Archive for October 16th, 2026

Moves I could not play 46

Posted in Moves I could never play on October 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting GM Wesley So at the most recent olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

I was quite touched by how polite he was to me, even asking where I am from. Since then I have thought I should make more effort to look at his games and quickly remembered which one stood out the most. It was televised in 2016, when Kasparov made something of a comeback in blitz and took on the world’s best. I watched how this went horrendously wrong against GM So, and so GM Kasparov did not last long in the game. In looking at it again, GM Kasparov plays 17. …h6 in the diagram below. I could not play that move -it looks too suicidal to me! I think he wants to play f5 and stop Ng5 or something but his pieces are poorly placed and he’s now moved all his kingside pawns! Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t last very long here.

Here GM Kasparov plays 17. …h6

I have to admit, I did like how GM So played the moves towards the end of the game, they were clearly well calculated winning moves and played confidently.

The game can be found here: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1820152

M J M

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Moves I could not play 45

Posted in Moves I could never play on October 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »

In my teens much if not most of the chess world was polarized over the K-K matches. I never did side with Kasparov back then, mainly because I found his chess to be too tactical and hard to calculate, whereas Karpov had a tendency to opt for quieter moves and quieter positions. They were not as hard to get your head round as the positional elements of his play were easier to appreciate than solid, hard calculations involving powerful tactical threats. In the game below, Kasparov defeats his first challenger after Karpov, GM Nigel Short. In the press conference to that match he said ‘My opponent for this match is short and it will be short. This game partially explains why he might have thought that I think. The way he plays the Botvinnik set up in the English is quite something, then he sacs a pawn, then a knight to seize the initiative. In the position below, GM Kasparov plays 28. Nxb6. I could not play this move as I could only sac for an immediate and obvious win, which clearly isn’t coming.

GM Kasparov plays 28. Nxb6

I ran this through the engines but what they show doesn’t help much as they cannot tell what impact the sac had a GM Short and the demands it placed -quite huge I would imagine. It’s clearly not a winnning move, so they engines show, but it required very accurate play by GM Short to avoid defeat, which he could not maintain.

Some analysis of this game came be found here. To me this game shows a noticeable difference in strength between GM Kasparov and GM Short.

The game can be found here: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070502

M J M

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