Chess

By LEONARD BARDEN

Vasily Ivanchuk v Vishy Anand, Intel Grand Prix, London 1994. It was possibly the easiest ninemove checkmate in chess history, and was followed by one of the dumbest moves ever made by a grandmaster.

Ivanchuk made the obvious decider, Anand quickly worked out the sequel, and Black resigned. So Ukraine’s Ivanchuk became winner of an event where sponsor Intel’s Pentium computer knocked out Garry Kasparov, three years earlier than IBM Deep Blue’s famous victory over the all-time number one. But then Ivanchuk came on stage to receive his 20,000 cheque, and promptly launched a verbal attack on sponsors in general and Intel in particular. The firm’s assembled executives were aghast, and two years later the silicon giant pulled the plug on the Grand Prix. What was White’s winning sequence?

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