David Bronstein – Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953

186 Pages·2005·31.07 MB·English

( Position after 17..Rab8 )

Initiating a straightforward
siege of the a-pawn.

Black hasn't the time to bring
the knight to b6: if 2l..Nd7,
then 22 Bb2 Nb6 23 Qc3, forking
g7 and a5.

Strategically, Black already
has a won game: the a-pawn is
falling, while White has yet to
find useful employment for his
bishops. In this difficult sit-
uation, Najdorf employs the res-
iliency of his position to work
up one last tactical try.

As time-pressure approaches,
the less strategy and the more
tactics.

How to meet the threat of

25..N:a4 is a question White was
never called upon to answer, be-
cause Reshevsky, having four mi-
nutes left to make his last 16
moves, offered a draw. Evidently
he was unable to calculate fully
the consequences of White's com-
bination 25 Ng4 N:a4 26 N:f6+ gf
27-Q:f6.

Right after the game, and later
in his published commentaries as
well, Najdorf showed that he had
a guaranteed draw:' for example,
27.. N:b2 28 Bg4, and there is
no escaping the perpetual after
29 B:e6+ and 30 Bf5+. etc. One
pretty variation is 28. .Qg7
29 B:e6+ Kh7 30 Bf5+ Kh8 31 Rd8+

If Black had not taken thepawn

at move 25, playing 25..e5 in-
stead, then 26 Qc2 and 27 Qg6
also leads inevitably to a per-
petual check.

White would have had a harder
time if, instead of 24..Nb6,Black
had simply played 24..B:a4, leav-
ing the knight to defend the king
side. Now 25 Ng4 would not have
nearly the same effect, in view
of 25.. e5 26 Qc2 Nf8. Another
possibility after 24..Nb6 25 Ng4
would be 25..Nd4; for example:
26 ed N:a4, etc. The aim of
25..Nd4 is to close off the c3-
£6 diagonal, thereby cancelling
out White's N:f6+ gf; Q:f6.Since
such variations are impossible to
calculate accurately in time-
pressure, Reshevsky preferred the

DRAW

3. Petrosian-Keres
(English Opening)

In contrast to his opponent's
somewhat slothful play, Keres is
handling the opening energetic-
ally: taking advantage of a tac-
tical nuance (7 Nf3 d4 8 N:e5
Qa5+), he obtains a brace of
powerful center pawns, just
waiting for the chance to push
onward.

It was time to start thinking
about castling and developing
the rooks to support the further
advance of the pawns. One at-
tractive line, involving long
castling- lO..B:f3 11 B:f3 e4
12 Bg2 h6 13 b3 Qd7 14 Bb20-0-0-
fails to come off, because on
the 11th move White recaptures,
not with the bishop, but with
the pawn, which he then advances
to f4, breaking up the enemy
center pawns. After the text
move, Black no longer has to
worry about an eventual b2-b4.

Black sets up the threat of

12..e4, but grants White the
opportunity to stop this pawn
cold. After 11. .Be7!, White
would not have had this block-
ading opportunity. In order to
meet the threatened advance of
the e-pawn, White would have
been practically forced to make
the exchange on £6.

The most important point in
this position is unquestionably
d4: it marks the intersection
of the lines of force from the
black bishop to the white king
and from the black rook to the
white queen; also, if the black
knight could get to d4, it would
take away four squares from the
white queen and strengthen the
pin on the knight at £3. White's
next - and quite obvious - move
will reduce the value of this
communications nexus to a mini-
mum, if not to zero. The block-
aded d-pawn will frustrate both
the bishop on c5 and the rook on
a8 with its aspirations to d8.
The nexus could have been cleared
for the price of a Pa-:
14-.d3

would have given Black a very
promising game.

Black could not capture the h-
pawn, since 17 B:h3 Q:h3 18 Nd:e5
N:e5 19 N:e5 would have deprived
him of either the castling priv-
ilege or his d-pawn; and retreat-
ing to h5 would have permitted
17 N:d4!

A pretty final stroke, based on
combinative motifs, to the defen-
sive system White has devised.
If Black exchanges queens and
continues with ..f7-£6, he will
lose: 19..Q:f5 20 ef £6 21 R:c6!
bc 22 B:c6+ Kf7 23 Bd5+!, fol-
lowed by the capture of the rook
at a8. If, after exchanging
queens, Black defends the e-pawn
with his bishop instead, then
White has a positional advantage.
And if 19..Qd6, then 20 £4 g6
21 fe, or 20 Rc5 are strong.

19..Bd6 20. Q:e6+ fe 21. a3 Kd7
22. Bfl a4 23. Nel Ra5 24. ~ c 2
Rc8 25. Racl Na7 26. R:c8 N:c8
27. Bc4 Be7

The position is now a clear
draw: White's knight returns to
d3 presently, leaving Black no
place to penetrate. Keres plays
it out to the 41st move and ad-
journs, hoping to find some hid-
den resource at his leisure.

28. Nd3 Nd6 29. f3 N:c4 30. R:c4

Bd6 31. Kf2 Ra6 32. Ke2 g5
33. Kdl Ra8 34. Ke2 h5 35. Rcl
Rh8 36. Rhl h4 37. g4 b5 38. Rcl
Rb8 39. Kdl Rb6 40. Rc2 Rb8
41. Rcl Rc8

The game was agreed a

DRAW

without further play.

