Chess Strategy

Doubled Pawns after the Queens exchange, part 1
Doubled Pawns after the Queens exchange, part 2

Download all three articles in PGN for your game viewer. If you don’t have any, use ChessBase Light (free).

Alexander Kotov - Grigory Levenfish
URS-ch Moscow, 1949

Black has some problems with pieces coordination as Nb7 and Bd7 are not perfectly placed. Rook is tied for a6 pawn, while b4 and e4 pawns might also come under attack. Still, Black might be able to consolidate over the next few moves, for example if he plays a5-a4, weakness from a6 will be eliminated and Rook gets open file. Knight can also activate via d6.

All this means that White’s advantage is time-sensitive and he should do something over the next few moves in order to maintain or increase it. Rook is holding the open c-file and it would be nice to reach the 7th rank. However, Black Queen, the only well placed Black piece at the moment, is covering c7 square. In one of the earlier articles “Positional factors and their importance”, we said: - Always try to exchange opponent’s most active pieces. In this case, trading Black Queen would open the gates to the 7th rank and e4 pawn would become increasingly vulnerable.

28.Qd4!
Kotov is not afraid of ghosts! Doubled central pawns are not really a weakness as Black won’t be having time to attack them with Nd6-Nf5. After the Queen’s exchange, Black will have to lose moves on protecting Bd7 and pawns a6, b4 and e4.

Read the rest of this entry »

Doubled Pawns after the Queens exchange, part 1

Mikhail Botvinnik - Nikolay Sorokin
URS-ch Moscow, 1931

White has better development, better pieces placement and doubled Rooks on the open d-file. Black has to take care of the e5 pawn, f7 can also be a target in the future, Bc8 is still undeveloped and Nb6 is not on the best square as c6 is natural for this Knight. All this tells us that White is better, but how to progress? Black is slightly passive, but he’s holding everything under control at the moment.

20.Qe3!!
Unexpected, and at first sight, paradoxical solution. Botvinnik is allowing doubled isolated pawns in the center, but he correctly determinated that Qc5 is holding Black’s position together. After the Queens’ exchange, pawn e5 will be hanging and a5 finally becomes a threat. Furthermore, Black will be having problems with Nb6 and how to stop breach over the d-file (d6 or d7).

Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Holidays to everyone who celebrate them

I have found quite a few games where one of the players is offering Queen’s exchange, even if it means significant damage in the pawn structure. This will be compensated with other pluses, usually in much better pieces’ placement and coordination. The article will be posted in three parts, full PGN file in the final post.

Mikhail Botvinnik - Max Euwe
Den Haag/Moscow, 1948

Botvinnik sacrificed a pawn to bring pieces to attacking positions. Queen and Bishops are on excellent places, White only has to open files for the Rooks. It has to be done quick though, because Black can play Nd5 next and completely neutralize the pressure.

20.f3!!
20.Bxf6? Qxf6 21.Qxe4 Bf5 Black catches on with the development.

20…Nd5
There is no time to take on f3 because 20…exf3 21.Bb1! with idea Bxh7+ is crushing 21…h6 (21…fxg2 22.Rxf6) 22.Rxf3 Nd5 23.Rg3!! Qxh4 24.Rxg7+ Kh8 25.Rh7+ Kg8 26.Rh8#;
20…Be6 was decent however, 21.fxe4! it is all about one tempo (21.Bb1 Nd5 22.Qxe4 f5 with next 23…Nc3 and equal play, Botvinnik) 21…Bxa2 22.Rxf6! (22.Bxf6? gxf6 23.Rf3 Be6 24.e5 Rfe8 25.exf6 Qf8 26.Rg3+ Kh8 27.Rg7 Bf5 and now Black is winning) 22…Kh8 (22…gxf6? 23.Bxf6; 22…Be6 23.Qg3 Qd7 24.Ref1!) 23.Qg3 with attack for White.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Bogdan Girmacea

The first one to give great contribution about this subject was Aron Nimzovitch in his famous book “My System”. He says that the group mobility of pawns, and not the mobility of one pawn, can become a great fighting instrument, which usually leads to decisive advantage. Why is a mobile group of pawns so important? Because a mobile group of pawns can:

a) control a lot of important squares on the board
b) limit activity of opponent’s pieces
c) give attacking chances to the side that has them
d) give space advantage

But let’s see a concrete example to understand better. I will show you the game Spassky - Petrosian, from the 1966 World Championship.

