In baseball, on April 17, 1976, the Chicago Cubs blew a 13-run lead against the Philadelphia Phillies in Wrigley Field in Chicago. On August 5, 2001, the Cleveland Indians rallied from 14-2 down to beat the Seattle mariners, marking the largest blown lead in the history of the National League.
And, probably the worst blown game lead in in Major League Baseball happened on September 28, 2019, when the Houston Astros were leading the Tampa Bay Rays by a score of 6-2 in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Astros were one out away from winning the game when the Rays scored three runs to tie the game. The Astros then went on to lose the game in the 10th inning by a score of 7-6.
It happens in chess, too. Most players resign when their position is utterly hopeless, but some have made the worst blunder you can make when they resigned in a won position!
That's what happened in the following game played in a tournament in Berdiansk, a port city in south-eastern Ukraine. It starts out boring, but the surprising turn of events are quite amusing!
Igor Smarin (1956-2014) was an International Correspondence Grandmaster. His opponent, Vladimir Antoshin (1929-1994) earned the GM title in 1964. As a young player hr was a high achiever, but in the 1950s chose to play correspondence chess, culminating in his winning the USSR Correspondence Championship of 1960. He was a noted opening theorist. Antoshin became a tournament organizer and trainer to the USSR Olympiad team, maintained a second career as a technical designer. According to Mark Taimanov he also had strong ties to the KGB.
Igor Samarin–Vladimir Antoshin0–1D11BerdianskStockfish 15
Catalan 1.f3 d5 2.d4 c6 3.c4 e6 4.c2 d7 5.g3 The Catalan is a sort
of mix between the Queen’s Gambit and a Reti and can arise from a number of
move orders. White basically plays d4 and c4 and then fianchettoes the B on g2.
It avoids several attacking ideas by black and instead focuses on development. gf6 6.g2 e4 7.0-0 d6 8.f4 Very unusual, but, oddly, not a bad idea.
There is no way for black to get at white's K. 8.e1 f5 9.cxd5 cxd5 10.d3 b6 11.e3 0-0 12.c3 Equals. Miles,A (2550)-Arencibia,W (2560) Cienfuegos
1997 8...xf4 9.gxf4 f8 The main alternatives are 9...O-O and 9....f5 10.bd2 xd2 11.xd2 Now there comes a period of slow maneuvering typical
of the boring Catalan. g6 12.ac1 f6 13.e3 0-0 14.h1 e7 15.b4 dxc4 16.xc4 f6 17.b2 d7 18.c5 b6 19.c2 ac8 20.fc1 d6 21.a3 e7 22.d2 f5 23.e4 h4 24.b3 h8 25.d3 f5 26.g2 xg2 26...e5 is an interesting
alternative is the P sacrifice... 27.fxe5 h6 28.f3 xg2 29.xg2 g5
with some play. 27.xg2 g5 28.fxg5 e5 29.c3 f4 30.dxe5 e6 31.f3 c5
Black has managed to work up sufficient counterplay and now white should play
32.bxc5 instead of closing the center and giving black free reign. 32.e4
32.bxc5 would have resulted in approximate equality. xc5 33.d4 fxe3 34.xe3 xe5 32...g8 33.h1 xg5 34.c4 This should have lost
almost immediately. 34.c4 cxb4 35.xb4 h6 36.d6 xc2 37.xc2 and
white is only slightly better. 34...h3 34...g6 was also quite good... 35.f1 g8 and black is winning. Just one line... 36.e6 xe6 37.c4 h5 38.d6 g1+ 39.xg1 xg1+ 40.xg1 xf3+ 41.cg2 c4 35.f1 Black's next
move is a gross blunder in a winning position. 35...Qh5 would have kept the
win in hand. 35.f1 Kxh2 xh2+ 36.xh2+- cg8 Weighted Error Value: White=0.53/Black=0.19 (very precise) . Loss on
time!? 36...cg8 37.e6 h5+ 38.h3 xh3+ 39.xh3 xe6+ 40.h2 35...xh2+ 35...h5 36.f2 h3 37.g1 xg1+ 38.xg1 g8+ 39.h1 xe5 40.b3 40.bxc5 a1+ mates 40...g2+ wins 36.xh2 cg8 Believing he could
not prevent ...Rh5+, white resigned, but it was a gross blunder...he has a win.
OTB it was, clearly, difficult to find the only winning line. 36...cg8 37.e6 xe6 Here there is only one winning move. 37...h5+ 38.h3 xh3+ 39.xh3 xe6+ 40.h2 with a clear win! 38.xc5 bxc5 39.xc5 g3 40.h5
and white is winning. 0–1
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