Taking away King escape squares creates good luck

Hi all

There is an epic blitz game between two of my favorite world champions which I analysed here :

https://youtu.be/OIq3FOXF8mA

And here is a study:

Ne5 creates some good luck for Mikhail Tal because Tigran did actually have not just a saving resource here but a winning resource. That resource is the tactical Bc5! - well "tactical" is important here to say the least in this situation! But it was a blitz game, and quite difficult to find even for the former World chess champion Tigran Petrosian.

Most of the encounters between these two chess friends actually ended in a friendly draw. This game was just blitz and so less important. However, Tal as shown earlier in the game certainly did not want the queens traded off early and was prepared to maximise his winning probability by doing the exchange sacrifice on a1. He did miss a shot 15. dxe6 which was then prevented when Tigran castled Queenside which also gave the possibility of the King later using d7 or d8 squares after Rxd5 was played.

The interesting takeaway point which may be more for blitz chess as a takeaway is that Ne5 does seem to use the principle "fake it until you make it" - in terms of faking a mating net - until actually creating a making net. And it does seem to generate "luck" in at least a practical sense. Tigran immediately blundered with b6 trying to prevent Rc8+ only to see that Qa4+ and the Queen is deflectable or lost. b6 in one go was a kind of self-destruct move in terms of "self-unprotect piece" and as we know:

"Loose pieces tend to drop off"

So Qa4+ realises the mating net - and that was that!

A cute blitz game with beautiful cute flaws - as Mikhail Tal has said:

“Of course, errors are not good for a chess game, but errors are unavoidable and in any case, a game without errors, or as they say 'flawless game' is colorless."
-Mikhail Tal

And most of sure do play "colorful" games in our bullet and blitz on Lichess :)

So let's all get a piece of the "luck" and "fake it until you make it" or rather "fake the mating net until you make the mating net" :)

Hope you enjoyed this blog :). Any likes and follows are really appreciated. Also, I also have some interesting chess courses at https://kingscrusher.tv/chesscourses to check out.Cheers, K

Cheers, K