The Curse of Clumsy

On here we have often seen some clumsy players accidentally
stalemating their opponents.

Here is a selection of OTB stalemates involving some well known players.
Their craft is a bit more subtle and very instructive.

First witness Carl Schlechter being tricked by Heinrich Wolf in 1906.




Max Walter - Geza Nagy, 1924.
White, no doubt thinking of making the ending easier, pockets another pawn.
Black spots the shot.




Horowitz outwits Pavey, New York 1951.
A cunning trap well laid by White. Black though he had wrapped it
up with a pseudo Queen sac.



Danilian - Vega Gutierriez, 2004.
Black is left with the wrong Bishop for the h-pawn and the White King
can reach h1. A draw?

Black has an idea.
Force White to advance his lone pawn and turn the Black h-pawn into a g-pawn.
Then it’s an easy win. White goes along with this fine idea.

Originally posted by greenpawn34
On here we have often seen some clumsy players accidentally
stalemating their opponents.

Here is a selection of OTB stalemates involving some well known players.
Their craft is a bit more subtle and very instructive.

First witness Carl Schlechter being tricked by Heinrich Wolf in 1906.

[pgn]
[FEN "8/5R2/8/6p1/1P6/P3k1P1/r6P/6K1 w - - 0 1"] ...[text shortened]... c4 Kxc4 2. Kd1 Kd3 3. Ke1 Ke3 4. Kf1 Kf3 5. Kg1 Kg3 6. Kh1 Be3 7. g5
hxg5[/pgn]

Thanks for that GP.

exceptional win at the end, turning the h-pawn into a g-pawn.

Sheese GP. There for a minute I thought you had written and entire thread on me. LOL Come to find out, you were talking about some REAL chess players. LOL Good stuff, always informative. 🙂
Eric

Originally posted by zebano
exceptional win at the end, turning the h-pawn into a g-pawn.

Yeah I liked that one.

Black must have had a DOH! moment when they realised they had stalemated White.

It's cock-eyed ideas like this that we can actually play over and see through
that make chess such a rich and and enjoyable game.

Yes playing out a sound clockwork combination by one of the greats
is enjoyable. But to see a " it will be alright on the night" boner is just as much
fun, especially if it happens to someone else.

Chess players are sadists.

It is a shame I am no good at creating these pgn things - I had a great game once which I still remember the position - I was two pieces down and my opponent had just queened a second pawn but I had finished gridlocking my pawns at that stage and he had queened into a stalemate position so I walked my queen along his seventh rank with checks, hoovering up every single piece and pawn in the way until his king was on a8 and forced to recapture into stalemate.

Another site's interface is wonderful for setting up stalemate traps, because of its clumsy premove facility often even titled players will fall for them too 😛 I have played some real crackers

Please show these positions, both of you.

If you cannot set up the PGN thingy then show the whole game.
or put it on hare as:

White: Kg1, Rh1, Be3, Pawns h2,g2
Black: Kg8 Ra7, Bc8, pawns h7, g7

And one of the more clever guys, those who paid attention at school,
will turn it (by magic) into a beautiful diagram.

Heinzkat gets stalemated. Often.

Here's one where White didn't blow the win.


After 1. a8=Q (or R) 1. ... Qf7+ 2. Qxf7 draw.

All nicely played, but 9. g5 leads to faster mate 😛

Originally posted by heinzkat
All nicely played, but 9. g5 leads to faster mate 😛

Unlike many of the top ten players on this site, top soviets in those days didn't play 100% perfect chess.

Being stalemated is a crafty craft