Strong players, even grandmasters, occasionally make critical blunders.
Mikhail Chigorin vs. Wilhelm Steinitz This position is from game 23 of the
1892 World Championship in
Havana, Cuba.
Chigorin, playing White, is a piece up (
Steinitz lost a knight for a pawn earlier in the game), but his bishop is forced to stay on d6 to protect both the rook on e7 and the pawn on h2. If he won, Chigorin would have tied the match and sent it to a tiebreaker game. After 31...Rcd2, he played 32.Bb4??. Steinitz replied 32...Rxh2+ and Chigorin immediately
resigned (in light of the
blind swine mate 33.Kg1 Rdg2#), losing the match.
Ernst Grünfeld vs. Alexander Alekhine This game between
Ernst Grünfeld and
Alexander Alekhine is from Round 2 of the 1923 Karlsbad tournament. In the position on the diagram, White is to make his 30th move. Grünfeld played 30.f3?? which immediately loses to 30...Rxd4! because 31.exd4 is impossible: after 31...Bxd4+ 32.Kf1 Nf4 33.Qxe4 Qc4+ 35.Ke1 Nxg2+ 36.Kd2 Be3+, White will at least lose his queen. The game ended shortly afterwards: 31.fxe4 Nf4 32.exf4 Qc4 33.Qxc4 Rxd1+ 34.Qf1 Bd4+ and Grünfeld resigned due to the unavoidable
back-rank mate 35.Kh1 Rxf1#.
Tigran Petrosian vs. David Bronstein This position arose in the 1956
Candidates Tournament in Amsterdam.
Petrosian (White), enjoys a clear advantage with strong
knights, active
rooks and great mobility while Black's position is congested.
Bronstein (Black) has for the last seven turns made aimless knight moves, Nc6–d4–c6–d4, while White had kept strengthening his position. Now he played Nd4–f5, threatening White's queen. White can preserve the advantage by a move like 36.Qc7. However, he overlooked that the queen was '''', played 36.Ng5?? and resigned after 36...Nxd6.
Gilberto García vs. Borislav Ivkov In the 4th Capablanca Memorial International Chess Tournament (1965),
Borislav Ivkov was sitting comfortably at the top spot as the tournament neared its end. His triumph quickly turned into tragedy, however, in the penultimate round. In the position shown, Ivkov (Black) is completely winning against
Gilberto García (White), having both a significant material advantage and a noticeable positional advantage, as White's light-squared bishop is pinned to the king. However, Black's winning position was undermined by time trouble. With no time to think, he played the catastrophic blunder 36...d3?? and resigned after García responded with 37.Bc3! — threatening 38.Qh8#, which cannot be prevented. Demoralized by his error, Ivkov lost his last round of the match against
Karl Robatsch, allowing
Vasily Smyslov to narrowly win the tournament.
Miguel Najdorf vs. Bobby Fischer This game between
Miguel Najdorf and
Bobby Fischer from the 1966
Piatigorsky Cup is an example where a player in a bad position breaks under the pressure. According to
Mednis, Fischer's decisive error came earlier in the game, and here the black pawn on f4 is about to fall. Fischer played the blunder 30...Nd6?? cutting the game short. After 31.Nxd6, Fischer resigned because 31...Qxd6 32.Nxb7 wins a piece (32...Rxb7 33.Qc8+
forks the rook on b7). Najdorf commented on Black's 29...Rb8: "There is no satisfactory defense. If 29...Ba8 then 30.Nb6 or 30.Qf5 would win. ... I had to win minor (the pawn at f4) but this [30...Nd6] decides immediately. Fischer, demoralized because of his inferior position, did not notice the simple point."
