Yes, I know. It's been a mighty long time between posts, but give me a break, for goodness sake. Everyone needs some time off occasionally to recharge their batteries. And I could point out that in the last year, there have been precisely two items on this Blog that haven't been written by me. So I guess everyone else must have been even busier than me.
Anyway, the Blog is back with a bang, as I am able to present a truly remarkable game. In fact, its so remarkable that you probably won't believe your eyes when you play through it. And in a break from tradition, I'm going to with-hold the names of the players until the end of the article. All I will say is that they should both be well known to all KCC members.
A game like no other ever published on this site! But now its time for a bit of background information. This encounter took place on Lichess at the rather taxing time limit of .......... 15 seconds for the entire game!! (Yes, it was an ultrabullet game. Harry Golombek would not have approved!) This may have been a contributory factor in the quality of some of the moves. The player of the Black pieces could only be our very own mighty atom, Jude Shearsby, who wields the fastest mouse in the west. We can put his participation in this frightful time format down to youthful exuberance, but his opponent Indian Grand Master Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, was surely old enough to know better, having turned 16 a couple of weeks earlier!
Another fantastic scalp for Jude - Praggnanandhaa is the fifth youngest GM in history and is currently rated 2617 in classical chess! (Though his rapid rating of 1821 could do with a bit of work - its actually lower than Joshua's - though I know who my money would be on in a match!
After 10 moves of the above game, Jude was 1.6 seconds ahead of Pragg on the clock - much more important than a mere pawn, of course. After 20 moves this advantage had grown to a ginormous 4.1 seconds - and Jude had taken only 3.9 seconds (!!!) to this point. When White lost on time, Jude had a massive 9.7 seconds left, so had taken only 5.3 seconds for the entire game. Scarcely believable that anyone can be so fast. I need a lie down just thinking about what playing at that speed might be like.
An absolutely brilliant result for Jude, the likes of which the rest of us can only dream about. As Spock almost said on Star Trek. It's chess, Jim, but not as we know it!
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