Sacrifice in the Panov Attack

Zvonitsky – Godys, 1989
1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Nf3 Bg4 7. cxd5 Nxd5 8.
Qb3 Bxf3 9. gxf3 e6 10. Qxb7 Nxd4 11. Bb5+ Nxb5 12. Qc6+ Ke7 13. Qxb5 Qd7 14.
Nxd5+ exd5 15. Qb3 Kf6 16. h4 Re8+ 17. Kf1 g6 18. Bg5+ Kg7 19. Rd1 d4 20. Qc4
f6 21. Rxd4 Qb7

  White to move

Chess Strategy Video - Panov Attack - Two bishops as compensation for a pawn

Here is an older video I made but not shared on the blog yet. The opening is the Panov attack, where Black plays a sideline. I get nice pressure in the opening with an isolated pawn structure but miss some nice opportunities. In the endgame White ends up with active rook on the 7th rank, supported by two bishops as compensation for a pawn. When Black's 'a'  pawn falls, the fate of the game is sealed.

Memorizing Chess Openings

During Canadian Chess Championship in 2002, I had a pretty odd incident related to memorizing opening variations. In round 4 game I forgot my preparation literally on the next move after we entered the line I had prepared. I lost that game without putting up much resistance. In round 8 game, however, I without any particular effort played to 33rd move from my opening preparation and got a winning position, later managing to convert my advantage. How could this have possibly happened to the same player, in the same tournament?

In reality both examples had little to do with my memory being bad on one day, and good on another, but rather with how familiar I was with the ideas of each line. The line I chose in round 4 was prepared for that particular game; it was a suspicious sideline, and Black had to play carefully after violating some basic opening principles. Round 8, on the other hand, followed a line that I had played a lot with both colours in the past, and before the game I simply refreshed my memory and looked up the particulars. That being said, my round 8 opponent had also been well familiar with that line; he lost partially because he had been anticipating me to play other lines, and did not refresh this particular variation in his mind before our game. Below are the actual examples.

Glinert – Jiganchine, Richmond, 2002, Round 4 (Replay the game in the viewer, or watch a youtube video with full analysis)
Black to move
In the Panov attack, Black ventured with a very rare Qa8 and Rd8, to which White responded in a logical way with Bd2 and Ne5. I had planned to play along Krogius,N-Kortchnoi,V/Tbilisi 1966 where Kortchnoi continued with 12… Nf6, defending his kingside, and opening up the d file. I had been looking at that game several hours before the clocks were started! Instead I played 12… Nxe5?!, and lost because of difficulties getting Bc8 into the game.

Jiganchine – Sokourinski, Richmond 2002, Round 8 (Replay the fully annotated game)
  White to move
We are in the end of a somewhat forced opening/endgame variation – also in the Panov attack. Black had just finally regained a pawn with 32… Kxf3?!, but the cost is too high: his king is cut-off, and White threatens to transfer the king to d4. With the prepared (just before the game) 33. b4! White frees up the king from guarding b2, and has excellent chances to win the game.

I’d also summarize as to main reasons I think chess players have a hard time forgetting their chess openings (I am sure you can think up a few more)

1. Not familiarizing themselves with ideas, but rather trying to remember individual moves – that just never works, at least not for me!
2. Getting confused by move orders. You can even remember the ideas, but playing them in a wrong order is pretty common
3. Confusing similar variations. Often I remember that a particular move has to be played, but it actually applies to a different position with similar characteristics
4. A non-forced nature of the opening. Glinert-Jiganchine is a concrete position, but the threats have not materialized just yet.
5. Broad variety of options. In Jiganchine-Sokourinski, we got to move 33 by grabbing each other’s pawns and pieces pretty much non-stop along a narrow path. It is way harder to remember the correct path when the lines branch off in various directions

Game from Canadian Chess Junior Championship 2002 - video

Some losses are just not fun to go back and look at! Some of them are just plain depressing, but there is always a good lesson to be learned from any game, especially if you look critically at your own play. In this case – my brain just was not there at the two very critical junctures of this last round game of the Canadian Junior Championship in 2002 in Winnipeg:
Moskvitch – Jiganchine, 2002

Black to move

Instead of the correct 15… Qd5, I erred with 15 … f6? After 16. Qh5! I had to surrender material, but was fortunate to collect some of it back, so I was still in the game by the time we got to this position:

Black to move. Can he take on f4?

