Missed It By That Much

Finally, as long promised, I give you a Wacky Wednesday game in which I am on the losing side. This one is a classic example of the WW genre, if it be understood as a game that ends suddenly and catastrophically because of a single bonheaded blunder that would be unforgivable in a rank beginner. Never mind the fact that I am a rank beginner and will be for life.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 Bc5 4.Nd3 Bb6 5.e5 Ne4 6.f3 Bf2+ 7.Nxf2 Nxf2 8.Kxf2

The game started out simply enough. Petroff’s Defense. Black attacks the weak f2 square but not very effectively. White king captures bishop and exchanges the ability to castle to go up a piece. A small sacrifice with better-than-ample compensation, I think. Then:

8. … Qh4+

Not a particularly threatening move, really. 9. g3 shoos the Black queen away and maybe even gains a tempo for White, though I’ll leave it to you real chess players to decide that. The game not only remains playable for White, but he may even have the advantage.

Ah, but alas, that move was not to be. When in the throes of a major brain cramp, extreme time pressure, or whatever affliction it is that can explain the next move, one falls back on the most elementary, formulaic, and generic chess wisdom. One hesitates to alter one’s pawn wall and longs instead to swaddle the sovereign within its warm-and-comfy confines. Hence the worst possible move in this position:

9. Kg1

As with our previous game on the Fried Liver Attack, sometimes all of those things you learned about where to put the king don’t apply. Sometimes to place him behind a phalanx of pawns is to entomb him there:

9. … Qd4# 0-1

No ecstacy here; only agony.