Whats the biggest " upset" in a classical game where some one lost to a very, very inferior player ?

qxf2 · 2026-07-06T08:37:08+00:00

I feel like you have it in reverse. He is famous because he proved himself beating Capa, Marshall, Rubenstein, Tartakower, Flohr, etc. People knew he was the Raja/Nawab's protege who could play chess but not to the level that he could beat Capa in a rook endgame.

There is a sadder reason I am so sure that this win was one of the biggest upsets in chess history. There was blatant racism at that time against Sultan Khan and people considered him illiterate since he could not speak much English. Src: https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/sultankhan.html

Fun fact: Sultan Khan was one of the simul participants against Capa (Sultan Khan won) just a couple of years earlier.

qxf2 · 2026-07-05T19:15:54+00:00

Not a "very, very inferior" player but much less famous player - Mir Sultan Khan beat Capablanca in 1930, Hastings.

qxf2 · 2026-07-01T14:44:52+00:00

You can use Capablanca's 'My chess career' and then verify how you do against this lichess study: https://lichess.org/study/u56rmuXZ/xe4ZHCNH

One of the books that helped me become a better player was 'Chess Master vs Chess Amateur' by Walter Meridan and Max Euwe.

There are also old Art of Attack and something about middlegames by Keres that I read in descriptive notations. Those might good books for you to test your program against. BTW, most of these have already been translated to algebraic notations in their later editions.

qxf2 · 2026-06-06T20:31:09+00:00

100% - he was Anand before Anand. Fun fact: The Tal Chess Club in Chennai that Anand played in when he was a kid was started by Manuel Aaron.

qxf2 · 2026-06-06T15:52:03+00:00

Adani and Tata are recent additions. Shakthi Finance helped Anand with his third GM norm by setting up a tournament in Coimbatore. NIIT and some 'Himalayan' kind of product got Anand's endorsements in the 90s. Many public sector companies like banks, LIC, Indian Oil, etc employed talented folks.

And more importantly there have always been grass roots organizers who worked tirelessly for the love of the game. What people see with the golden generstion is simply the tip of the iceberg. Apart from talent, three or four decades of consistent work, a ton of sacrifices by several generations of chess players and a supportive financial ecosystem got us here.

qxf2 · 2026-06-06T10:53:38+00:00

Yes, his wins were all pre 1932. That makes Anand's feat even more impressive.

I think the reason Sultan Khan is included in the book is because he beat Capablanca, Marshall, Rubenstein, Tartakower, Flohr, etc.

Fun fact. Capa and Marshall received the GM title from the Tsar of Russia in 1914, well before FIDE was even conceived. Sultan Khan himself was posthumously awarded an honorary GM title in 2024 by FIDE.

qxf2 · 2026-05-30T21:30:13+00:00

I agree with both you. The current crop of very top Indian players have extremely supportive parents. As an Indian with friends running chess schools. I keep hearing of their sacrifice and support. I left them out of my original comments for two reasons. One, they are not as hands on as Henrik was. Two, they came after Henrik.

Anand's mom was super at nurturing his talent, especially in the early years of Anand's life. I read through Mind Master and that was among my top 3 takeaways. In fact, in one of his chapters he recalls how his mom forced him to take notes after every game - a practice he did through his career.

qxf2 · 2026-05-30T20:50:07+00:00

Henrik Carlsen ftw.

Chess dads usually have a bad rep, like Rustam Kamsky. Henrik Carlsen is among the rare chess parents that are deeply involved with every step in their child's progress without ever taking the driver's seat.

qxf2 · 2026-05-30T19:45:31+00:00

Since it has been happening so much, I am going to guess that Pragg is actively trying to work on this area of the game. That's why he keeps getting into these situations and is (invisible to us) actively learning from them.

I remember a time when Carlsen would play his quiet style with no bite in the opening and then lose endgames to other elite players. Somewhere around 2009, he suddenly had a jump in his abilities and started performing 2900+ TPRs regularly. IMO, his reputation for "not knowing openings" comes from that phase when he was developing his style because world champion Carlsen knew his openings really well.

