Nunn's Immortal Game

[@JohnSmith-oe5kx]

A brilliant display of how to exploit a slight tactical weakness. Very instructive

[@leonardharris9930]

Back in late 1967 as a 21 year old I played in a match for the Wimbledon Chess Club in the Thames Valley League. We played away against the Kingston Chess Club. Much to my initial chagrin I found that my opponent was a 12 year old. I soon discovered that he was an exceptionally strong 12 year old as he completely outplayed me and won the game quite easily. His name was John Nunn so I was not at all surprised by his later hugely successful chess career.

[@lawdogwales5921]

Ouch! Playing a legend before anyone knew he was a legend. Great story though.

[@leonardharris9930]

@@lawdogwales5921 Ouch! describes exactly how I felt during and immediately after the game. Sadly, I do not think that I have the score of the game. But I do remember that I played the Scilian against his opening e4 and that he played an early c4, and that I was quite unable to stop him quickly seizing control of the centre and of the game. I was rated around 1600 at the time and achieved my peak rating of 2120 in 1973 when I stopped playing competative chess.

[@leonardharris9930]

@@lawdogwales5921 Two years after my game with John Nunn whilst I was an undergraduate at the London School of Economics I played in a match in the London League for the LSE Chess Team ( Economicals ) and found myself playing a teenager called Michael Steyn who later became a Grandmaster. At the time I had already heard of him and knew him to be a strong player so was not at all confident of a good result. Once again I had the Black pieces and the game progressed rapidly through a well known opening where I took every opportunity to exchange pieces whilst keeping a balanced position, This continued until we reached a rook and pawn ending which whilst equal in material was not ( in my view ) positionally good for me. I was not looking forward at all to having to defend a difficult R & P endgame when he surprised me by offering a draw which I immediately and gratefully accepted!

[@lawdogwales5921]

@@leonardharris9930 You can't hope for more than a draw against a much stronger player.

[@davidcopson5800]

Great story.

[@ElBa55man]

Happy Birthday John, such a classy player, and thanks Antonio for the fine explanation and tribute. Also good to know John is very active and still bossing it in the senior league

[@jorymil]

A quick note: Hoogovens is the Dutch steel company sponsoring the tournament. The tournament itself was held in Wijk aan Zee.

[@Zahrul3]

Also quick note: Tata Steel bought the company that owned Hoogevens, so now the event is called Tata Steel Chess

[@Senshidayo]

I knew it was weird Tata Steel ran such an old, prestigious tournament that dates to British India. It makes sense they bought out the actual original sponsor.

[@intercalz]

Tata Steel was founded in 1907. Hoogovens Tournament was started in 1938. So, it is not that weird if purely talking in terms of time.

[@montetanktankkiller700]

I met Nunn at the Hamburg Wichern Open in 19970r 1998. He stayed with me. That was the norm back then - the foreign grandmasters found accommodation with the family of a member of a Hamburg chess club. To save hotel costs. At that time I had an ELO of only 1980 and 5 points from 7 games (an amazing amount). With 6 points I could have snagged a prize for the best non-titled out of the 9 rounds. He just advised me not to play for a draw - but to play "all or nothing". I did it. Lost in Round 8 but won in Round 9 against Häikonnen-a GM. I didn't care about the prize money I won. I had a tournament rating of 2290 and had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Nunn. A very imaginative GM - who could have gone much further - had he only been focused on chess. BTW-His result was 6,5 of 9-but is wasn`t enough for a price.

[@howardcarter3362]

I love your historically interesting accurate annecodotes & current news of players. Nunn is a genuinely nice guy too. He gave Murray Chandler & I a lift back to London from a tournament he probably won. It was an incredible time for English chess with Grandmasters popping up like roses from the the baron land of no GMs just a decade previously.

[@davidcopson5800]

He may have been a grandmaster of chess, but you discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun!

[@sami6911]

Nice to know I share my birthday with such a great guy

[@awriter1214]

I'd have been happier if this video came out an year later

[@danielhallback]

Thanks from the ABC’s of Chess For Kids team!

[@unstableatbest]

Excellent commentary of the final conclusion, sir. "Every move white makes ends up in some sort of brutal checkmate. Now on to my next point."

[@rorykeegan1895]

Happy Birthday Mr Nunn, wonderful player.

[@DakotaTipton]

If anything This game has shown me the importance of castling your king. Whites king stood no chance when the knights started causing trouble

[@lagaleriaco3294]

Perhaps some of Bent Larsen´s best games against the Soviets.

