Aspirin, a greasy fry-up, even hair of the dog – all are popular options when nursing a hangover. The last thing you would choose to do is play a long game of chess, but that’s exactly the pickle in which Magnus Carlsen found himself during the first round of the 2012 London Chess Classic. The world number one had celebrated his 22nd birthday the night before, but dinner and bowling ‘turned into something else’ as he shared on the Norwegian podcast Sjakksnakk a few weeks ago.
Carlsen shambled into a wretched position, but was granted a lifeline after one poor move from his opponent in the middlegame: ‘All of a sudden I felt like my whole hangover just got cured.’ The rejuvenated Carlsen decided it would be ‘epic’ if he managed to win the game. And so he did, thanks to some formidable technique featuring an unlikely king march in a complex endgame with queens on the board.
His opponent, alas, was me. But chagrined, I am not. Carlsen’s story tallies with my own experience, which is that my chess performance in supposedly impaired states is nowhere near as bad as it ought to be. I too have won a game with a hangover, in a manner which made me rather satisfied. I don’t plan to repeat the experience, but getting ill is harder to avoid and has much the same effect. As creative constraints go, the need for extreme economy of brainwork is not too bad. You fall back on trusting your gut, and rediscover the truth that intuition is only slightly inferior to the contrivances of conscious thought.
A case in point arose during that game against Carlsen. On my 26th move I advanced my knight from f3 to e5, in order to attack his queen on d7. While considering it, I spotted one of the most enjoyable checkmating ideas I have ever seen at the board (see diagram).
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