Viktor Korchnoi vs. Anatoly Karpov This position is from Game 17 of the
1978 World Championship between
Viktor Korchnoi, the challenger, and the World Champion,
Anatoly Karpov. Karpov, playing Black, is threatening a
back-rank mate with 39...Rc1#. Korchnoi could have prevented this by moving his g-pawn (but not the h-pawn because 39.h3 or h4 leads to 39...Rc1+ 40.Kh2 Nf1+ 41.Kg1 Nfg3+ 42.Kh2 Rh1#), providing an escape square for his king. In serious time trouble, Korchnoi played 39.Ra1?? and resigned after 39...Nf3+ with the forced checkmate after 40.gxf3 Rg6+ 41.Kh1 Nf2# or 40.Kh1 Nf2#. Karpov went on to win the match and later beat Korchnoi again in 1981 in the "
Massacre in Merano".
Abraham Sztern vs. Rolf Lundquist In this position, Black offered a draw. White asked Black to make a move first. According to the rules of chess (see
draw by agreement), Black must make a move in response to this request, and the draw offer cannot be retracted. Black played 28...Qxb2+!, which wins on the spot (29.Kxb2 Rb3+ 30.Ka1 Ra8+ 31.Ba6 Rxa6#). White was so stunned he forgot he could still accept the draw offer, and resigned. This blunder was published in a one-off
Not the British Chess Magazine organized by GM
Murray Chandler in 1984, where it was voted the blunder of the year by a team of panelists.
Murray Chandler vs. Susan Polgar In this example, from a tournament in
Biel in 1987, the game did not result in a loss for the blunderer, but led to an embarrassing
draw for the British GM
Murray Chandler. In the diagram position, Chandler is completely winning. His opponent,
Susan Polgar, played the wily trap 53...Ng8–h6. Chandler realized that after 54.gxh6+ Kxh6 he will be left with the considerable material advantage of a and
bishop against a
bare king. However, since the bishop is unable to control the
promotion square h8, Black will draw if she is able to get her king to control h8 due to the
wrong rook pawn fortress. But Chandler calculates further, and 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, Polgar played 54...Kh8, leading to almost the same king, bishop, and rook pawn versus bare king situation as Chandler had calculated that he would avoid, and the small difference that White has two rook pawns rather than one has no effect on the result. Black controls the h8 square and cannot be chased or squeezed away from it, and so White cannot promote his pawn. After 55.Bd5 Kh7 56.Kf7 Kh8 the players
agreed to a draw. Chandler had numerous moves that would have maintained his winning position; the fastest ways to win were 54.h4 and 54.Bf5 according to the Shredder
tablebase.
Alexander Beliavsky vs. 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 worst move possible, the only one allowing
checkmate on the next move. In this queen
endgame, White has some advantage after 69.fxg6+ fxg6 70.Kf4 due to Black's weak pawn on c6.
Beliavsky played 69.Kf4??, however, overlooking the response 69...Qb8#. According to
Johannessen, it took a few moments for both players to realize that it was checkmate, and Beliavsky was a good sport over this mishap.
Deep Fritz vs. Vladimir Kramnik In November 2006, reigning
world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik competed in the
World Chess Challenge: Man vs. Machine, a six-game match against the
chess computer Deep Fritz in
Bonn, Germany. After the first game had ended in a draw, Kramnik, playing Black, was generally considered in a comfortable position in Game 2, and he thought so himself apparently, as he refused a
draw by avoiding a potential
threefold repetition on 29...Qa7. Kramnik's troubles began when he decided to play for a win and pushed his a-pawn, 31...a4. Commentators, including American
grandmaster Yasser Seirawan, voiced concerns about Kramnik's intentions and the situation became more uncertain as the game went on with 32.Nxe6 Bxe3+ 33.Kh1 Bxc1 34.Nxf8, turning it into a likely draw. The game could have ended with 34...Kg8 35.Ng6 Bxb2 36.Qd5+ Kh7 37.Nf8+ Kh8 38.Ng6+. However, Kramnik's next move, 34...Qe3?? (a move awarded "???" originally by ChessBase on a story covering Kramnik's blunder, and even "??????" by
Susan Polgar), came as a big surprise and was described as possibly the "blunder of the century" and perhaps the "biggest blunder ever" by Susan Polgar, as Kramnik overlooked a mate in one. Deep Fritz immediately ended the game with 35.Qh7#. Seirawan later called Kramnik's move "a tragedy". From
ChessBase: "Kramnik played the move 34...Qe3 calmly, stood up, picked up his cup and was about to leave the stage to go to his rest room. At least one audio commentator also noticed nothing, while Fritz operator
Mathias Feist kept glancing from the board to the screen and back, hardly able to believe that he had input the correct move. Fritz was displaying mate in one, and when Mathias executed it on the board, Kramnik briefly grasped his forehead, took a seat to sign the score sheet and left for the press conference." During it, he stated that he had planned the supposedly winning move 34...Qe3 already when playing 29...Qa7, and had rechecked the line after each subsequent move. After an exchange of queens, Black would win easily with his distant pawn; after 35.Qxb4 Qe2 or 35.Ng6+ Kh7 36.Nf8+ Kg8 Black also wins eventually. Chess journalist
Alexander Roshal attempted to explain the blunder by saying that the mating pattern of a queen on h7 protected by a knight on f8 is extremely rare and not contained in a grandmaster's automatic repertoire.