[@jg-reis]

This game will be shown as long as there are libraries and bars. ^___^ Thank you for bringing us this masterpiece!

[@SuperAidan2000]

I would’ve waited one more year for the video for his special bday

[@jonathancauley5345]

Happy Birthday Immortal! :)

[@HVH_49]

John was having Nunn of that attack by Beliavsky.

[@gerard4169]

Thank you Agadmator for showing this wonderful game, and a very happy birthday to Mr John Dennis Martin Nun 🍾♟️

[@xethnyrrow]

8:53 Now that is a fully operational bishop pair.

[@DiCelloPiano]

"Does not have a move for the last 15 moves" - I totally know the feeling :)

[@MrSupernova111]

Beautiful game! Thanks!

[@ali_n]

IMO a thing that needs to be incorporated into engines is taking into account how many lines there are that lead to 0.0. There's a difference between when only one move keeps you in the game and when there are 10 moves that you can make and still not lose.

[@arunavamaulik19]

What a great idea!

[@ilijavxx]

This already exist. Stockfish can show 5 different lines for each position with the respective evaluation.

[@monstermagnet3150]

@@ilijavxx Not the same

[@lukecash3500]

"No he will obliterate you." When presented with GM competition, I exercise the most efficient move in chess. I resign.

[@fourtime7]

Squeezed him like a boa constrictor.

[@brianjanson3498]

I've never forgotten this game since I first saw it in Informant. Nunn went on to author at least one book on the King's Indian Defense that was very popular.

[@sagesanmartin1896]

"pretty much every line ends in some sort of a brutal checkmate" That's the good stuff.

[@gxtmfa]

The English masters have a lot of goofy, fun ganes

[@nuformzdesign]

"... You're still going to get checkmated, and it's not like your life, your quality of life, has improved in any way." 😂 Savage.

[@dhfmarcus9103]

Nice, elaborate analysis! 👍

[@davidanderson_surrey_bc]

Alexander: What were my odds of surviving this attack? John: Nunn!

[@EsDlite]

Love this

[@ihcfn]

Great point from Anish.

[@vrishankpandey8537]

A wholesome, yet interesting (almost miniature) immortal by the British grandmaster Nunn!

[@awriter1214]

Technically, an engine like that is not difficult to create. Just a lengthy data analysis using Baye's Theorem

[@impressi5697]

😂😂"It's notlike your quality of life has improved"

[@dodekaedius]

Game starts at 3:17 For the story: check 0:00

[@bendriver3242]

Happy Birthday Doctor! From one of your Oxford Maths pupils :)

[@joelevans3860]

If recapturing a pawn is a beautiful move, I am an artist😂

[@b.j.a.m.peters]

John Nunn was the second of Nigel Short (his good friend) in the 1993 world championship PCA match against Gary Kasparov. An incredible chess duo.

[@twentyrothmans7308]

Happy birthday, Dr Nunn! Talk about playing with one's food.

[@markhughes2556]

"It's not as if your quality of life has improved or anything" :¬D

[@jeffjones6951]

Fascinating observation! starting at 12:44

[@manuelrodrigues5996]

Only agadmator coukd get me to know Joh n Nunn, thats why you re the best, you go the extra length to increase our vast knowledge, sharing with friends at the bar and the library, hope to see you at the bar so i can pay you a Karlovačko’s!!!!

[@Trip_Fontaine]

I've noticed the phenomenon described at the end in multiple games. The best move for an intermediate player is different than the best move for an expert player, because the intermediate player will not be able to figure out all the follow-up moves that makes the expert's best move great. Essentially grandmasters are intermediate players and the engines are expert players now.

[@joeldick6871]

Agadmator makes it sound like the opening moves up to about move 14 are all very standard, but I looked up this game in Nunn's book Secrets of Grandmaster Play and he explains at great length the novel thinking that went into the plan of ...Nd7 and ...c5.

[@quinto1833]

I think even if I played it against an International Master, he or she would obliterate me.

[@drzlecuti]

I have one of Nunn's books and I agree that he is a very good chess writer and instructor.

[@Trip_Fontaine]

hxg6 was pure sadism, lol.

[@istvanhorvat5124]

Few days ago I wanted to ask for more Nunn’s games. Perfect. Happy Birthday to John. :)

[@ronjohnson9690]

That was like watching John Nunn drive a silver spike through the heart of Dracula!

