The rarest event

[mcteague]

My response to another post made me recall what may be the rarest thing I have ever seen in chess. It might be the rarest thing that has ever occurred. As I know 2+2ers love probabilities, I thought I would share it.

About six or seven years ago during the Marshall Chess Club Championship the ending of two knights vs pawn occurred in two games that were on adjoining boards in the same round.
As the ending itself is extremely rare, seeing it occur on adjoining boards is astronomically improbable.

FYI one game won the other was a draw.

[TexAg06]

Cool idea for a thread, I'll have to think about it. And you're right, that's an incredibly rare ending, especially to see on neighboring boards.

[ganstaman]

If you have a paid account on chessgames.com, you can look up various endgames. On that site, the database has 623,459 games (from 1475-2012). Of them, 40 are NN vs P (and for the record, 17 were won, 23 were drawn).

ETA: also, I should mention that this endgame explorer on the site classifies a game as NN vs P if that material imbalance remains on the board for 6 half moves (3 moves), so there could be more in the database where the two players just agreed to a draw or someone resigned right away.

[Dorilla]

One IM I know said he could mate his opponent in that ending in less than 2 minutes.

[Ajezz]

A friend of mine tore his meniscus during a tournament game while sitting at the board. Probably a pretty rare event. :-)

And there are still people that say chess isn't a sport...

[checkmate36]

Originally Posted by Ajezz

A friend of mine tore his meniscus during a tournament game while sitting at the board. Probably a pretty rare event. :-)

And there are still people that say chess isn't a sport...

Did he mate his opponent and then get up and strut like Ric Flair or something?

[TexAg06]

Originally Posted by checkmate36

Did he mate his opponent and then get up and strut like Ric Flair or something?

[Noir_Desir]

not exactly rare, but funny and satisfying: in one of my chess.com matches, i'm winning the white game with bishop vs knight in the ending and the black game with knight vs bishop.

[valenzuela]

I once had to play a chess tournament with tendinitis on my wrist so I had to play with my left hand

I remember a game against a 2000 player that I was playing really well and was leading by one pawn, I made the horrible desition to exchange my queen for two rooks and gave her the iniciative but then I calculated a draw by repetion for me so I offered a draw and she refused so I told her " wtf you are wasting our time, its a draw" but it turned out I miscalculated a really small detail and then realized she had the win but then she blundered badly because she made the mistake of exchanging her queen for my two rooks and it left me with a won pawn ending which she resigned

[PyramidScheme]

Originally Posted by valenzuela

I once had to play a chess tournament with tendinitis on my wrist so I had to play with my left hand

I remember a game against a 2000 player that I was playing really well and was leading by one pawn, I made the horrible desition to exchange my queen for two rooks and gave her the iniciative but then I calculated a draw by repetion for me so I offered a draw and she refused so I told her " wtf you are wasting our time, its a draw" but it turned out I miscalculated a really small detail and then realized she had the win but then she blundered badly because she made the mistake of exchanging her queen for my two rooks and it left me with a won pawn ending which she resigned

I think we have a winner.

[KyleJRM82]

I never say "that's mate" or "that's drawn" first because I'm nervous about doing that.

[PyramidScheme]

off-topic but I hate when in an even but (but not finished) position late my opponent declares the game clearly drawn, gets annoyed when I play on, and then if the game happens to be drawn rubs it in my face with "see i told you it was a draw." Ugh.

[KyleJRM82]

Originally Posted by PyramidScheme

off-topic but I hate when in an even but (but not finished) position late my opponent declares the game clearly drawn, gets annoyed when I play on, and then if the game happens to be drawn rubs it in my face with "see i told you it was a draw." Ugh.

that should be a capital crime.

[Dynasty]

I was the TD for a tournament when two players were blitzing to make the time control. As a result, they both had to abandon keeping score.

They reached a position where both players thought it was their turn and both players had mate-in-1.

When I arrived at the table, neither could confindently tell me the order of the last few moves. Neither player thought the other was lying. They both agreed it was simply a confusing situation.

[KyleJRM82]

Eesh. What was the ruling?