Read the rest of this entry »

When evaluating position, we should consider factors with their static (absolute) and dynamic (relative) value. So, counting pawn islands, weak squares, pieces’ placement, safety of the kings etc is the first step to be taken. Next is to reconsider each of the assessments in respect of their correlation with other factors, both static and dynamic, and time potential. Time potential means how fast can factor change, to better or worse, and how can this influence with other factors. This is where chess becomes hard and we have to make choices on what is the (most) important feature in the given position.

Let’s see what are the factors in diagrammed setup. White has three pawn islands, black only two. White has to take care of c4 and possibly a2 pawns, while black keeps eye on c7. Pawn a2 is potential passer and both kings seem to be safe at the moment. Nd5 and Bd4 are wonderfully anchored in the center, Bh4 is not that bad either, Rb1 is on the open file, Re8 is on the semi-open file, while black pieces on the a-file might be a bit misplaced.

Now it is important to revise everything said above and see how these factors behave in the real-time, ie next couple of moves. With locked pawn structures, real-time can be extended to 15 or more moves.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the game I played last weekend in a team event. Similar to “5th Deadly Chess Sin”, I will reproduce my thoughts that occurred during the clash. Note that I didn’t run the moves through the chess program, if you find any tactical flaws, please mention it in the comments.

Goran Urosevic - Boban Stojanovic

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3
In the first round, I played the Catalan and lost the game (will post that soon). This time I wanted to try something else.

4… Be7 5. Bg5 h6
I don’t know if this move order (more common is 5… 0-0 and h6 later) has any significance in the sense of allowing/avoiding certain lines. While 6. Bh4 would have been normal transposition, I was happy to get off the hot lines of the Orthodox Queens Gambit, and quickly snapped on f6.

6. Bxf6 Bxf6

I grinned while taking on f6 and I think my opponent saw that. The thing is that in the last year’s league I lost only one game, and it was because I started a combination to win the bishop’s pair, while blundering simple intermediate move (zwischenzug). That was one of the most embarrassing defeats ever, in only 17 moves. I remember how one of the team-mates criticized me for “recklessly running after the pair of bishops”. I was happy to show him this time how “universal” player I am by giving the bishop for knight on 6th move.

This continuation is, of course, well known in the modern opening theory. White will quickly finish the development while black will be a bit passive for awhile, because his bishops can’t easily reach any of the good diagonals. By removing Nf6, black is losing some of the control over e4 and d5, and we will see how could white exploit this advantage.

Read the rest of this entry »

In yesterday’s post I recommended “Perfect Your Chess” by GM Andrei Volokitin and IM Vladimir Grabinsky. Here is one sample from the first chapter “Make a Move”. From the chapter intro: We set ourselves the task of choosing positions where it is sufficient to suggest only one move. Just as in a game, a player has to solve problems of various types, so here you will find a mix of quiet moves, zwischenzugs, winning moves, prophylactic moves, etc.

Black to move. Discuss the position in comments.

by GM Alex Finkel

In this post I would like to show you that learning and analyzing the games of top players isn’t just very useful to enrich your opening knowledge and expand the horizons, but it has a great practical value too!

Quite a few years ago, I analyzed game Leko-Khalifman for one of the issues of Chessbase magazines…

I guess it’s worth mentioning that many chess fans consider Peter Leko rather “boring player”. Indeed, his games very rarely include sharp tactical battles, unbalanced positions with most of pieces hanging in the air and amazing sacrifices - kind of chess most chess fans enjoy to see (not that he is incapable of providing that kind of stuff, it’s just he prefers a different approach to the game…).