Answer: no! Correct was 35 …Rh8, or 35 ... fxg5. Watch the video for more details and to see what happened

 

In summary: after a bad mistake on my part, White conducts a nice attack in the Panov attack of the Caro-Kann. With a rook and 3 pawns for two pieces, my opponent was cruising to victory, but was a bit imprecise and allowed me to get outposts for my pieces. However I return the favour and make a huge blunder, so White wins.

Checkmate in the rook endgame

In the endgame a king is supposed to play an active role, so it is easy to miss cases where suddenly the king ends up in grave danger. In one of the variations of the Panov attack – an endgame arises where Black has to have a subtle feeling for whether his king should be active, or safe. I’ve already written a post called “Breakthrough in a rook endgame” where the Black king was playing an active role, so now – a couple of examples where the king comes under massive fire of White’s two rooks and potentially gets mated.

Charbonneau – Jiganchine, Edmonton, 2000, analysis

 Black to move r7/p5pp/1k3p2/3R4/7r/P4P2/1P3P1P/1KR5 b - - 0 29
Question:is it safe for Black to take on h2 with 29… Rxh2 ?
Answer: No! White plays a4 and Black has no good defence against Rb5+ and Rc6 #, say after 30. a4 Rxf2 31. Rb5+ Ka6 32. Rc6 #

Game over

After 30. a4!, there is no other good defence, e.g. 30... a6 31. a5+ Kb7 32. Rd7+ Kb8 33. Re1 Kc8 34. Rxg7

White is just winning r1k5/6Rp/p4p2/P7/8/5P2/1P3P1r/1K2R3 b - - 0 34
e.g. 34… Rd8 35. Rg8+ Kd7 36. Rxa8 +-

You’d say – who would fall for this type of trick? A grandmaster could, here is an example from the same Caro-Kann endgame:
Meier – Saltaev, 2006
(Click here to replay the entire game)

 Black to move 8/p2R4/8/3p1R1p/KP1k3r/P2r1P2/5P2/8 b - - 0 33
Black played 33… Kc4? (33… Kc3 was better) and resigned after 34. Rc7 Kd4 35. Rc5! 1-0

There is no good defence against Rfxd5 with potential checkmate.
8/p7/8/2Rp1R1p/KP1k3r/P2r1P2/5P2/8 b - - 0 35

Typical mistakes in IQP positions – YouTube video

Here is an older video I actually recorded a while ago (but only now had time to go to and do some minimal editing). I go through my blitz games and look at different ways Black can go wrong while trying to complete his development.

Moral of the story:
Memorize an opening variation – you may be lucky to win a single game.
Understand typical tactical ideas in a common pawn structure – you will win multiple games while your opponents play what they think “common sense moves”.
 

PS. Yes, unfortunately the audio is not very loud, my video editing skills are still non-existent.

Quick win by Black in Panov attack – youtube video

I have been fairly busy preparing for a provincial championship, so I have not had much time for the blog in the last few weeks. But here is a video I made of one of my games from several years ago. It might be of interest for you if you play the Caro-Kann defence, or are interested in BC Chess scene in general. In this game Black quickly takes over initiative and attacks White king that got stuck in the center. A good example of why you don't want to neglect development. The game was wrapped up with a pseudo-queen sacrifice, but more important is Black’s 11th move, it’s fundamental for understanding Black’s initiative in this game.

 

Replay the game in the viewer:

Why you should not trust chess database statistics

Have a look at this position, which arises in Panov Attack in the Caro-Kann, or from some lines of Queen’s Gambit Declined.

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e6 6. Nf3 Be7 7. cxd5 Nxd5 8.
Bd3 Nc6 9. O-O O-O 10. Re1 and now Black can play Qa5, which is a very rare sideline

Say, the database will tell you that 4 games have been played with this move, and black scored 50% with Qa5. The move itself sure does not look quite right, but Viktor Korchnoi himself played it, and the score seems not too bad. The 50% however is completely deceptive, have a look at another position from Brodsky – Maiorov, one of the games played in this line.

