Games - Blunder

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	Games - Blunder

In chess, a blunder is a bad move which is so glaring and obvious that it cannot be explained by the playing strength of the player making it. Instead, they are usually caused by some oversight, whether from time pressure, overconfidence, or carelessness.

What qualifies as a "blunder" rather than a normal mistake is somewhat subjective. A weak move from a novice player might be explained by the player's lack of skill, while the same move from a master might be called a blunder.

In chess annotation, blunders are typically marked with a double question mark, "??", after the move.

One technique formerly recommended to avoid blunders, by authors like Simon Webb in Chess for Tigers, was to write down the move on the scoresheet before making it. However, FIDE banned this practise in 2005.

Grandmaster examples

There are instances where strong players, even International Grandmasters make elementary blunders. ===Tigran Petrosian vs. David Bronstein===

This position arose in the 1956 Candidates Tournament in Amsterdam. Petrosian, playing White, enjoys a clear advantage with strong knights, active rooks and plenty of mobility while Black's position is congested and hardly able to move. In fact Bronstein, playing Black, has for the last seven moves been making only apparently aimless knight moves, Nc6-d4-c6-d4, and now has played ...Nd4-f5, threatening White's queen. White can easily preserve the positional advantage by a move like 36.Qc7, but overlooking that the queen was en prise, he played 36.Ng5?? and resigned after 36...Nxd6.

===Alexander Beliavsky v. Leif Erlend Johannessen===

This example, from a game played in Linares in 2002, is one of the very rare circumstances where a grandmaster makes the literally worst move on the board, the only one allowing mate on the next move. This is a balanced queen endgame, but Beliavsky playing White is careless. After 69.Kf4?? he had overlooked the response 69...Qb8 checkmate.

===Murray Chandler v. Susan Polgar===

This example, from a tournament in Biel in 1987, did not lead to a loss for the blunderer, but an embarrasing draw for the British GM Chandler. Susan Polgar has just played the wily trap 53...Ng8-h6!?, and Chandler realizes that after 54.gxh6+ Kxh6 he will be left with the considerable material advantage of a rook pawn and bishop against a bare king. However, since the bishop is unable to control the queening square h8, Black will draw if she is able to get her king to control h8. But Chandler realizes that it is he who will win control over the h8 square after 55.Kf6, and thereby win the game.

Therefore Chandler played 54.gxh6+??, but instead of the expected 54...Kxh6 came 54...Kh8! This is in fact the same king + bishop + rook pawn v. bare king situation as Chandler had calculated that he would avoid, and the fact that White has two rook pawns rather than one makes no difference. Black controls the h8 square, and White cannot queen his pawn. After 55.Bd5 Kh7 56.Kf7 Kh8 the players agreed to a draw.

Complete game scores of the examples

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Blunder (chess) ]

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