It was a strange game today. I employed a rare idea in the 5 Bd2 Grunfeld, but already on move 10 I mixed up the move order (10 a5 instead of 10 h3?) and was already worse. In order to escape constant initiative by black I tempted him to sacrifice a queen, and it did seem very tempting, but I thought I should have enough counterplay. He did sacrifice the queen though and then I got my chance on move 19.

And then something happened. All of a sudden I felt a commotion in the playing hall, I raised my head and saw a lot of people with TV cameras, photo cameras and flashes blinded my eyes. The reason for this fuss was that Garry entered the building. And Silvio too (but to a lesser extent, obviously). I could sense energy radiating from the spot where they were standing and then… disaster struck. I came back to my game and for reasons I find difficult to explain I moved immediately and made the losing blunder, 19 Bc4?? instead of the intended 19 Qe6. That would have given me an advantage in a complicated position. After his simple reply, the game was over.

So what to say? I’ve always been skeptical when people explained their losses with weird occurences or aliens, so I won’t try to explain this by Garry’s (or Silvio’s) energy. But the fact remains that this was a bad day for me. Incidentally, it was Fischer’s birthday (and some of my most memorable games were played on this day. However, I’ll try to forget this one).

At least the weather is nice.