ToiletGate! JeanGate!...PrepGate!

So far we in chess we have had YoghurtGate, (Karpov - Korchnoi 1978)
ToiletGate (Topalov - Kramnik 2006) NiemanGate (Carlsen - Niemann 2022)
JeanGate (Carlsen refusing to wear jeans in 2024) now we have PrepGate.

Nakamura, is never too far away from controversy. In the current candidates
he lost a game to Javokhir Sindarov and blamed his team for poor preparation.
(in a later interview he reluctantly admitted he too, somehow, was to blame.)
Count this amongst the silly things chess players do and say after losing a game.

The critical, though quite well known position was here. Black to play.
H. Nakamura - J. Sindarov, World Championship Candidates 2026


No mistake in the diagram. White has ‘theoretically’ sacrificed two pawns.

Black played 12...0-0. A move Nakamura and his team had not considered.
Nakamura could not regain his composure, missed the best continuation and lost.

I could give the game but it has been slapped all over the internet a million times.
Which is another reason not to have a fit after loss. It will make the game famous.
(I’ll add it in the link at the bottom.) The fact is we are not here for the actual game.

A few months back I did a bloggy thing about mistakes in chess books.
Thanks to computers blunder checking, mistakes are very rare these days.
However, as we shall see, some do still occasionally make an appearance.


written in 2020 by Semko Semov and the position before 12...0-0 is discussed.


We see a diagram at the critical moment. I told you it was well known.


The part starting with ‘Be careful...’ is where Semko either switched off his computer.
or put in a deliberate mistake, like I sometimes do to see if everyone is paying attention.




V. Pranav - M Gharibyan, chess.com 2026 (White to play)


This one is a forced mate.

Reveal Hidden Content

This next one is by George Nelson Cheney. He was only 24 when he was
killed at the first Battle of Bull Run during the American Civil War in 1861


White to play and mate in three moves, not four moves, three moves.




This last puzzle I found in a July 2000 CHESS
No name possibly composed to show a Knight at work.


White to play and win.




The thread accompanying this blog is Thread 205276