5 Horrendous Grandmaster Blunders in Chess History

Chess is a fairy tale of 1,001 blunders.

- Savielly Tartakower

INTRODUCTION

Whether you hang checkmate, lose a piece, or just make your position less pleasant, blunders in chess are the worst. We all know the feeling... it's perhaps the worst feeling in all of chess. The feeling of completely throwing away a winning advantage with a horrifically disgusting, heart-dropping, soul-crushing, beginner-like, inexcusable, utterly atrocious blunder.

If you're anything like me, you've made countless blunders throughout your chess career. I make at least one blunder in just about every chess game that I play. It stinks.

However, we shouldn't let blunders get us down too much. We must remember that blunders are just part of the game of chess and that we are not alone in the fight. In this blog, I will be sharing with you some horrible blunders that chess grandmasters made and reminding you that even the best of the best make mistakes sometimes!

SURYA GANGULY

2023 FIDE WORLD RAPID CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP

Every year, the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships are the final big OTB tournament events on the chess calendar, taking place in late December. These tournaments gather hundreds of the strongest masters from all around the globe together to battle each other in rapid and blitz time controls and crown the World Champ of both rapid and blitz.

This past December, the 2023 FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Championships took place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. As usual, some familiar faces in the chess world made appearances, including Magnus Carlsen (the eventual winner of both the Rapid and Blitz), Ian Nepomniachtchi, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Anish Giri, and more.

One of the very strong masters competing in the World Rapid this year was Indian grandmaster Surya Ganguly. Surya is one of the highest-rated chess players in India, and although he has kind of disappeared from much of the chess scene in recent years, he is still a very powerful player.

Surya wasn't having a very good tournament in the 2023 World Rapid Championship, though. He clearly wasn't in good form, having lost to numerous players that were significantly lower rated than him, and entering round 8 he was at only 3.5/7. As a result, he was paired with another lower-rated player, a 2415 (230 rating points lower than Surya) Uzbek IM named Mukhiddin Madaminov. So on paper, he looked like a fairly easy opponent for Surya. But there's a reason that chess games aren't played on paper...

In the game, something very odd and quite shocking happened. Surya made a catastrophic mistake and allowed his opponent to win in less than 10 moves!

That game was literally the game that inspired me to write this blog. When I saw it, I couldn't believe my eyes! It's not every day that a chess grandmaster just hangs a Scholars Mate pattern like that!

Through this game, we are reminded that it's not just beginners and intermediate-level players who make gigantic blunders... it's some of the best in the world, too!

TIGRAN PETROSIAN

1956 AMSTERDAM CANDIDATES TOURNAMENT

The 1956 Candidates tournament was held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Ten of the best masters in the world competed in an 18-round classical tournament for the chance to become the challenger for the next World Championship match.

One of the ten masters participating in this elite tournament was an Armenian grandmaster by the name of Tigran Petrosian. Petrosian was one of the most exciting on-the-rise masters at the time, having gone from the Candidate Master (CM) title to the Grandmaster title in just 6 years.

The 1956 Candidates tournament was Petrosian's second career appearance in a Candidates tournament, having participated in the 1953 Candidates tournament, in which he finished fifth place. Fifth place is a pretty good result, but Petrosian knew he was capable of doing much better. In the 1956 Candidates, Petrosian was on a mission to prove his skills to the world and earn himself a shot at a World Championship.

However, Petrosian's tournament did not start the way he had anticipated. He lost his round one game to Russian grandmaster Efim Geller. Then, in round two, he was paired with another Russian grandmaster, David Bronstein. In this game, Petrosian got off to a great start. He was completely winning in the early goings. But suddenly, right when it was starting to look like Petrosian was going to cruise to victory and score his first point of the tournament, he made a devastating error and the walls caved in.

It is super uncharacteristic of a grandmaster to just hang his queen out of the blue like that. That must have been a heartbreaking moment for Petrosian. The feeling of going from totally winning to dead lost in one move is not a fun feeling (believe me, I would know).

Petrosian's painful mistake displayed to all that even grandmasters make hideous one-move blunders once in a while.

SERGEY KARJAKIN

2005 CORUS TOURNAMENT GROUP B

Before it was renamed the Tata Steel Masters, the annual tournament held in Wijk aan Zee, the Netherlands, was called the Corus Tournament. It was split into different groups based mainly on skill level.

The 2005 Corus Tournament looked to be very entertaining, featuring many bright, young talents playing alongside many of the game's veterans. One of these bright young talents participating was Sergey Karjakin, a strong 15-year-old Russian grandmaster. Back in 2003, at the age of 12 years and 7 months, Sergey became (at the time) the youngest player to earn the Grandmaster title in chess history. He was a sudden star and had the chance to show it at the 2005 Corus Tournament.

