Chess Strategy

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”.

Now we are allowed to have visual. Even with pair of bishops and open position, it appears that black knights are having excellent play. Nd4 is untouchable because 15. Qxd4 Nf3 loses queen while after 15. b3 Qf6 threatening Nf3 black is having upper hand. The strategy of opening the position up fails as the black’s development advantage proves to be stronger factor in the game.

Botvinnik is choosing different line. He closed the center (and temporary, the game) with d5 in order to first complete his development. No fear about the bishops, pawn structure is flexible on both flanks and white can open up the position when he is ready for (completed development).

11. d5 Ne7

Can you imagine that knight is bad placed on this, for Kings Indian Defence, natural square? The point is that black won’t be able to launch the usual king-side pawn storm where knight goes to g6 to support the attack. Let’s see how Botvinnik prevented that.

Better was slower 11… Ncb8 with next a5, Nc5, Nbd7.

12. e4 f5 13. h4!

Crucial move! You might wonder why is white “wasting his time” with pawn move when we said above that he is behind with development? Shouldn’t he do something about it? The answer is in transformation after white has blocked the center with d5. It is much harder to create concrete threats while game is temporary closed. On that note, black cannot open it now with 13… fxe4 14. Nxe4 because his light squares are horribly weak and Ne4 will be wonderfully placed on e6. If black tries to prevent Ng5 with 14… h6, white has 15. h5! g5 and Bg7 is locked forever. h4-h5 is key against black’s aggression on king side. Another good feature of h4 is that white can play Bh3 and exploit all of the weak light squares - see also previous post Complex of Squares.

13… f4 14. Bh3 Rf6

Tricky defence. F-file opening with fxg3 can only cause more trouble for black because Bc1 is coming into the play. Black is cleaning f8 square for the knight or queen and preparing for possible exchange sacrifice at the convenient moment 15. Be6 Kh8 16. h5 g5 with the idea of killing white’s initiative after Rxe6. White, however, is not in a hurry to play Be6. “Threat is stronger then execution”.

15. Qe2 Bh6 16. Bd2 Nc5

Necessary was 16… a5.

17. b4 f3 18. Qf1 Bxd2 19. Kxd2 Na6 20. a3

Short fire exchange has ended. White gave up his pair of bishops but he increased his space advantage on queenside and black pawn on f3 is very weak.

20… c6 21.Qd3 Nc7 22.Rab1 Rb8 23.Rhc1 a5 24.b5 c5 25.b6 Ne8 26.Re1 Ng7 27.Re3 Qf8 28.Rb5 and Botvinnik won on move 54.