Jospem's Brilliant Blunders

The recently-concluded Clash Of Claims was definitely one of the most anticipated chess events of the year. For most people, this unusual match was interesting mostly due to the well-publicized controversy, but personally for me it was an opportunity to see the enigmatic young GM Jose "Jospem" Martinez in action.

He played excellent chess and deservedly won the match, but I call him enigmatic because, while I've seen hundreds if not thousands of GM Vladimir Kramnik's games—and have known him personally since his childhood—it would be difficult for me to recall one single game Martinez has played over the board.

The match completely fulfilled my expectations since now I know something about the legendary Jospem. First of all, I was impressed by the behavior of this young man. Even before the match, he faced a huge psychological burden: he was playing a formidable opponent, and yet a loss of the match might irreparably damage his reputation. Then add to this the series of incidents and scandals before and during the whole match. Nevertheless, Martinez earned everyone's respect with his gentlemanly behavior.

But of course the match was all about chess, so let's talk chess now! I don't understand the obsession of most streamers with the numerous blunders that happened in this match. There would be a game like this:

And a streamer would yell, "Look, the Terror of Titled Tuesdays has just blundered a rook! Unbelievable!" Or in position like this:

The commentator would laugh, "The former world champion who beat legendary GM Garry Kasparov just blundered a checkmate in one! Bwa-ha-ha!" 

Well, blunders are an integral part of three-minute blitz, so I didn't see anything extraordinary in these moves. Nevertheless, I'd like to show you two of Jospem's blunders that truly impressed me.

Kramnik's strategy for the whole match could be described by one short rule of the Soviet School of chess: "с молодёжью в эндшпиль!" Joe Pesci would probably translate it as, "When you play yutes, go straight into an endgame!

As an example, let's take a look at the position after 26 moves in game 21:

No doubt, around this moment, Kramnik was really enjoying his position, recollecting the masterpiece he created 20 years ago to secure his world championship:

The same pawn structure, the same spatial advantage on the kingside... oh sweet memories! 

However, Martinez had his own plans:

Black's play was very impressive. The retreat 29...Na8!, which was supposed to transfer the knight to c4 after the eventual move b6-b5, somehow reminded me of Jose Raul Capablanca's iconic bishop retreat against David Janowsky.

Some fifty years ago, Martinez's play would be regarded as an unbelievable positional masterpiece, especially for being produced in a three-minute game! Unfortunately, these days we have something that has turned classical chess upside down, and an engine immediately indicates that Black's logical and beautiful maneuver is in fact a blunder! Can you find the refutation?

By the way, many years after Capablanca won the above-mentioned game, it was established that Janowsky also could have easily equalized that position:

Do I like Capablanca's game any less because of this little detail? Not at all. The same way, despite Jospem's blunder, I still consider that game brilliant.

A similar situation happened in the very next game of the match:

This beautiful positional sacrifice, which had the sole goal of restricting Kramnik's pieces, reminded me of Kasparov's famous game against GM Alexei Shirov:

Just like in the previous game of the match, Jospem's brilliant idea was in fact a blunder. Both opponents missed a simple refutation:

Moreover, Martinez later made a bunch of mistakes and even lost the game. Nevertheless I was truly impressed by his creativity!

In the conclusion of my old article "What Happened To Elite Chess" I wrote: "From one side, it is great that top players have so many tournaments to play. [...] But from the other side, looking at those guys playing each other again and again— day in, day out—I cannot help but think of the classic movie, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"

I share the opinion expressed by many chess fans that elite chess tournaments, where we see same players, same openings and almost the same results are getting boring. I hope that the Clash Of Claims was just the first experiment that brings back the excitement of watching elite chess!