Garry chooses knight for the kill and loses

LONDON, OCTOBER 25: World champion Garry Kasparov allowed an elementary combination in a 10th-game loss to Vladimir Kramnik on Tuesday, a ...

LONDON, OCTOBER 25: World champion Garry Kasparov allowed an elementary combination in a 10th-game loss to Vladimir Kramnik on Tuesday, a stumble that took him a step closer to defeat in the World Chess Championship match.Kasparov, with the black pieces, repeated the Nimzo-India Defence from game 8. In that game, Kasparov sprang a novelty on his opponent, equalised easily and actually had the advantage before settling for a draw.

But Kramnik varied from that game’s Classical Variation by playing the Rubinstein Variation. On move 13, he retreated his bishop rather than trade it for White’s knight, as the expert observers recommended.pHis next move appeared an outright blunder.

Kramnik had captured Kasparov’s knight on F6 with his bishop and Kasparov could recapture with his knight, his bishop or his pawn.

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Capturing with the knight would allow a simple combination whereby White would temporarily sacrifice his bishop and emerge with an extra pawn. Capturing with the pawn would ruin White’s pawn structure. This left the recapture with the bishop as the only non-losing possibility.

But after more than 20 minutes of thought, Kasparov stunned everybody and took with his knight. Kramnik only thought for a few minutes before playing the temporary piece sacrifice.

Black regained his pawn on move 19, but his position was so passive that he was fighting for a draw.

Observers criticised Kramnik’s 23rd move as possibly throwing away most of his advantage, but Kasparov’s response was “just losing,”.Kasparov was then forced to give up his rook for Kramnik’s knight. Rather than do so, he resigned.

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Kasparov commented: “It’s not often that I’m lost in 10 moves. But I still have six games and if I play like I’m capable of playing, I might still change the result.”

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