Here is a game where I beat 1985 World Champion Masaki Takizawa, like I do every other Wednesday.
This article is really about the weird things that happened in the last nine moves, but here are a few random comments on the first 51.
Move 9 is a little unusual; one can look on it as an attempt to play the Heath Bat like a regular Bat. White can't keep this up, since after 14d7 15c7 White can hardly play to b7! I suspect Black is a little ahead at 21. 22g6 is designed to provide access to c8 at 24, but it does make c2 quiet.
After Black takes the edge at 25, White always has the option of playing to f7. This might be right if Black ever had to reply to g8 immediately, but otherwise it must be better to leave it. I was surprised by 27c2: surely 27f3 is better. With 32f1, White is finally threatening to play to f7, since Black would have no easy way to organise access to g8, so Black plays there himself. My feeling is still that Black is ahead here, but by 41 computer analysis reveals he is lost (perfect play from there is 41a4 42h5 43a5 44h2 45e1 46c1 47g2 48g7 \dots , leading to 30--34).
As the game goes, Black sacrifices the h1 corner, and is then forced to stake everything on the control of the c3-h8 diagonal.
White to play at 52.
After move 51, a large crowd had gathered to watch the game. They witnessed a remarkable pair of blunders, as we'll see. The rest of the game probably doesn't appear to make much sense on a play-through. The problem was partly time-pressure, but more that the players made poor use of the time they did have.
At 52, everybody expected a2, which is very obvious, and is also the correct, winning move. I certainly saw it, indeed I'd planned it for several moves. So why didn't I play it? Well, let me try to reconstruct my thoughts. First, I saw that after 52a2 53a4 54h8, I was getting swindled in the a1-b1 pair. I hadn't seen this in advance, so I was a little rocked. But things still seemed basically OK, since I was due to get both of h8 and g8 in exchange, and then sweep the bottom two rows, with parity. That felt like a comfortable White win, but I was a little concerned, so I had another look. Suddenly something struck me. Was I going to have access to g8 at move 56? If not, then that would be a total disaster. It seemed that I wouldn't, since a black move to a4 flips b3 and c4, and then 55a1 flips a2. So what else is there? The only other option that made any sense was 52b1, so I played it.
I hope the end of that makes as little sense to you as it does to me now. There are two major flaws in the reasoning. First of all, after 52a2, 53a4 does not flip b3. (Did I think that my move to g8 came after his move to b1? I don't recall.) Secondly, I did have a few seconds to look at 52b1 and see whether the same problems exist with that. That would have been enough.
So 52b1, and over to him. Now, he'd doubtless been spending the last minute or so looking at what to do after 52a2, so he was suddenly confronted by a whole new set of problems, and he didn't have all that much time. The distinguished audience were in the same position. From what happened, and the after-game comments, I can make a reasonable stab at reconstructing their thoughts. Of course, this is partly guesswork, and I apologise if I've misrepresented anyone.
Here's Takizawa: I can still get the swindle with a1 and a2. The line is 53a4 54h8 55a1 56g8 and now I suppose I play into the three with 57b7 58a8 59a7 (P) 60a2. That seems to be OK, let's count that line. [Counts the line.] 31 discs. Really? [Counts it again.] 31 discs. OK, so I need to do something else. How about 53a1. [Plays it. White responds immediately with 54a2.] Oh, yes, I can take him off the diagonal with 55b7, and he can't cut back on. [Plays it. Now White plays 56a8, and Black errs again with 57a4 (57a7 keeps White off the diagonal) 58a7 (P) 59g8 (P) 60h8.]
At least that's as I see it. Certainly he thought for a while at 53, then played a1 with an air of irritation, and followed up with b7 very quickly.
Takeshi Murakami's after-game comment was that 53b7 wins 34-30. Quite correct. The lines you have to count are (a) 54a8 55a4 56g8 57a7 58h8 59a1 (P) 60a2 34-30 and (b) 54h8 55a1 56g8 57a2 58a8 and 38-26 either way. This wins, and if you can count as accurately, quickly and confidently as Murakami (i.e., if you are Murakami) then I wouldn't fault that line.
But I would like to propose this position as an advert for not counting endings. Of course, a key factor is the time pressure: here there was time to count or think, but not comfortably enough to do both. I'd always go for thinking.
Back to 53a1 54a2. Now 55a4 does take White off access to g8, and it makes a big difference. White can play 56h8, but then Black has 57a7 and White is forced into 58b7 59a8 60g8 39-25. Without doing any counting, that's a sequence where almost everything goes Black's way. If you see that line at move 53, you don't have to count to be confident that it's winning. And if you spend the available minute looking at various sequences, you'll spot that one (I hope). If you've still got a minute, then by all means count it out. As far as I know, David Shaman was the only one to spot this line at the time, so I suppose it's tough.
An embarrassing finish? Oh yes. Still, one point to me.