Smerdon v Carlsen 1/2-1/2

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Nicholas Gruen
Posted in Chess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=56&v=ELmoNHljCKk
Australian Chess Grandmaster and one time Treasury economist David Smerdon is at the Chess Olympiad in Baku and managed to get Magnus Carlsen into a fair bit of trouble, before settling for an easy draw. Here's the game if you want to look at it. Why 21. Bxh7+ wasn't played is a bit of a mystery not only to me, which would be unsurprising, but also to the engine.

Well done David!

1 Comments

  1. derrida derider
    September 9, 2016

    Well, I'm the roughest of rough chess players but I agree about BxH7+. It looks obvious - win a pawn, open black's K-side enough that your own pawn is going to give him problems in the endgame and potentially gain a tempo. What's not to like? He must have seen a problem bush players like us didn't.