A tactic that Karpov and Kasparov both missed

Karpov – Georgadze, 1983

  Black to move. Where should the rook retreat?
In this position Black played 24… Rcc8 and experienced difficulties after White transferred the knight to c6. He later lost the game.
In his book “My 100 wins” (1984) Anatoly Karpov instead recommended 24… Rc7 (presumably to make sure that Be7 is guarded when White knight arrives to c6) 25. Nb4 Qf5 – “starting the counter attack as soon as possible”. There is a little tactical problem with that suggestion, that Karpov probably overlooked. It is ironic that Kasparov later copied the entire annotation in his Volume 5 of “My Great Predecessors”, without spotting the mistake (and I am pretty sure it is a mistake, since White gets to win a pawn or exchange on a spot without obvious compensation). That just goes to show that even world champions should blunder check their recommendations with engines (although of course there were no engines when Karpov’s book was first published).

Here is the position after Karpov’s suggested improvement of “Rc5-c7”.

White to move. How to win material immediately?

Feeling critical moments in a chess game

One important skill for a chess player is to feel the moment in a game when you really have to think hard and an make an important decision or two. How well do you sense such critical situations? In analysis, you or your engine can always identify the blunders, when advantage switches from one side to the other. But what about during the game? To measure your skill – I suggest recording time spent on each move on a score sheet during the game. While going through the game afterwards – it will be not hard to tell whether you spent enough time during the critical moments. You can also improve your time management by identifying moves on which you spent more time than necessary!

Looking at time spent will also reveal what of opponent’s moves came to you as a surprise…

Here is an example played with 1 hr 30 minutes per game, and 1 minute increments:
Yoos - Jiganchine, Keres Memorial 2009.
1. e4 c6
2. d4 d5
3. e5 c5
4. dxc5 e6
5. Be3 Nd7
6. Nf3 (1-24) Qc7 (1-29)
7. c4 (1-19) dxc4 (1-12)
8. Qa4 Bxc5 (1-11)
9. Bxc5 Qxc5
10. Nc3 Nh6 (59)
11. Ne4 (1-12) Qc6 (49)

Without even looking at the board or replaying the moves, this time spent after moves tells a story! Looking at the moves again, what can we see?
1. e4 c6
2. d4 d5
3. e5 c5
4. dxc5 e6
5. Be3 Nd7

The main line now is 6. Bb5
6. Nf3 (1-24)

Jack was spending several minutes here, so I was already feeling that my opening choice was not completely bad. But was he trying to remember theory, or just choosing which line to play to surprise me the most? He in fact had already played Nf3 in one of his games before!
6 ….Qc7 (1-29)
Now, the usual move is 6… Bc5, but because Black plays 6… Qc7 against 6.Bb5, I played the same move without much thinking. Clearly I did not sense an important difference between 6. Nf3 and 6. Bb5
7. c4 (1-19)
White must have either had this prepared at home and he was double checking, or it was part of his plan with Nf3. Either way, he was not spending too much time here yet.

7… dxc4 (1-12)
The almost 20 move think on move 7 shows that clearly I had not expected 7.c4, even though this is a somewhat common idea, and makes more sense with the queen on c7, rather than on d8.
8. Qa4 Bxc5 (1-11)
Only reasonable move, so makes sense to play it fast.
9. Bxc5 Qxc5
10. Nc3
 
Now Black has to choose between Nh6 and Ne7, so here comes a 10 minute think.
10… Nh6 (59)
11. Ne4 (1-12)

Again, White is playing reasonably fast, and at this point Black has to choose between 11… Qc6 and 11… b5 !?
11… Qc6 (49)
11 moves into it, I I already spent almost half of my time. I carried on in a similar fashion, got into time trouble and made a decisive blunder on move 16 already. All that could have arguably been prevented had a put a bit more thought on my critical decision on move 6, which I clearly did not!

David Bronstein had also been advocating including time spent as part of the game scores – since it is just as much part of the game as the actual moves! You can learn more about the trends in you play - going through the records of my games I noticed that in most games that I have lost – I had been spending more time than my opponent starting from the opening – this game against Yoos is a typical example.

It is a good tool for evaluating your overall understanding of the game as well. Mark Dvoretsky has an example in one of his books where he played an anti-positional move and immediately realized its flaws. He then goes on to explain that the fact that he played it very fast means to the coach that he is impulsive, whereas if he had spent a long time on it – that would have revealed poor positional understanding.

