Monday 25 August 2014

Historic win by Steel vs Kamsky

It's not very often that a South African beats a super Grandmaster! I remember the game Watu Kobese won against Peter Leko in the 2001 FIDE knockout championship. Before that, there was the win by Wolfgang Heidenfeld versus former world champion Max Euwe at the 1955 Johannesburg international. Now Henry Steel has joined this elite club at the Tromso Olympiad earlier this month. In all fairness, Kamsky was completely winning after his 23rd move, but made things difficult for himself with his poor 28th and 33rd moves. The ending reached after Black's 40th move looks about equal to me, but Steel outplayed his super-strong opponent for an historic win. Here is the game, with light notes: