Chess Strategy

Tigran Petrosian - Florian Gheorghiu
Moskow, 1967

1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. g3 Bb4 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O Re8 7. d3 h6 8. Nd5 Bf8 9. Nxf6+ Qxf6 10. Nd2 d6 11. Ne4 Qd8 12. Nc3 Bd7 13. b4 Qc8

With his last move Black is intending to trade light-squared bishops on h3. Petrosian could have played 14. Re1 to avoid the trade but he has something else on his mind. The main point is that Black will lose couple of tempos Qc8-Bh3-Bg2 to complete the trade and White can use that time to fulfill his own plans.

14. Rb1 Bh3 15. e4

Closing the long diagonal but it doesn’t really matter anymore. Black has already lost too many moves and he can’t afford the luxury of not trading Bg2. If bishop retreats to e6 or d7, White can play f4 gaining big advantage.

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Mikhail Botvinnik - Vassily Smyslov
Moskow, 1957

1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 O-O 5.d4 d6 6.Nf3 Bg4 7.h3 Bxf3 8.Bxf3 Nc6 9.Bg2 Nd7 10.e3 e5

This position is our first marking point. It is important to emphasize two factors - white has pair of bishops and black is bit ahead with development, white still has to castle and bring his Bc1 out.

Most of the chess players were taught an axiom: when you have pair of bishops, open up the position. Let’s do a small exercise and see how the axiom applies here. Try to follow this line in your mind (without moving the pieces on your board!) and evaluate the position after 14th move: 11. 0-0 exd4 12. exd4 Nxd4 13. Bxb7 Rb8 14. Bg2 Ne5.

Don’t rush, take your time. This is good way of improving your “foresight”, contrary to looking at the entire article at once to only help your “hindsight” which is pretty much useless in practical play. GM Jonathan Rowson introduced concept of foresight/hindsight in his book “Chess For Zebras”. Only when you have your opinion formed, click on “read the rest of this entry”.

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I asked my friend and supporter Nosherwan Minwalla what he would like to read about. He mentioned the control and usage of dark (light) squares. One of the good examples can be Kasparov-Shirov game from previous post. After removing Shirov’s light-squared bishop, Kasparov used unprotected f5 square to break into the black’s position.

Yoseliani-Gurieli
Frunze, 1978

White is trying to exploit open f-file and pressure on f7 pawn. She was hoping to win the exchange after..

29. Nxc6 bxc6 30. Bc5

…but completely underestimated transformation after unbalanced trade.

30… Nxc5! 31. Rxd8 Raxd8

If 31. Qxc5 Qe8 and black is comfortable. In the current position black has rook, bishop and pawn for white queen material wise. But looking deeper, we can notice that black light pieces are very well coordinated and he is controlling the entire complex of dark squares in and around the center.

32. Ne2

Natural aim to cover at least some of the dark squares. The transformation after the trades must have had negative psychological impact on Yoseliani. She was expecting to “crush” her opponent after winning the exchange (in case black didn’t play 31.. Nxc5), but instead she is forced to defend the position with badly coordinated pieces. Still, there was some tactical potential left. White could have tried 32. Nd5 with the idea of covering d-file after 32… cxd5 33. Qxc5. Possible line is 32. Nd5 Nxe4 33. Ne7 Kh8 34. Ng6! Kg8 (best) 35. Ne7 with repetition.

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