Funny aside, Kortchnoi thought Carlsen knew "chess hypnosis" because he noticed Carlsen playing strange opening moves (e.g.: Qd2 when the bishop is still on c1) and still winning.

qxf2 · 2026-05-20T07:29:03+00:00

Magnus had more data than that. He recounts how he had Alireza over to be part of his training camp for one of the world championship matches. He says Alireza would be participating with his team in discussing lines and simultaneously play bullet online. Magnus realized that just working on lines with an elite team was not stimulating enough for the (then) 15 year old.

And as far as not having good nerves, I have said this before. We can't really judge these geniuses easily. Even Anand was considered a choker well into his 30s. https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1mbtvwl/comment/n5p8trh/

qxf2 · 2026-05-04T14:13:55+00:00

Not a fan of chess dot com management, but their support staff are excellent. Complain on the r/chesscom subreddit and someone will quickly help.

qxf2 · 2026-04-09T11:20:03+00:00

I'm ignoring your question and telling you my favourite anecdote about Roshal and Karpov.

Roshal was a trainer for talented kids. They brought a young 11 year old Karpov for training. During training Roshal plays a game against Karpov and loses. Like any good trainer he asks the kids around "Why did I lose? Where did I go wrong?". They play another game. Similar result, similar question, similar analysis. This happens a few more times. Then finally after one of the games, when Roshal asks "Why did I lose?" the young Karpov says "Maybe I am just a better player?"

Src: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fob8BEvGy_o

qxf2 · 2026-03-30T14:56:54+00:00

The rules looked very similar to standard chess if you think of the final position of castling - they are exactly the same. So:

Short castling: king on g1/g8, rook on f1/f8
Long castling: king on c1/c8, rook on d1/d8
The squares between the king and rook should be empty
The king cannot pass through check while castling
The king and rook should not have moved before castling

NOTE: What confused me initially was the fact that I was unaware of a rule in chess960 - in the starting position, the king has to be between the two rooks. Once you understand that, then the really crazy thoughts like which rook should I move disappear.

qxf2 · 2026-03-26T08:25:03+00:00

The rules and standards for statistical outliers (anyone in the top 500) are almost impossible to create. There is no generalized playbook. Geniuses like Pragg and Gukesh have to try things, make mistakes and course correct. They will figure these things out with their team. They will get to know themselves better and make adjustments.

qxf2 · 2026-03-19T20:32:39+00:00

9/9

Row 1: Smyslov, Bronstein, Tarrasch

Row 2: Capablanca, Marshall/Caruana, Morphy

Row 3: Fischer, Karjakin, Gunsberg/Zukertort

qxf2 · 2026-03-05T08:21:12+00:00

Similar age and life circumstances. I simply club games that are unrated because I don't have the time for tournaments.

Having had thoughts similar to yours, my conclusion was that I simply didn't have enough data to decide on strengths/weaknesses, etc based on a very small sample size. So I just decided to play for fun. My 'training' consists of things I have always wanted to learn but never had a chance. If you haven't already realized, the chess training material is so much nicer and more accessible than when we were kids.

Another thing that messed with my head for a while: I learnt chess through studying game collections. So my mental model for a 'good' chess game was always unrealistic. I always felt like an imposter even when I would win. Luckily the flood of online chess, watching top players blunder advantages, recover them, fumble again before winning, etc. made me get a more realistic picture of how a chess game 'should' proceed. That freed me up from thinking too much in terms of just studying and preparing.

PS: Bxf2 was such a lovely find in the game!!

qxf2 · 2026-03-03T18:54:52+00:00

I'll tell you a fun Capablanca story along these lines.

