Thursday 22 November 2007

Shortest Australian Championship Game

Paul Dunn (www.ozbase.com.au) sent me a game from the 1965 Australian Championship. The games was won by Dr George Stern in only 7 moves, and Paul remarks that "Dr George takes the record for the shortest game at an Australian Championships up until that time." I'm assuming that this record only applies to decisive (and played) games as I'm sure there would be a few players losing by not turning up, and a couple of very quick draws.

Dreyer - Stern [D23]
AUS ch Hobart (11), 1965

1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.c4 dxc4 4.Bg5 c5 5.Qa4+ Nc6 6.Qxc4 Nxd4 7.Nc3 Nc2# 0-1

George passed away a few years ago, and is mainly remembered for his term as chess columnist for the Canberra Times. For the early part of my chess career I had a number of disagreements with George over chess matters, which can be best explained by the arrogance of youth, and the belief I knew better than everyone else. In latter years I apologised to George for my behaviour at the time, but he laughed it off, stating that differences of opinion are to be expected in the chess community. But it did teach me an important lesson about behaviour.
When you decide to call someone a "dog", or a "clown", or even a "tool", and feel you are entitled to do so because of your perception of who the other person is, ask yourself that in 20 years from now, will you regret or be ashamed of the things you said?

2 comments:

MachoM said...

No more angry young men...

Anonymous said...

I count myself to be a pretty hopeless player, but even I've never been mated in seven moves!

Very unforgiving game, chess.