Checkmate Patterns, Chess News, The Telegraph

Malcolm Pein on…The Entertaining Bullet

Malcolm Pein

February 1, 2021

Before getting back to his coverage of the Tata Steel Masters, Malcolm Pein turns his attention to an entertaining Bullet chess game in today’s Daily Telegraph chess column.

Bullet games – with just one minute on each clock – wouldn’t normally merit a place in either newspaper column or in a blog post, but this one is particularly entertaining and has the merit of being played by none other than the World Champion, Magnus Carlsen.

Malcolm Pein on…The Entertaining Bullet

Magnus Carlsen likes to keep us entertained. Not only does he float a company on the stock exchange and use it to create not one, but two online chess tours, he also regularly goes on to Chess24.com to take on all-comers or logs on to LiChess to play tough opposition.

The week before last, the World Champion played what some were calling his ‘Immortal Bullet Game’. This was one-minute chess with no increment.

DrNykterstein (3057) – MeneerMandje (2833)
Bullet Lichess 1+0
Hyper Accelerated Dragon

1.c4 g6 2.d4 c5 3.Nf3 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Bg7 5.e4 Qb6 (A tricky sideline, ideal for Bullet. Black usually develops a knight) 6.Nb3 a5 (Intending to push it all the way to a3) 7.Be3 Qb4+ 8.Bd2 Qb6 9.Bc3 (9.Nc3 a4 10.Nd5 Qd8 11.Be3! axb3?? 12.Bb6) 9…Nf6! 10.c5 (After 10.N1d2 d6 11.Bd3 a4 12.Nc1 0–0 White is in a muddle) 10…Qe6 11.N1d2 Nxe4! 12.Bxg7!

12…Nc3+ 13.Be2 Nxd1 14.Bxh8 Nxf2!? (The tempo lost turns out not to be great value for the pawn; 14…f6 15.Rxd1 Nc6 16.Nc4 Kf8 was at least as good) 15.Kxf2 f6 16.Rhe1 Qg8 17.Bxf6 Qf7! 18.Ne4 Kf8? (Wrong way, now White is winning. If 18…exf6 19.Nd6+ and after 18…Kd8 19.Bf3 exf6 20.Nd6 Qf8 21.Re8+ Qxe8 22.Nxe8 Kxe8 White is a pawn down, but so much better developed that he has the better chances) 19.Kg1 exf6 20.Nd6 Qd5 21.Bc4 Qh5 22.Re8+ Kg7

Test Your Strength

Carlsen missed a mate in two. What was it? 23.Re7+ Kh6 24.Bg8 Qg4 25.Rxh7+ Kg5 26.h4+ Kf4 27.Rf1+ Ke3 28.Re7+ Kd3 29.Bc4+ Kc2 30.Rf2+ Kd1

Now Rd2 is mate in one, but this is much more fun. 31.Re1+ Kxe1 32.Rf1# 1–0

Highlight the space below this line to reveal the answer.

23.Rg8+ Kh6 24.Nf7#

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Malcolm Pein

Malcolm Pein is a British International Master, chess organizer, author and journalist. He was a child prodigy and a former British Junior Champion. He qualified for the International Master title in 1985. Malcolm is a distinguished writer, journalist and editor. He has been a chess correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph for over 30 years, has written numerous chess books and is the Executive Editor of CHESS Magazine. In 1992, he founded the London Chess Centre, a games store in central London and the UK's only chess shop. He is also the founder and CEO of Chess in Schools and Communities, a UK charity whose aim is to introduce chess to state schools and has taught the game to over 250,000 children since its inception in 2009. Malcolm is also well-known for his chess event management. He was responsible for the pre-planning of the World Chess Championship match between Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik in London 2000. In 2002 he was appointed as Technical Director of the 'Brains in Bahrain' match between Vladimir Kramnik and the computer program Fritz. In 2009, Malcolm devised and organized the 1st London Chess Classic - the UK's first world-class elite all-play-all tournament since the 1980s which ran annually until 2019. Malcolm is also very active with the English Chess Federation. In 2016, he was appointed as the Manager and Captain of the England national team. He was also appointed as English Chess Federation delegate to the European Chess Union and FIDE and is the Director of International Chess. In 2018, he also stood for the post of Deputy President of FIDE. In 2021, Malcolm joined the ranks of Chessable authors by bringing the highlights of his column in the Daily Telegraph in the form of an interactive Chessable course, titled Telegraph Tuesday. Profile photograph © Lennart Ootes