After starting out with 4/4 and an incredible performance rating at the Euro Club Cup, Garry Kasparov lost his round six game in 22 moves!! He had black in a complicated position against the Israeli Huzman and simply blundered a knight fork of king and queen. He bailed out, but that cost two pawns and he resigned.
Kasparov has just played 20...Bc8?? A White Belt tactics puzzle here: White to play and win...
Obviously there is some rust on his brain after not playing since February, despite the 4/4 start. Much more on this and the event will be at ChessBase.com soon.
Meanwhile, this game enters the very short list of games lost by world champions in so few moves. Certainly there aren't many in this century. Karpov has famous losses in 19 and 12 (!) moves, so Garry is far from the record at least. He lost in 19 against Deep Blue, but counting that is a little absurd. This is, no doubt, the shortest loss of Kasparov's career in a classical tournament game. The previous "record" was his loss to Kramnik in 25 moves in the 2000 World Championship, game 10. This is also the worst Kasparov blunder I can recall. Amazing.
The winning move is 21.Rxd5.