[@elpollolocoman119]

Ehh, I like the honest evaluations of the engines that are indiscriminative. However, I do disagree with the engines being under the impression that the pieces should be given points. That was the upper hand Alphazero had over Stockfish 8, look up the reason why they gave that name to Alphazero. Alphazero's goal was to just win. Maybe too ambitious, if the game is either a draw or loss. However, its goal was to win. A very important concept it was given. Thus positioning was how it evaluated every game. With stockfish, it would give black the upper hand simply out of "material advantage", for just trading a bishop for a rook, with no immediate compensation for white. But as we remember how Tal to this day out calculated Stockfish 15, and found a forced mate, for white, when black had pass pawns, and up many points in material. The way Stockfish was built was a mistake. However convincing it may be, there is so much more to chess that we have to learn in every game. The new engine should be given a better philosophy so to speak. Anyways with these new quantum computers they are coming out with, who knows how strong the new engines will become. It's not only exciting that we will have "better" engines, but it's exciting that they could easily enlighten even the odd players or even congratulate them for the "strange" moves. At the end of the day, I still believe we humans are better and are more intelligent than the engines, but we burden ourselves with silly emotions, from bad experiences and we lead ourselves into a hole of dogmatic theory "inspired" by naïve ambitions and demoralizations.

[@wixom01]

Sometimes chess can be like boxing. But at least in boxing the ref would step in to stop the fight after several unanswered blows, but not so in chess. You have to take blow after blow as did the hapless Mr. Beliavsky, and in the end you finish punch drunk. We've all been there.

[@michaelpeters3933]

One of my favorite games, and in Seirawan's "Winning Chess Brilliancies" Awesome! 😎

[@annaclarafenyo8185]

A current engine could give this sort of evaluation with an analysis of imperfect moves and the depth at which they become imperfect. This can give a 'tree tightness' for both players, telling you how many moves from the ones selected by the neural network (so discarding the really stupid moves) are okay for each side. When one side has three valid options and the other side has only one response for each one, this should be given as a +3x advantage. This can be done with modern engines because they prune by neural network, so they discard the ridiculous moves at an early stage, before doing the depth-search.

[@nalgene247]

Man, what an incredible bishop pair! I dream of making my bishops fully operational like that.

[@HeWishesForTheClothesOfHeaven]

I have a recommendation for a series: Best games of the Kasparov-Karpov rivalry. That is the greatest rivalry in chess history, and an examination of their brilliant games and contrasting styles is certainly worthy of such attention. Thanks for the continued great work!

[@davidcopson5800]

Very good idea.

[@gingerfish90]

Fun Fact: John Nunn was circumcised in his 20's due to his foreskin being infected by a gerbil. Whilst qualifying for the Gibraltar Open.

[@jasmint6703]

Thanks for hipping us to Nunn!

[@Brusselpicker]

Dr John Nunn was and is one of the most important figures in English chess. Just to add Magnus Carlsen said about Dr Nunn "I am convinced the reason the Englishman John Nunn never became world champion is that he is too clever for that. ..He has so incredibly much in his head. Simply too much. His enormous powers of understanding and his constant thirst for knowledge distracted him from chess." In later years he has developed an interest in astronomy.

[@dodekaedius]

Oh shit. I think I went a similar path, but my distraction starts earlier, so I achieve less. Besides that, I'm also not on Nunns level, even as a Mensa member (one of the more stupid individuals there).

[@dylanrambow2704]

One interesting idea for how to make engine evaluations more useful and more human is to maybe attach a percentage to each move, a likelihood that a human will find that particular winning tactic.

[@lol101lol101lol10199]

Great game! Although some consider the opening to be boring as it leads to same-ish positions every time.

[@fracarolli]

Happy birthday, John Nunn!

[@mobileplayer9128]

I’ve seen this guy in person at the Bude chess club truly fantastic player phenomenal skill

[@darksoul6482]

Game starts at 3:14

[@d4slaimless]

9:15 Honestly, my first thought was to try Nef4 making more space for the king. P.S. Somehow there's Viswanathan Anand vs John Nunn in the description instead of Beliavsky vs Nunn

[@johnsaunders5631]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/Zn_ZhJmroqiBrtE [Event "02, Wijk aan Zee"] [Site "02, Wijk aan Zee"] [Date "1985.??.??"] [EventDate "?"] [Round "?"] [Result "0-1"] [White "Alexander Beliavsky"] [Black "John Nunn"] [ECO "E81"] [WhiteElo "?"] [BlackElo "?"] [PlyCount "54"] 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 O-O 6.Be3 Nbd7 7.Qd2 c5 8.d5 Ne5 9.h3 Nh5 10.Bf2 f5 11.exf5 Rxf5 12.g4 Rxf3 13.gxh5 Qf8 14.Ne4 Bh6 15.Qc2 Qf4 16.Ne2 Rxf2 17.Nxf2 Nf3+ 18.Kd1 Qh4 19.Nd3 Bf5 20.Nec1 Nd2 21.hxg6 hxg6 22.Bg2 Nxc4 23.Qf2 Ne3+ 24.Ke2 Qc4 25.Bf3 Rf8 26.Rg1 Nc2 27.Kd1 Bxd3 0-1

[@kellamyoshikage286]

The PGN is for Nunn's game against Anand, not this immortal.