  White to move

White (a Grandmaster) is completely winning, but he played the completely inexplicable 47. Rd2?? dropping the rook on c4, and resigned a couple of moves later. So that 50% should have really been 75% in White’s favour! 4 games is really too small of a pool to rely on the numbers, so you should really look at objective value of Qa5 instead of relying on rather meaningless percentage from a database. I had failed to do that, so Black’s other loss is mine – from my 2002 game against Stephen Glinert! The title of the post is of course not fully true – sometimes you should check how well each side is scoring in a line before playing it, but it’s more important to understand the meaning of moves while building up your opening repertoire, especially if you rely on sidelines like Qa5.

Bishop Sacrifice in Panov Attack (Caro-Kann)

One of the main points of playing blitz on the internet is to go over finished games, and draw certain conclusions from them. I learned a fair bit from the game I played online today – something that can be useful in tournament games I play later, because the pawn structure and combination ideas are typical for the opening that I play.
This position occurred in this game
White to move
Black just played 11… Nde7, instead of the more standard 11… Nce7. I continued with 12. Be3 and got a position with isolated Queen’s Pawn (IQP) that I like, but putting the bishop on e3 did feel a bit passive.
After the game, I looked up this position in Karpov and Podgaets’ book on the Panov attack since the move Black played took me a bit by surprise. Turns out White has a nice way to exploit the fact that Black reduced his control over g5 square, and play 12.Bg5!? The key point is that if 12…Bxg5, then White can strike with a typical sacrifice on h7 with 13. Bxh7+!?:
White does not win on a spot, but the book shows that his position is better. This is the kind of guidance I would expect from an opening book, so I recommend it for its thoroughness! I took a longer way around, but in the end did create pressure against Black king and won (who said that analysing blitz games is a waste of time?!)
Replay the game in the viewer:

How to Attack in the Caro-Kann – the last tournament I ever won

Does Black have attacking chances in the Caro-Kann defence? Of course he does, he just needs to be more patient than in many other openings, but with proper preparation – this is definitely possible.

Davies – Jiganchine, 2000. Black to move.

In this position I played 30… Bc7, and suddenly White resigned. There is no way to prevent Qh2 without losing material (e.g. 31.g3 Nxe3)

I recall that my coach really liked my play in this game. He was always careful about praising me, but after seeing Bc7 he said something along the lines of “That was an instructive game!”. Ironically, this was played in the final round of last tournament that I won so far. I later tied for first in a couple of tournaments (regular and active), but this was the last time I got clear first place. Until now I did not realize how long ago this was…

The game itself is very simple, but it’s interesting to see how quickly even a quiet position can collapse because of minor self-inflicted weaknesses like h2-h3. Replay the game in the viewer below:

Online tactics: double piece sacrifice

White to move. DDT3000-KMehmedov, 3 minutes per game

I already sacrificed a piece for two pawns, and now need to keep the attack going. I came up with a second sacrifice, and the engine confirms that this is the best move:

17. Bh6! I noticed that I get to win the knight on d7, and just could not resist playing this.

The game continued:

17. … Bf6 (17... Kxh6 18. Qg6#) 18.Nxd7 Kxh6 19. Nxf6 (19. g4 !! +-) 19... gxf6 20. Qxb7
Qd6 21. Qf7 Re4 22. Rac1 Rae8 23. Rxe4 Rxe4 24. g3 Re7 25. Qf8+ Kg6 26. Qg8+
Rg7 27. Qe8+ Kh7 28. Qh5+ {Black resigns} 1-0

Opening preparation – how to make a tree

I am not a big fan of opening preparation, it’s never been very easy for me. I enjoy studying the endgame a lot more. At the same time, I must admit that without proper opening knowledge – every game can potentially turn into a lot of suffering. In some openings you may get away with just knowing general ideas, but generally you can’t get away without knowing some precise variations.
Around the year 1998, I lost a speed chess game to a master. I lost it in an embarrassing manner, by getting my rook trapped on move 10 in the opening. I forgot the move order in exchange variation of Slav defence, and there was no return. After the game, the opponent looked at me with understanding, and gave me a very valuable advice (ok, one of the many he gave me). He said – “For every opening you play – you must have a tree. Does not matter how you do it, on paper, on computer, you must have it recorded somewhere”. Indeed, if you don’t bother to record it once, how likely are you ever going to REMEMBER thing?
Computers make it really easy to do this – you can create a database of games that looks like this (you can create it in Chessbase Light 6, and then load in Chessbase light 2007 for viewing – both are free).

