Apr-10-17
 | | MissScarlett: From <Quotes and Queries> no.4081, <BCM>, Jan. 1981, p.12: <There have been cases with adjourned games such as Pachman tells in his biographical <Checkmate in Prague>. Having spent a restless night over his game with Lundin, Pachman approached his opponent the next morning to resign only to be anticipated by Lundin who had sealed a poor move and who offered his resignation first. This was at the 1960 Olympiad.> I'm inclined to take such stories with a pinch of salt, but if true, 42.Rc8 won't have been played. |
| Aug-06-19 | | Knife: From Pachman's "Checkmate in Prague", 1973:
On one occasion I was awake all night, as was my adversary, because we both had a losing position; it happened at the chess Olympiad in Leipzig in 1960. I adjourned the game against the Swedish Lundin. During the game I had taken a slight advantage, but, due to time constraints, I played so badly that my position sank completely. When I started to analyze, I quit practically after two hours, since, from an objective point of view, there was no way to save the game. However, when night came, I got up three times from the bed to see if, indeed, there was nothing left to do. In the morning, I went to the tournament hall with the decision to resign. My opponent was already in front of the board and was grimly analyzing the game. The moment I was about to reach out and sign my surrender, he stood up abruptly and said he was resigning. Lundin had sealed a move so incredibly weak, that his mate was practically in sight. So it happened that all night I was convinced of my defeat, but my adversary knew the same about himself, because, of course, he knew his secret move. It still gives me the chills to think that it would have happened if I had gone ahead and had been the first to reach out and surrender. Since then, even in completely lost positions, I always wait for the secret move to be known, except as is logical, when it was I who made it, since in that case there is no such hope. |
Kibitzing