However if we are inclined to learn about deep positional play and carrying out complex strategic plans I can’t think of player whose games are more suitable and comprehensive for this purpose than Peter Leko!

Speaking of above-mentioned encounter Leko-Khalifman, I consider it a classic example of good knight versus bad bishop play in French defense. Due to my exposure to this game back in 2000 (!), I had a very easy life in one of my rare tournament games more than 5 years afterwards!

Read the rest of this entry »

Egoism, according to Jonathan Rowson. Last year I played open tournament in Senta and in round 3 I was paired to play young girl Ana Gebejes. On the previous day I was “butchering” an IM and I thought 200 points lower-rated opponent will just roll over and lose without too much effort from my side. Wrong! Each game demands full mobilization and each opponent deserves respect. The former U18 Serbian champion, as she told me after the game, played very well. Here is the game with comments of GM Michael Roiz and I will add couple of notes to explain my decision-making process.

Ana Gebejes - Goran Urosevic
Senta, 2006

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3
Earlier I played Semi-Slav but after three years of inactivity I wanted to try Nimzo Indian defence. Before the tournament, I planned to enter classical Queens Indian on 3.Nf3, but when she actually played it, I started to doubt my choice. What if she, unlike myself, knows perfect theory and I end up in one of those annoying plus/equal positions? What if we end in one of the most drawish variation(s) in the world? I had no clue about the Benoni, but I wanted to play for win.

3… c5 4. d5 exd5 6. cxd5 Bd6!?

This move earned the post title. I wanted to avoid the theory and played rare move expecting to confuse the young girl. Bd6 makes it slightly different than regular Benoni, in the sense that Black is losing some tempi but it could be possible to build stronger pressure against e4 pawn (by exchanging its defender Nc3). I tried the variation on couple of blitz occasions and almost all of my opponents, including FMs, failed to find good solutions. But this “statistics” actually tricked me, as longer time controls are something completely different.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mio’s Hidden Ideas by IM Miodrag Perunovic

Dragon variation was a real nightmare for e4 players some 15 years ago! Particularly when players like Kiril Georgiev, Boris Alterman, Chris Ward and Thomas Ernst introduced it to their repertoire. Even Kasparov used it in his match for the World Championship against Anand in a few deciding games with big success! Nowadays, GM’s like Sergey Tivjakov, Fedorov, Golubev and a few others play it with solid results, although none of the top 20 plays it anymore. This might be the reason for the “Dragoners” to feel a bit insecure, losing their confidence. If devoted Dragoners like Georgiev and Alterman don’t play it anymore - it is time to introduce new fresh ideas and bring the Dragon back to life!

Download PGN file for your game viewer. If you don’t have any, use ChessBase Light (free).

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6
We will start with some of the rare sidelines. Future articles will go over moves like 6. Be2; 6. Bc4; 6.g3 What can be the motif of playing sidelines with White pieces in an early stage of the game? The answer is simple and logical - 1) White wants to surprise Black, one of the very common strategies nowadays; 2) White wants to avoid the complications in the main Dragon lines, and by playing these rare moves, he simply reduces time necessary for preparation. So, White has a few interesting possibilities here but none of them is dangerous for Black! Sidelines are: 6.Nd5?! - rare and not the best attempt to surprise an opponent; 6. h4!? - pretty savage move; 6. h3!? with the idea of playing g4!?; 6. Bg5!? Bg7 7. Bb5!? - just an awkward variation, possibly good as surprise, nothing special; 6. Bc4 - maybe the best attempt to take an advantage with White pieces in B70 ECO code; 6. Be2 - calm move, and without real danger for Black; 6. g3!? - many good GMs like fianchetto variations, we have covered one of the subvariations in our previous article.

6.h4!?
By playing this kind of move in the early stage of the game, White clearly announces that he is going for the kill. It could be a very interesting idea against calm and slow-paced players, but the point is: Who would play Dragon with black if he is calm player I think that first to try 6.h4 was Drasko Velimirovic in his game against Watson, but the outcome was depressing for him.

Read the rest of this entry »