In the body of the game, you enter the variations, and then if you do File-Print-Print Repertoire, you can get a nice printout like the screenshot below. It looks just like your own NCO! Store it under your pillow and that way you won’t forget your moves after 23…Rc4 in the Panov attack…

I recently wrote another post on opening preparation that has more to do with the psychological aspects of studying the opening.

Book Review - 10 books from the library (Part 1)

I went down to the Burnaby library, and borrowed a bunch of books - mostly on the openings that I feel I might be interested in, or have been playing for a long time. I find that going to the library has its advantages over shopping for chess books online or in a large bookstore like Chapters: - Library is free! (well, in the sense that the tax dollars have been paid already anyway) - I can get bring home a whole load of books and look at them later, enjoying the comfort of my sofa - The selection is actually wider than in a store - the several Chapters branches of in Greater Vancouver at most have 2-3 chessbooks that I could possibly consider reading (maybe some day I will want to teach myself chess visually, but not quite yet). Understanding the King's Indian by Golubev, Mikhail (2005) Golubev goes over the main variations of King's Indian and provides very clear explanations of plans, move order details, historical background. Plenty of variations are given too of course; the opening is covered in a lot more detail than I could ever hope to memorize. I have a feeling that if I could go through this volume, together with Gallagher's two books on the King's Indian - I would learn more than enough to play King's Indian on my mediocre level for many years. That would of course mean drinking from the firehose for years. Review Score: 4/5 Starting out : Sicilian Najdorf by Richard Palliser (2006) Switching from an anti-Sicilian (like the one that I used to play - 2.c3) to main lines with 2.Nf3 and 3.d4 causes a player to realize that each little line he heard about ("oh yeah, I've seen the Kalashnikov - it's almost like Sveshnikov,right?") now is an entire opening in itself, with move order tricks, main lines, side lines, and so on. That's roughly the scope of my knowledge of Najdorf - I picked a line that seems reasonable and suit my style - 6.Be2, looked at several games, recorded the moves into my repertoire database, and played some blitz games online. Seems like I should be ready to face it... The problems is that all this was several years ago, so this book was a great refresher. Palliser shows the typical plans in the Be2 system, and not just within the current main line, but also gives the plans that are not considered dangerous anymore (and, of course, reasons why that's the case). Review Score: 4/5 Starting out : Queen's Gambit Accepted by Raetsky, Alexander (2006) I liked the format of the book - it helped me to refresh certain lines by just going through the chapters. It of course is too brief to serve as a reference - if I play a game in QGA and then want to check in the book whether or not I followed theory - I would not be likely able to find enough details in this book to help me out. But that's not the purpose of this introductory text. I could not find out who did the translation, or if the authors are fluent enough in English to make my ESL soul quite satisfied. Review Score: 4/5. Caro-Kann defence : the Panov attack by Anatoly Karpov and Mikhail Podgaetz (2006). Wow! Of all opening theory I know however narrow or insufficient it may be, Panov Attack is the opening I maybe spent the most time on, and I found the coverage to be very deep. Very Deep! This is a book on a branch of a major opening, but Caro-Kann is not Sicilian, and this book still has hundreds of pages on just that branch. And this is not just a DB dump either, one can see the author(s) had spent time analyzing occurring positions and games, and there is a lot of prose between the moves as well. Translation is not perfect, but works for me, since I usually can tell the exact Russian words that they tried to convert into English. The book is obviously written by Podgaetz, Karpov had likely little to do with this volume, he is rich, and does not spend time on playing in tournaments these days, so why would he spend months checking references and putting together analysis for lines he will never likely encounter as a practical player. Very impressive work nonetheless, I am thinking of buying myself a copy after library loan expires. As a reviewer on Amazon has justly pointed out though, because of the depth of the book, it may be a hard read for someone just picking up the Panov attack and trying to get a high level overview of the opening. Oh well, each book has to serve its purpose. Review Score: 4.5/5 The complete King's Indian by Keene, Raymond D. 1992 Flipping through the book I realized that I don't like the format of it and the contents is probably too outdated, so I did not go into details too much. Alas old opening books are not very useful after 10 years or more. Review Score: 1/5 Kasparov on the King's Indian by Garry Kasparov This one definitely deserves attention, as it was written at the prime of Kasparov's success with King's Indian. 9.b4 line's popularity had not really kicked in yet at the time of writing, Kramnik had not yet become a serious opponent for Kasparov, so King's Indian was his primary weapon against 1.d4. Some games are annotated in great detail, some barely have verbal annotations, but the collection is worth studying especially if one wants to build his/her repertoire around the lines that Kasparov used to champion. Unfortunately the theory has probably been all significantly revised since 1992, so there will be a need for some more research before committing to playing Kasparov's lines. Review Score: 3.5/5 In Part 2 I will review the remaining 4 books that I borrowed during that library trip: Silman's complete endgame course : from beginner to master / by Silman, Jeremy. The Pirc in black and white by Vigus, James. Attacking with 1 e4 / by Emms, John. Starting out : 1 e4! / by McDonald, Neil.

