08-08-08 How Many Times Can I Miss Mate?

I'm sorry I couldn't help myself. I could not stay away from "cracktion" chess. I was so aggravated with getting paired down against 1200 and 1300s, I decided I needed to play in the Friday Game/30 quads in order to have a chance to play some players close to my rating. I would increase my odds of playing higher rated players in the Open if I'd stop losing to the 1200 and 1300s.

I did get to play people my own rating or close enough. Rating wise it was about a 70 point range from high to low. I can't complain about the rating distribution in my quad. The next section below mine ranged from 1600 down to 1300. In round two I played the number one seed. We both lost in the first round.

This game was a comedy of errors. Maybe a tragedy of errors would be more like it. My opponent blundered a rook on his 29th move. He moved the rook to f2, took his hand off the piece and then hesitated. He didn't press the clock and his hand hovered over the rook. I said "You took your hand off the piece. You can't take it back." He replied that he did not press the clock. I told him it was touch move, and he couldn't retract the move. I initially didn't see that the move was a blunder, but when he made a fuss abut wanting to take the move back I looked at the position more carefully and found Nh3+. Here is the game up to the point that I stopped keeping score.


marshall-polly080808.pgn


I missed mates all over the place. None of them were mate in one or two moves, but it was very frustrating that I let his king hide deep in my territory. It got ugly in the time scramble. I managed to give back the rook. I guess given the number of mating opportunities I missed it was only fitting that I missed the final mate as seen in this position. Mated by a knight no less.