Most Common ICC Blunder Leads to Epaulette Mate

 Blitz Player rf(Robert Fischer diehard fan probably)  usually crushes me, but today he blundered trying to castle Queenside. I don't have incontrovertible proof, but with the center wide open he moved his Queen to d1 rather than TRIPLE O.

Do you see the mate in 2 in the position below with Black to move?  Rc1 attracts Whites rook to that square and then mate at d2 for the shouldered White Monarch. Note that Epaulette Mates would NOT BE THING if two pieces could occupy same square!

So, Yup attempted castling is the most common blunder. I guess some people just can not get used to King being able to move two squares.

Be very careful how you say Forking Knight

 The terse chess informant notation definitely applies to the following position. The Houston,Texas Master did not notice his King and Queen were forkable on the f2 and d2 squares or maybe he did but did not notice the f3 pawn was ABSOLUTELY pinned by the f5 Queen.

Hobart was more concerned about the weak c2 square which led to the blunder. He moved one of his rooks to c1 guarding c2, BUT allowing Ne4 forking King and Queen followed by resignation. His position was already loose with his King quite vulnerable. He fell victim to the burden of being the higher rated player by 600 USCF rating points. In this case, the first player was not going to accept a draw under any circumstances to a much weaker 1600 player.

The lesson to be learned is try to keep tabs on all weak squares even those induced by absolute pins. The informant notation(using a times/multiplication symbol) is (Xc2,e4)

Monkey See Tactic, Monkey Play Tactic

 My Russian friends at ICC are among the most rational and concrete thinking guys I have ever known. However, Potoslonam must have been having trouble with family or girlfriend when he egregiously blundered with Knight captures d5 pawn in the following diagrammed position. 

His weak amateurish idea was to pray(I know most Russians are atheist) that Black captures the horse on d5 leaving his f5 Horse en prise. Black now wins easily with Qg1 threatening mates on g3 square and Qh1 mate. The White Queen cannot defend both threats so the Russian disconnected and lost.

Hockey fan Mark Scheig is also a talented chess player and a friend of the affable Russian expert of our beloved Royal Game.

Artificial Bank Rank Theme

 Was surprised to discover that Dan Heisman, who took the time to define the nebulous term Accidental Error, would omit the much more substantive definition Artificial Bank Rank. 

That segues us into the following blunder made by ego123, a good blitz player at the internet chess club in Pennsylvania, United States of America. The dude just played the gaffe Nd5 opening the f file for the decisive game ending tactic. 

The artificiality of the back rank mate is made possible by White's g6 Bishop guarding the escape f7 and h7 squares which would normally  be occupied by Black pawns creating a REAL BACK RANK THREAT!!!

IM Bartholomew did an exemplary job of elucidating the perils of not noting the safety of your flight squares. He indicated you can get good at the Royal game by just being air tight on being aware of loose pieces AND understanding the slippery notion of piece communication. D. Gurevich would really go off, especially after a few drinks in Chicago Taverns, about how Gata Kamsky(headcase for a father) understood piece coordination at Carlsonian levels!!!

Making Outside passed Pawn a Blunder in this Blitz Game

 Was reminded of John Watson's excoriation of  rule dependence when when Chisel playing out of the United Kingdom played a3 believing his outside passed pawn would win. However Black's counter shot c3 forces resignation. 

White might catch up to the Black queenside pawns, but the Black King at e5 would rush to ingest white's defenseless peons at h3 and g3.

YouTube superstars MatoJelic and ChessFactor both seem to advocate unconditionally that outside passed rook pawns win in all variations. Maybe I was just more drunk than usual that night when viewing those videos cuz Nicky Pert does not make many mistakes when pontificating about the Royal Game!