Counter Attack in the Panov

I was really pleased after this game, as I managed to quickly take over initiative with Black and win the game very convincingly. Analysis shows that not all moves were perfect, but it was a decent game all in all.

Joseph Oszvald - Roman Jiganchine [B13]

Fraser Valley Championship 2004/2005 (3) 2004

1. c4 c6 2. e4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bg5 e6 7. c5 7. Nf3 Be7 8. c5 transposes 7... Be7 8. Nf3 O-O 9. a3 This aims at setting up a pawn storm with b4, but neglects development. 9. Bb5 Ne4 10. Bxe7 Nxe7 11. Rc1 is the main line 11... b6 12. c6 Nd6 13. c7 Qxc7 14. Nxd5 Qd8 15. Nxe7+ Qxe79... Ne4 10. Bxe7 Qxe7 11. Qc2?! The queen stops controlling d4, and the king is still in the center. 11... Ng5 Nf3 is the key piece that controls d4 and e5, so exchanging it is very beneficial. 12. Nxg5 Qxg5 now d4 needs to be protected. 13. Rd1

13... e5! Black takes over the initiative, and White should defend very carefully to avoid losing immediately. 14. dxe5? 14. h4 Qg4 15. dxe5 d4 16. Be2 Qe6! (16... Qxg2 17. Qe4 Qxe4 18. Nxe4 Nxe5 19. Nd6)17. Nb5 Qxe5 18. O-O Bf5 19. Qc414... d4!

15. Ne4 Qxe5 After this central break Black enjoys great initiative. 16. Be2 16. Bc4 d3! 17. Bxd3 (17. Qxd3 Bf5 18. f3 Rad8 19. Qc2 Rxd1+ 20. Kxd1 Bxe4 21. fxe4 Nd4 22. Qd3 Qxc5)17... f516... d3? Temptation to play a sacrificial move led to an inaccuracy. 16... Bf5 was much stronger. 17. f3 Bxe4 18. fxe4 f5! (18... Qf4 is not as strong. )19. exf5 Rxf5! and White king can never leave the center. 20. Rf1 Rxf1+ 21. Kxf1 Qxh217. Qxd3 17. Bxd3 f5 18. f4 Qe8 19. O-O fxe4 20. Bxe417... Bf5 18. f3 Bxe4 19. fxe4 Rad8 20. Qc4 Rxd1+ 21. Bxd1

21... Qf4! The greedy 21... Qxb2 was also possible: 22. O-O Qxa322. Rf1 Qxh2 23. Bb3 Qg3+ 24. Ke2

It may seem that black is getting counterplay against f7, but the game is actually over due to a queen sacrifice: 24... Qxb3! 25. Qxb3 Nd4+ 26. Kd3 Nxb3 27. Rf5 Rd8+ 28. Kc3 g6 29. Rd5 Rxd5 30. exd5 Nxc5 31. Kd4 Nd7 32. a4 Kg7 0-1