Chess Skills: Fingerslip

12 March 2025

Fingerslip

Playing chess on the iPad, I will drop a piece one square short of its intended destination from time to time. Often this fingerslip is fatal to the game. Likewise, playing on the computer, mouseslips are a constant danger. One day, I had five mouseslips in five games. When I flipped the rodent over for examination, I discovered that a dog hair had lodged itself where it partially covered the optical reader. Removing the dog hair improved my play.

In Nottingham 1936 (1936), Alexander Alekhine claimed his 4.Bd2 in the first round against Salo Flohr was a "lapsus manus", a slip of the hand (17). He says that his intent was to play 4.e5 and 5.f4, as he had against Aron Nimzowitsch six years earlier. David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld doubt Alekhine's explanation, pointing to the move having been played against him in 1910 (Oxford Companion to Chess, 2nd ed. [1996], 136). It is from Alekhine's remark, apparently, that the Fingerslip variation gets its name:

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Bd2!?

This variation was brought to my attention by two games in P.H. Clarke, 100 Soviet Chess Miniatures (1963), both games won by White with rapid assaults on an uncastled king.

Black to move

According to ChessBase Mega 2024, this move appears in just over 2% of French Winawer games.

The usual continuation leads to messy tactics and a material advantage for Black.

4...dxe4 5.Qg4 Qxd4

5...Nf6 is safer, according to Clarke, and is more commonly played according to the database. 5...Qxd4 was played in both Soviet miniatures in the text. Both games continued:

6.O-O-O f5 7.Bg5

Black to move

Here they diverge.

Kunin,V.--Ochsengoit, Moscow 1958 continued:

7...Qe5 8.Rd8+ Kf7 9.Nf3

ChessBase Mega does not have the game, but it can be found on chessgames.com. Clarke notes that the game was published in Shakhmaty v SSSR (2 Nov. 1959).

Black to move

9...Qa5

Clarke writes, "Black has failed--and who can blame him?" (54).

Clarke offers 9...exf3 10.Qxb4 and then analyzes three possibilities, none of which include 10...Nf6, which Stockfish finds equal. The game ended quickly after Black's ninth move.

10.Bb5 Nc6 11.Ne5+ and Black resigned.

Black struggled longer in the second game, also absent from ChessBase Mega but on chessgames.com: Serebriany -- Ivanov, Magnitogorsk 1959. Mato Jelic also offers the game on his YouTube channel, but incorrectly states that it was played in the Soviet Championship. Perhaps it was a regional qualifier for the championship. Clarke indicates that is was the championship of Magnitogorsk, a city east of the Southern Ural Mountains.

Black continued:

7...Qxf2

White to move

8.Qh3 Bd6

Clarke states that this move is an error, but offers no alternative.

9.Bb5+ Bd7

Clarke offers some analysis of variations after 9...Nc6.

"Now Black gets a nasty shock" (Clarke, 96).

10.Nxe4

Black to move

10...Bf4+?

Clarke notes correctly that this is a fatal error. He recommends, 10...Qb6, when it is not clear that White can win after 11.Bxd7 Nxd7 12.Nxd6+ cxd6 13.Nf3. However, White has 11.Nxd6+ cxd6 12.Be2 and there are still possibilities of making the Black king uncomfortable.

11.Kb1+- Qe3 12.Nf3 Qb6 13.Bxf4 Bb5

White to move

14.Bxc7!

Eliminates a defender.

14...Qxc7 15.Nd6+ Kf8 16.Nxb5 Qe7 17.Rhe1

All of White's pieces are in play while Black's knights and rooks remain on their starting squares.

17...Nc6 18.Nbd4 Nd8

White to move