For the 2005 Corus Tournament, Sergey was placed into Group B, the second highest group in the tournament, along with quite a few well-known names in today's chess world, including Shakriyar Mamedyarov, Peter Heine Nielsen, and Magnus Carlsen, who was at the time the second youngest Grandmaster in the world behind Sergey. It was truly a stacked group of players.

The stiff competition didn't seem to bother Sergey at all, though. He was cruising through the tournament like it was nothing. Through 11 rounds, he had 8.5 points and was yet to lose a game.

Then, in Sergey's round 12 game, something strange happened. Sergey was paired with Danish grandmaster Peter Heine Nielsen, who was having a pretty average tournament at 6/11 entering his game against Sergey. The two played a very normal and fairly uneventful game. It looked like it was heading toward a draw until, in time trouble on move 100 of the game, Sergey made a puzzling mistake and lost the game on the spot!

That blunder was brutal. Imagine playing 99 perfectly reasonable moves and then losing because of one single bad move! Sometimes one move is all it takes, and unfortunately for Sergey, he learned the hard way. Sergey's mistake is a great example that everyone makes mistakes, even the best in their craft.

Despite this tough loss, things overall didn't end poorly for Sergey. He ended up winning his game in the final round, making him the winner of Group B by a whole point! He showed the world what he was capable of and also qualified to participate in Group A of the 2006 Corus Tournament.

MIKHAIL CHIGORIN

1892 WORLD CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP

Back in 1886, Austrian-American grandmaster Wilhelm Steinitz had become the first official World Champion in chess history and since then had successfully defended his title twice, once in 1889 and again in 1891. He was establishing himself as the "final boss" of chess in the late 1800s.

In 1892, Mikhail Chigorin, a talented Russian grandmaster who was also one of the best in the world at the time, challenged Steinitz to a World Championship match. Steinitz had defeated Chigorin in the 1889 World Championship match and Chigorin was seeking vengeance in a rematch. Steinitz accepted Chigorin's challenge. The match was to be held in Havana, Cuba, the same location as the 1889 World Championship match between Steinitz and Chigorin.

Chigorin had improved since the two's last meeting for the World Championship and was out to prove it. He knew that if there was anyone who could slow Steinitz down, he was the guy.

Chigorin and Steinitz traded punches in the first few games of the match. They remained neck-and-neck down the stretch until Steinitz managed to score a clutch win in game 22. This put him a full point ahead of Chigorin, leading 11½ to 10½, and needing just one more win to defend his World Championship title for a fourth time.

In game 23, Chigorin needed a win or a draw to keep the match going. Early on in the game, things were looking really good for him. Steinitz randomly hung a knight on move 23 and gave Chigorin a sizeable advantage. The game was trending in the right direction for Chigorin until, all of a sudden, he gave it all away with one shocking blunder!

That was a tough pill to swallow for Chigorin. He had been keeping up well with Steinitz the whole match, only to crumble in the final two games. His unfortunate mistake in that last game was especially depressing. It's never fun to lose, but to lose in that way must have been miserable.

With his blunder, Chigorin illuminated the fact that even the strongest grandmasters can make silly mistakes.

VLADIMIR KRAMNIK

2006 KRAMNIK-DEEP FRITZ MATCH

We all remember the infamous human vs. computer match between World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov and the IBM chess computer Deep Blue, but a lesser-known human vs. computer duel is the match between World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik and Chessbase chess computer Deep Fritz from 2006.

These days, Vladimir Kramnik has ruined his reputation in the chess world after accusing grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura (among a few other grandmasters) of cheating in online chess play, but we mustn't forget Kramnik's magnificent chess career. Kramnik was one of the biggest chess superstars of the 2000s. He won the Classical World Chess Championship twice, in 2000 and 2004, and also won the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2006.

Just two months after winning the 2006 FIDE World Chess Championship, Kramnik's match against Deep Fritz was set to take place. It was to have 6 games over the course of two weeks and was to be held in Bonn, Germany.

The first game of the match ended in a draw after Kramnik failed to find the win in an endgame. In game two, Kramnik and Deep Fritz played a stale game and had reached a drawn queen and bishop vs. queen and knight endgame when a peculiar thing happened. Kramnik completely overlooked a checkmate in one move for Deep Fritz!

That was quite an embarrassing mistake for Kramnik. Most beginner/intermediate players could have spotted that checkmate threat. Kramnik showed that even the chess World Champion can make foolish blunders.

CONCLUSION

The lesson that I hope you take away from this blog is that even grandmasters slip up sometimes. The masters in this blog, although they obviously didn't do it intentionally, exemplified this lesson perfectly.

Next time you make a huge blunder in a game and you are feeling frustrated, try to remember the truth that you are not alone in the struggle. Even those playing at the highest level understand your pain!

I hope you enjoyed this blog. Cya next time!