[@michaelmassaro4375]

Nothing more to be done I would’ve resigned many moves ago no way was White getting out from the crunch Black had him in Great Game Much Thanks

[@MrHakeboy]

Lovely chill video on the rest day in WCC, thanks agad :)

[@lwalker8785]

The King's Indian used to be one of the main defences against 1. d4. But computers don't like it so you hardly see it now at the top level. More boring lines like the Queen's Gambit Declined are in ascendancy now, which in a way is rather sad.

[@finsfinst4274]

0:15: "... the tournament was won by I Dont Wanna Trick You Guys So Let Me Just Check Real Quickly". I keep hearing about this "I Dont Wanna Trick You Guys" fella - who is he? Sounds like he won helluva lot tournaments. Must be a very strong player! :)

[@davidantonsavage6207]

Yes there are checkmates and then there are brutal checkmates.

[@felipeamaral8061]

6:13 you say he has a knight and a rook for the queen but wouldn’t it be two knights and a rook for the queen since Nunn had already sacrificed a knight for the attack ?

[@alexandrenr]

Thanks agad!! Alex roozmon

[@ayubkhanjr3521]

Make a playlist of immortal games...

[@claudioliccardo458]

The video starts at 3:21.

[@fetentone8936]

He was having nunn of it

[@amoldivo]

I was waiting for this match when you posted John Nunn vs Vishy Anand game! And went to check this player and found he had played a game where he won against Beliavsky in 1985 and people have considered the game as his immortal game!! I also noticed that April 25th (which is today) is his birthday, he turns 68 this year! 🙂

[@LordFred69]

John really liked the bishop pair

[@usushio9196]

The game record written in the summary section is different from the video

[@daniellord-doyle5273]

You should write a book!!

[@cboii2861]

Anand in the description? Amazing game tho

[@LUCA-vr9es]

#suggestion Satty Zhuldyz Blitz, Erigaisi vs Yifan

[@5kunk157h35h17]

#suggestion Would be great with more bot games. Not way too many but it would be fun to see a few again.

[@kinnoinen]

68 years old, nice-ish

[@SamuelPearlman]

2nd to Nunn! :p

[@harshalbhanarkar]

Agad ur discription About this game is Wrong it's discription of Previous video in discription box

[@viccietudaye370]

beautiful and brutal (paradox of chess)

[@Juiced10111]

Brilliant.

[@johnsimmons8456]

Is John the biological twin of Nate Hartley (wade) in the movie drill bit taylor?

[@stewste4316]

crazy game

[@MrK623]

At 9:39 if QxN, BxQ, KxB white has R and 2N's for Blacks Q and 2 pawns. I feel that white is losing anyway, this equalizes the material, creates an unbalanced position, and takes some of the immediate attacking pieces away from black.

[@duhduh741]

Man.. um massacre

[@danielhill3665]

Did you say he could be cheeky about it.🤣🤣 👌 cheeky

[@নষ্টচোদাবাঘিনী]

মাং গে গে মাং

[@KeviPegoraro]

Is not like you quality of life was improved in any way adagmator 2023

[@ricky2319]

Just a heads up, wrong game in the description

[@renehenriksen1735]

What actor is it that John Nunn is reminding me of?

[@FloydMaxwell]

#Suggestion -- anything from Wolfgang Unzicker -- the "world champion of amateurs". His peak rating of 2545 would have been in the Top 20 or 25 in 1985. Pretty impressive considering that ratings rise over the years.

[@VibhasPatil]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't what Antonio talked about at the end about engines already available on Lichess? Whenever I've gone into the 'Analysis' section, I've seen the percentage breakup of white wins, draws, and black wins. Isn't that what Giri was talking about?

[@martinolsen868]

AlgorithmFood!

[@michaelmassaro4375]

Does seem to be the crucial mistake not taking the Black Rook with the Knight as he went after the Queen with knight instead the beginning of the end