Saturday 29 October 2016

Hmmm, did this actually happen?

At Street Chess today, Lee Forace (who had heard it from another source) regaled the crowd with a story of how Viswanathan Anand once got mated on the second move of a game. Anand was challenged to a game by an unnamed (in his version of the story) eastern European grand master, but the grandmaster had one condition. Instead of the Queen moving like a Rook and Bishop, with would move like a Rook and Knight (Fairy Chess fans would recognise this as an Empress). Wishing to try something new Anand agreed and the GM began 1.Qc3 Anand replied with 1. ... Nf6?? and was then mated with 2.Qxc7# (Qd8xc7 now being illegal!)
We all had a good laugh, but a voice in the back of my head said that I've heard this story before. However some searching on the interent (an inexact science to be honest) hasn't turned up any other versions of the story. So (a) is this an old story dressed in new clothes or (b) if it is not, did it really happen to Anand?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The original story I believe is from Ian Rogers. Ivanchuk offered Anand to play and beat him the way you described.