
The Hand of God in Chess?
By GM Lubomir Kavalek
A quarter of a century ago, the phenomenal Argentinian soccer player Diego
Maradona scored a goal with his hand during a quarterfinal match against England
at the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. The referee didn't see the hand-play,
allowed the goal and Argentina went on to win the Cup. "It was a hand of
God," Maradona said later. Garry Kasparov used the same quote after an
incident during his game against Judit Polagr in Linares, Spain, in 1994. The
world champion finished a knight move, changed his mind, grabbed the knight
again and moved it to a different place. Like in any sport, there are chess
players who try to win at all costs, bending the rules in their favor. But there
are also noble chess warriors who believe in decency and fair-play.

It was a moment of disbelief when the game between the Czech David Navara and
Alexander Moiseenko of the Ukraine finished Sunday at the 2011 World Cup in
Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. The official website showed the result as a draw, but
the position was clear: Navara was about to deliver a checkmate in a few moves
and Moiseenko had no way of escaping.
Moiseenko-Navara, World Cup 2011

Final position
Great online scramble ensued in an effort to find out what happened in Siberia.
It was an important game: the loser would be eliminated from the competition,
the winner would have a chance to increase his prize money and qualify for the
next world championship. Navara, in fact, confirmed in an e-mail after the game
that he offered his opponent a draw. The match was tied 1-1 and was headed to
a tiebreaker the next day. Did Navara have a reason to be so gracious? Does
it pay to be nice?
We know the answer to the second question. Navara won the tiebreaker and also
eliminated his next opponent, another Ukrainian grandmaster, Yaroslav Zherebukh.
The Czech was on his way to the quarterfinals.
The game with Moiseenko took a dramatic twist in the following position:
Moiseenko-Navara, World Cup 2011

Navara tried to play 35...Be7-d6, but when he was reaching
for the bishop he accidentally clipped his king. Moiseenko's reaction was spontaneous.
"King moves," he said, trying to take advantage of his opponent's
misfortune. He knew well what Navara's intention was, but the temptation to
win the game outright overwhelmed him. After any king move, black loses the
bishop and the game. Navara acknowledged that he touched both pieces, the king
and the bishop, but he wasn't sure which piece he touched first. What to do?
The arbiter arrived and Moiseenko decided not to insist on the king move. The
players agreed to continue, but a certain discomfort prevailed till the very
end.
At one time they reached an endgame I was familiar with
A deja vu from my duel against the Hungarian grandmaster Levente Lengyel from
the tournament at the Bulgarian coastal resort of Varna in 1965. The victory
in the game lifted me towards a GM norm and I became a grandmaster later that
year.
Lengyel-Kavalek, Varna 1965

Black can win by running his king behind the e-pawn, somewhere around the square
e2. To achieve it, Black has to use zugzwang, forcing the rook or the king out
of their best defensive set-up. Any advance of the pawn weakens the defense
and helps to win. This is easier said than done, but in those days games were
adjourned and you could hit the endgame books and learn what to do. I found
out the endgame was already analyzed by Andre Danican Philidor in the second
edition of his Analyse du jeu des Échecs published in 1777.
I didn't even have to make the long king's journey.
The game ended the following way:
Note that in the replay windows below you can click on the notation to
follow the game.
You don't have the luxury of adjourning today, but you can practice it against
an endgame tablebase run by a computer. The electronic programs can be intimidating.
They can tell you, for example, that a mate is achievable in 46 moves. Navara
knew how to win the e-pawn, but after he did it he had 50 moves to mate Moiseenko.
If he could not do it, the game would be declared a draw according to the FIDE
rules. The Ukrainian GM played the defense as well as he could and after Navara
made a few inaccuracies, Moiseenko's chances to draw increased. As a matter of
fact, he could have sent the game beyond the 50-move limit with a precise play,
but that was humanly impossible.
The Czech was winning, but he could not forget what happened earlier in the
game. "My opponent is a decent man and we had a misunderstanding,"
Navara wrote. " I don't know who was formally right." He felt the
match should not have been decided by this crazy game or by a protest without
sufficient evidence. He didn't want to be accused of advancing unfairly and
offered a draw. They began the tiebreaker next day with a clean slate and the
better player won.
Both players received the Fair Play Prize after their match specially created
by the Governor of Ugra, Natalia Komarova. "I lost not just to a very strong
player, but also to a noble man," Moiseenko commented. "I think David's
decision to offer me a draw is unique for the chess world. No one else would
do it under such circumstances."
Generosity can sometimes backfire. At the end of a strong tournament held in
a German spa Baden-Baden in 1925, Karel Treybal, having a clearly won position,
accepted a draw offered by the American champion Frank Marshall.
Marshall,Frank James - Treybal,Karel [C28]
Baden-Baden Baden-Baden (20), 13.05.1925
1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d3 Bb4 5.Nge2 d5 6.exd5 Nxd5 7.0-0 Be6 8.f4 Nxc3
9.bxc3 Bc5+ 10.Kh1 Bxc4 11.dxc4 Qxd1 12.Rxd1 f6 13.Rd5 Bd6 14.fxe5 fxe5 15.Bg5
h6 16.Be3 0-0-0 17.Ng3 a6 18.Rf1 Rhf8 19.Kg1 Rxf1+ 20.Kxf1 Rf8+ 21.Ke2 Kd7 22.Bc5
Ne7 23.Rd1 Rf4 24.Bxd6 cxd6 25.Kd3 b5 26.cxb5 axb5 27.Ne4 d5 28.Nd2 Rf2 29.c4
bxc4+ 30.Nxc4 Ke6 31.Ne3 d4 32.Nc4 Nd5
Black is threatening to mate with 33...Nb4+ 34.Ke4 Rf4 mate. To prevent it,
White has to jettison couple of pawns. Rather than resigning, Marshall resorted
to his last option: he proposed a draw. The Czech lawyer was the only amateur
in that event and he didn't want to interfere with the American's chance to
make more prize money. He accepted Marshall's offer.
It didn't go well with a group of players, led by Ernst Grunfeld (the same
one behind the Grunfeld Indian defense) and they protested against the result.
Treybal was reprimanded by a jury for being so generous to Marshall. He defended
himself by saying that he didn't see a clear winning way, but the jury didn't
buy it. "A player of Treybal's strength should be able to play such a winning
position for a win," they concluded.
Original
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