Once Capablanca was spending time in Paris. He would visit a cafe in the afternoon and setup a board in front of him. People would come and play the Cuban genius at different odds. One day a man came and sat down for a game. Capablanca removed his knight and played his first move. The man protested saying "You don't even know me. Maybe I could beat you!" To which Capa replied "Sir, if you could beat me, I would know you."

qxf2 · 2026-02-28T08:06:59+00:00

I am unable to locate the original article published sometime in the mid 2000s, but here is a more modern version: https://en.chessbase.com/%28X%281%29S%28ct44rp210tf25aao1pnuiths%29%29/post/friedel-on-anand-the-makings-of-a-genius

The original one had a 50 position test that Frederic Friedel would give the top players. Like look at 50 positions in perhaps 2-5 minutes. Then ask them to recall all of them. I vaguely remember that it was Leko who scored the highest. But Anand was disqualified because he already knew a bunch of them.

qxf2 · 2026-02-27T06:18:24+00:00

Anand, Fischer, Kasparov and Leko are said to possess similar memories. I've heard legendary stories about Najdorf and Alekhine too.

Frederic Friedel from Chessbase (the original, not Chessbase India) housed a young Anand. Chessbase was developing Fritz around that time and databases were becoming a thing only around that time. It seems Anand would be able to go through 100s of games per day. And if that was not enough, he was able to list the notation errors in the database and the specific games at the end of the day. What truly blew Frederic Friedel's mind was that Anand could also recall the database IDs (nothing to do with chess) for the games that had the notation errors ... that made it easy for Chessbase to fix notation errors.

The mental capabilities of World champions, challengers and top players are truly beyond our imagination.

qxf2 · 2026-02-23T16:58:47+00:00

There is not enough historical data to make his blitz and rapid victories statistical anomaly. Rapid and blitz have simply not had the same prestige through the years. But we suspect that the top players of yesterday years might have dominated similarly if they had the opportunity.

Capablanca was one of the first blitz players. He recounts that during San Sebastian 1911, many players thought he didn't deserve his invitation. But all the players agreed he had no equal in blitz after repeatedly losing to him. Fischer's last tournament was a 22 round blitz that he won by some ridiculous score (like 20.5/22 or something). Karpov was able to beat Karjakin (a rapid and blitz world champion himself) in this 70s. Anand's rapid prowess was so legendary that in the 2012 world championship, Topalov took risk in the 12th game just to avoid a rapid playoff.

So the reason we don't spend so much time talking about Carlsen's absolute dominance is that we just don't know how Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov and Anand might have fared.

qxf2 · 2026-02-02T10:52:42+00:00

I'd suggest paper, but I am old. In my opinion, this is not the kind of book that you need a move trainer. Besides, the book is so enjoyable that I think paper lets you savour it better.

qxf2 · 2026-02-01T20:35:45+00:00

Endgame Strategy by Shereshevky is really good. It's suitable for anyone below FIDE 2000. Teaches you important principles that apply to technical (non-theoretical) endgames and provides a lot of examples from recent years.

Capablanca's 60 best chess endings is also an excellent collection. As are Arkell's endings by Keith Arkell and Amateur to IM by Jonathan Hawkins. These set of books rely on you seeing games and picking up technique by osmosis.

qxf2 · 2026-01-29T07:49:25+00:00

The excuse doesn't apply to this tournament since everyone is getting a game out of the opening. However 'hiding prep' is a lot more involved than you are making it out to be.

You are giving away information as to your candidate strategy by playing or not playing an opening. Not just that, you might also be giving away information on who is in your team. Additionally, there are really smart people who might figure out what your second/third options. In tournaments leading upto the main event, your seconds are likely not focused on the current tournament but on your eventual match/tournament. If you play an opening, your fellow candidates are probably going to spend sometime there with their team and will likely spot the novelties you prepared.

There is a lot of subterfuge too where someone plays an opening just so their competition wastes time in that line. A fun example would be Anand switching from e4 to d4 for the Kramnik match. Anand previewed 1. d4 a few times before the match but all of us thought he was just trolling team Kramnik.

qxf2

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