Auuuuuuuugh

To those following the ups and downs of Nakamura’s often colorful chess career, yesterday’s collapse in Zurich against Carlsen was without question the most painful of the American’s now numerable reversals against the World Champion. With three moves to make and seven minutes (an eternity for Naka) to play them in, Hikaru more or less immediately produced one of the great blunders in recent memory, transforming a win into an eventual loss:

One can go ad infinitum/nauseam into facile psychological speculation about why this occured, but I would instead like to simply offer my sympathy and a few equally historic instances of great players collapsing in spectacular fashion:

• Edinburgh,1877: Joseph Henry Blackburne, after drinking one too many quarts of scotch, collapses in spectacular fashion
• New York,1899: Steinitz offers pawn and move to God. God accepts, wins on time
• Monte Carlo,1903: Colonel Charles Paul Narcisse Moreau attempts to add to his impressive resume of French Military exploits by surrendering 26 times in a row
• New Haven,1916: Capablanca loses a game of chess
• New York,1924: Tartakower visits the New York City Zoo, plays with an orangutan, loses decisively to the Feces-Flinging Countergambit
• Copenhagen,1933: Aaron Nimzowitch writes a much less successful sequel to My System entitled, "My Sixty Memorable Overprotections"
• Los Angeles,1948: Reuben Fine becomes a psychologist
• Moscow,1955: Smyslov accidentally mixes up his copy of Turandot with Shakhmatny Bulletin en route to an audition at the Bolshoi, inadvertently creates jazz fusion
• Buenos Aries,1960: Larry Evans attempts to explain the facts of life to a 16 year old Bobby Fischer via "What's the Best Move" puzzles
• Leningrad,1975: Karpov sells soul for the World Championship, Devil shortchanged
• Philadelphia,1988: Kasparov runs up the score in an exhibition game against Battlechess 2, permanently earns the hatred of all cybernetic life
• Linares,1998: Alexei Shirov hangs a bishop for no reason in a drawish endgame against Topalov
• Oslo, 2006: Carlsen forgets where he left the orange juice
• Kazan, 2011: Nobody knows where Kazan is, Gelfand wins Candidates Tournament by default
• New York, 2014: Airline mixup sends the Denver Community Chess Club to Super Bowl, Broncos to Omaha
  

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