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
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) 
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)
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)
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
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:
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.
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
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 #
After 30. a4!, there is no other good defence, e.g. 30... a6 31. a5+ Kb7 32. Rd7+ Kb8 33. Re1 Kc8 34. Rxg7
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 played 33… Kc4? (33… Kc3 was better) and resigned after 34. Rc7 Kd4 35. Rc5! 1-0
8/p7/8/2Rp1R1p/KP1k3r/P2r1P2/5P2/8 b - - 0 35
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.
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
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.
Posts
All Comments
