov to find if you said, “Mate in four”…
“Kramnik fled with 53. Qb4-b7, and then Gary conducted the mate beginning with bf3::g2+.”
Really with Bxg2? Again he seems to miss the shortest mate as after Qb7? black “mates in time” (4 moves from the starting position) with Qxg2+!! (followed by e1Q, Rxe1#). 😉
In practice, blitz or not, you play the first forced win you spot. My first try was e1(Q), which also forces mate in a short number of moves
I checked out the game on Chessgames.com (link: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1210753) and as far as I can see Garry didn’t miss a checkmate in four from this position. He played Re4 and went on to checkmate in 3 more moves. What did he miss?