The En Passant Pin!

I had black here in an online blitz game and my last move was 24...f5.

In a blitz game it would be very easy to fall for a trap here and take en passant. This is very unusual that a rank can be cleared with two pieces in between in one move so going 25.exf6?? Would certainly be plausible but my opponent didn't fall for it this time. Rare theme but still one I've seen before.

For the lesser skilled, 25.exf6 allows 25...Rxh5 winning the queen ;-)

A miss by Kasparov

I saw some simul games by Kasparov in this newspiece on ChessVibes some time ago:

http://www.chessvibes.com/reports/kasparov-on-the-fide-elections-carlsen-and-more/#more-31172
(at the bottom of the page)

I looked at the game Kasparov-Paul De Vos (the 4th game). The opening moves were:

1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 e6 4.Nf3 g6?! 5.c4 Bb4+??



Kaspaov played 6.Bd2 and won in 22 moves, however he missed the best move and my pattern recognition immediately went to work when I looked at this game. I had seen this before!!

It was on Tim Krabbé's page:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess2/diary.htm (check item number 381, marked with red in top corner of each entry)

The move here is indeed 6.Ke2!! and white wins a piece since after the knight retreats we play c5 and then trap the bishop with our pawns, be sure to check the Tim Krabbé piece, this is called the earliest king move to cause resignation!

So if the greatest player in the world has holes in his pattern recognition, we don't need to feel bad about our quick loss in an online game on ICC right? It was a simul but still I'd expect the best player in the world to have seen this ;-)