Analysing the endgame – looking for turning points

The logic of any given chess game usually does not become apparent until you dig deeper into it move by move. It takes time to understand the features of the position, identify the characteristic ideas, key positions and their evaluations. The computer is helpful, but in the endgame you want to tell if the +1.69 evaluation shown by the computer engine can actually be turned into a win, or it is, in fact a theoretical draw.

This position is from one of my games from Canadian Championship in 2004, Jiganchine - Bailey

White to move. Evaluate the position. Click here to replay the entire game.

The position seems messy; White is slightly ahead on material, but Black’s pawns look quite dangerous. Who is better? White won the game, but primarily because my opponent tried to play against my time trouble. While analysing the endgame, I had 3 goals:

1. Establish some understanding and rough evaluation of the starting position
2. Determine key ideas for both sides
3. Go through the game move by move searching for improvements, keeping track of critical moments – when evaluation of the position changes – e.g. from being equal to winning for White.

After a couple of hours in front of the computer I came up with this:

1. The starting position is roughly equal – both sides can build a fortress of their own, so with correct play, I don’t see how any side can play for a win
2. White and Black have several ideas
   1. White has two key ideas – to not lose, he needs to block Black ‘f’ and and ‘g’ pawns along dark squares, keeping the king on g3. If White wants to win – his goal is to obtain a passed pawn. That appears hard in the initial position, but may become a possibility if Black becomes too ambitious.
      Black to move. He can’t counter the advance of the ‘a’ pawn, while Black’s pawns are blocked.
      
   2. Black’s idea is to support the advance of kingside pawns with the king, and if possible – to counterattack the pawn on h6. A position like this illustrates that Black’s pawns can get dangerous:
      White to move (analysis) – he is in zugzwang and is losing!
      If the rook moves from g7 along 7th rank – Black will play g4-g3 with deadly effect
3. Black was doing ok, but at some point erred by moving his king to e5 – too far from the ‘h’ pawns. Watch this video to follow my analysis of all the things that my opponent and myself had missed:

White to win – find the combination

Johnson – Jiganchine, Keres Memorial 2007, Vancouver

White to move

Watch this YouTube video to see the solution.

Pawn storm in the Sicilian – Salov swindles Gelfand

Salov – Gelfand, 1998

White to move

The d4 knight is attacked, but it is an essential piece for White’s initiative. How to keep the attack going and justify White’s pile of heavy pieces on the ‘h’ file?
Watch the video for the answer and to see the entire game – White actually got a bit carried away with his sacrifices and was lost right before the time control, but a fortunate swindle brought him a full point.

Ivanchuk – Topalov, a brilliant attacking game

I continue to study the typical middlegame positions by making YouTube videos with grandmaster games.
Today it is Ivanchuk – Topalov, 1996.

Here are few key moments:
White to move. How to prevent Black’s counterplay on the queenside?

White to move. The key point of the game, Ivanchuk’s chance to shine. Black just played Ne5-c6; does the White rook have to retreat or is there a way to increase the pressure against  ‘f7’ while the rook is on the 7th rank?

White to move. Bg2 is his least active piece, how to bring it into the game?

The game makes a great impression, given how White sacrifices the pawns to open up the diagonals for his bishops. Here are more observations about this middlegame structure:

1. White can control the ‘a’ file effectively after black plays b7-b5
2. b2-b4 normally weakens a lot of squares along the ‘c’ file in the Open Sicilian, but when White has control over the center – can be effective at preventing b5-b4, Nd7-c5, and leaves Black’s ‘b’ pawn a good target.
3. f7 pawn is also a good target if the Black rook is on e8 and the Black knight leaves e5 square
4. If you play against Vassily Ivanchuk, and you attack his rook on the queenside, he is probably going to move a pawn on the kingside…

You can also replay through the game in the pgn viewer at chessgames.com.

Korchnoi – Udovcic – A Wrench in the French

White to move.

I would describe the spirit of White’s attack as “he can only take them one at a time”; several of White’s pieces are being attacked, and he keeps sacrificing … In this game Korchnoi shows that he is not only a great defender, but is also able to attack with vigour when necessary. The video has the solution and goes over the whole game (you may notice that this line of the French defence had also occurred in one of my recent games). The game is also discussed on the chessgames forum.