Dec-16-21 Kotronias vs J Gallagher, 2010 
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| LRLeighton: I suspect that Kotronias was in time-trouble, and that he probably lost on time, but on his last move, he missed a beautiful open-board forced mate with 39 Qf5+!, Bxf5 40 Bxf5+, Kd5 41 Rd1+ with mate to follow. |
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Dec-09-21 Flohr vs Kasparian, 1947
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| LRLeighton: Flohr missed a win on move 38 and again on move 39 (as he could have repeated moves to reach this position). 38 Rf6+, Qxf6, and now not the immediate 39 exf6? when black draws by perpetual, but the clever intermezzo 39 Qe8+!, Qf7 40 Rc6+, Kh7 41 Qxf7 leaves white a rook up and ... |
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Dec-05-21 Carlsen - Nepomniachtchi World Championship Match (2021)
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| LRLeighton: The soccer analogy holds. If the WC had an overtime like basketball, it would mean continuing to play classical games for a set number of games, which would be fine. But instead we have something like soccer -- just as penalty kicks do not have anything to do with the better team |
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Nov-08-21 S P Sethuraman vs A Korobov, 2016
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| LRLeighton: At first glance, black looks like he has plenty of compensation for the exchange after 32 Bxf5, gxf5; he has a pawn roller in the center and the initiative. White probably thought that he was in trouble in that position. In order for white to win, he has to see the tricky line: ... |
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Oct-31-21 E Torre vs Karpov, 1987
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| LRLeighton: Admittedly this was a blitz game, but it is surprising that Karpov missed a win with 43...Qc1+ 44 Kg2, Qg1+ 45 Kf3, Rf8+ skewering the king. If 46 Bf5, Rxf5+! 47 Kg4 (not 47 Qxf5, Nd4+ forking K&Q), Qxf2! (47...Rxf2 allows a perpetual check) and after 48 Qxf5 although black has ... |
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Oct-18-21 Caruana vs Swiercz, 2021
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| LRLeighton: Ulhumbrus, I think that you miscalculated that, or there is a typo -- after your line, simply 8 Nxe5 leaves white up a pawn. |
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Apr-27-21 World Championship Candidates (2020/21)
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| LRLeighton: To Gypsy and Stonehenge: Just a historical point -- the Botvinnik-Levenfish Match was not deliberately played to a preset uneven number of games. The rules were first to win six games, but a drawn match if both players won five. It just happened to end on an odd number when ... |
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Mar-20-21 Soltis vs D Gurevich, 1981
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| LRLeighton: Brenin -- I checked two other databases, and all three give the same game-score. So yes, it appears that two GMs missed it. |
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Mar-09-21 M Delage vs S Prokofiev, 1937
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| LRLeighton: This game is pretty but I question whether it is real. Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union in 1936, and although Delage travelled the world when he was younger (20 years before this game), I haven't found any evidence that he ever travelled to the USSR. But if the date is ... |
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Feb-19-21 J M Lopez Martinez vs J Guerra Mendez, 2017
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| LRLeighton: Yeah, I played a lot of Reti-type formations back then. I grew up in the Berkshires, so the Tanglewood Open was close to home, but then I went off to university. But in my late 20s, I went back to grad school, and I stopped playing chess -- I haven't played a serious tournament ... |
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Kibitzing