Étienne Bacrot vs. Ernesto Inarkiev This game was played in May 2008 at the Baku Grand Prix from the
FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010. In round 11,
Étienne Bacrot played White against
Ernesto Inarkiev. On move 23, he checked the black king with 23.Qe7+??. Both players calmly wrote down the move. Bacrot then realized that his queen was under attack by the black knight and resigned.
Alireza Firouzja vs. Magnus Carlsen In this pawn ending (from a game in 2020), White is a pawn down, and to hold the draw, he either needs to preserve his last pawn, or (if Black decides to play Ke6 followed by f5) bring the king close enough to the e-file and stop the king from reaching any key squares. The correct move to draw is 69.Kd2!, when 69...Kc5 70.Kc3 keeps the
opposition and prevents Black from penetrating, while 69...Ke6 70.Ke3 f5 71.exf5+ Kxf5 72.Kf3 prevents the king from advancing any further and reaching a key square. Instead, White blundered with 69.Kc3?? and after 69...Kc5 White resigned, as he loses his last pawn: 70.Kb3 Kd4 or 70.Kd3 Kb4 71.Ke3 Kc4 72.Kf3 Kd4 73.Kg3 Kxe4. Thus, the position after 69.Kc3?? Kc5 is reciprocal zugzwang: if Black were to move, it would be a draw, while if White were to move, Black wins.
Ian Nepomniachtchi vs. Magnus Carlsen During the ninth game between
Ian Nepomniachtchi and
Magnus Carlsen in the
World Chess Championship 2021, the game was equal until Nepomniachtchi played 27.c5??. This move handed the advantage to Carlsen, since after 27...c6, the White bishop on b7 is trapped and the knight on b3 cannot move to c5 to defend it. The game followed with 28.f3 Nh6 29.Re4 Ra7 30.Rb4 Rb8 31.a4 Raxb7, leaving Carlsen a bishop up. Nepomniachtchi resigned eight moves later. Nepomniachtchi had previously blundered in game 8 and would do so again in game 11, both times losing a pawn and giving Carlsen winning positions that he converted to win the match. Chess players and commentators widely believed that Nepomniachtchi's mental state was significantly impacted by the nearly 8-hour long
game 6, and that the blunder in game 11 might have been him giving up on the match to get it over with.
Ding Liren vs. Gukesh Dommaraju The
World Chess Championship 2024 was decided in dramatic fashion in the 14th and final game of the match due to a blunder by
Ding Liren as White.
Gukesh Dommaraju, playing Black, has an extra pawn but the position is even as Gukesh cannot break through and simplification to
rook and pawn or
rook and bishop versus rook is drawing. But on his 55th move, Ding offered a rook exchange with 55.Rf2?? that loses instantly, as 55...Rxf2 56.Kxf2 Bd5! forces a bishop exchange and simplifies the position to a
king and pawn versus king endgame which is winning for Black. After 57.Bxd5 Kxd5 58.Ke3 Ke5, Ding resigned. == Double blunders ==