4. Averbakh-Smyslov
(Ruy Lopez)
e2-e4
e7-e5

Ngl-£3
Nb8-c6

Bf 1-b5
a7-a6

Bb5-a4
Ng8-f6

0-0
Bf 8-e7
Rfl-el
b7-b5
Ba4-b3
d7-d6

c2-c3
0-
0
h2 -h3
Nc6-a5

Bb3-c2
c7-c5

d2-d4
Qd8-c 7

Chigorin's System in the Ruy
Lopez is a frequent guest in in-
ternational competition, but it
appeared in Zurich only six
times. White marshals his forces
for a kingside attack which gen-
erally doesn't have much bite to
it, since today's grandmasters
have learned quite well how to
set up a defensible position.
Not surprisingly, therefore, most
of the games played with this
variation have lately been wind-
ing up drawn.

I find it hard to tie White's
last two moves in with his stra-
tegic plan: the bishop on d2 and
the rook on cl are not one whit
better placed than they were at
their original positions. After
Chis loss of two tempi, White's
diversion on the kingside can
have no serious future. Averbakh
decides to generate piece play
on this wing without taking on
additional responsibilities with
the advance of the g-pawn.

This being the first round,
both players wage rather blood-
less battle: neither has yet
pushed a man past the boundary
of his own territory. Both sides
are concealing, as much as pos-
sible, the area in which they in-
tend to take action.

In the event of 23 hg, Black
had prepared the reply 23.. Qh4.

As a result of White's slow
play, Black has obtained aslight
advantage. Now he wishes to se-
cure d4 for his knight, but he
might well have considered a plan
involving ..c5-c4, which could be
prepared here with 28..a5.

(See diagram, top of next page)

Smyslov wasn't worried about
the check at h6, intending sim-
ply to move his king to f8; but

at the last moment he noticed the
textbook stroke 31 B:c5!, and the
queen is lost. Now he must give
up his darksquare bishop instead,
which might have proved decisive
under other circumstances.

DRAW

Black's centralized knightful-

ly compensates for White's pow-
erful bishop at h6.

-L-1.-8--1^.^1.
,. ,. ,. ,. ,. ,.

5. Taimanov-Bronstein
(Benoni Defense)
It's a difficult thing tomain-

tain objectivity when commenting
on one's own games. Variations
running in the commentator's fa-
vor are always interesting, so
details flow quick and plentiful
from the yen; variations which
favor one s opponent, however,
are often unclear as can be.For
one's own mistakes, one seeks
(and generally finds) justifi-
cation; while the opponent's er-
rors seem so natural as to need
no explanation whatever. So even
before beginning to comment on
my game from Round One, I feel
compelled to note that Black did
not have a decisive advantage
until very late in the game, al-
most the very end. Psychologic-
ally, White's loss can be traced
to the fact that he missed the

turning point of the game, at
which it was necessary for him
to begin giving serious thought
to the problem of how to get a
draw. As regards the purely
chessic reasons for his loss,
these I shall try to illuminate
in my notes.

What does Black achieve by
sacrificing a pawn? First, he
undermines the spearhead of the
white pawn chain, the pawn on
d5; in addition, after the un-
avoidable ..a7-a6 and b5:a6, he
obtalns the good diagonal a6-£1
for his bishop, which would have
far fewer prospects along the
c8-h3 diagonal. The two open
files Black obtains on thequeen- ,
side, allowing him active play
against White s a- and b-pawns,
also speak in favor of the sac-
rifice. Nor ought we to forget
Black's bishop at g7: sinceBlack
intends to leave his e-pawn at e7
in this system, the bishop's
sphere of activity is automatic-
ally increased. And finally,
there is the interesting strate-
gic idea (encountered also in
other variations of the ~ing's
~ndian) of developing thequeen's
rook without moving it from its
original square.

Of course, the sacrifice has
its deficiencies as well, chief
among these being the pawn defi-
cit. Should White gradually suc-
ceed in overcoming all his diffi-
culties, and reach an endgame, he
will have excellent winning chan-
ces. It is for this last reason
that this variation was not seen
in any more games from this tour-
nament. I used it here, partly
because I did not want to begin
this tournament with the sort of
protracted defense Black is us-
ually forced to put up with in
one of the "normal" lines.

Up to this point, Black might
still have hoped to regain his
pawn, but now it becomes a real
sacrifice.
I

Once I had precisely the same
position to play, but as White,
vs. Lundin at Stockholm, 1948. I
traded bishops, whereupon Black
recaptured at a6 with his knight,
which he then brought via c7 and
b5 to d4. This seemed overly pro-
tracted to he, so in the present
game I recaptured at a6 with my
rook, sending the queen's knight
via d7 and b6 to a4, trading off
the white queen's knight and
weakening the defense of the
pawns at a2 and b2.

Taimanov has decided on e4-e5,
cracking the foundation of the
Black position; but this proves
tactically unrealizable. White
would have had more prospects
with 11 Bf4 and 13 Qd2, instead
of his 11 Re1 and 13 Qe2: after-
wards, he could post his rooks
to cl and bl, with the idea of
gradually clearing all of his
pieces and pawns off the enemy
bishop's long diagonal. And af-
ter that, White would prepare
the advance b2-b4, beginning
the active realization of his
extra pawn. This is how I played
against Lundin, and I still con-
sider it to be the correct plan.

Taimanov's intended 14 e5 no
longer appeals to him in view of
14..de 15 N:e5 N:e5 16 Q:e5 Q:e5
17 R:e5 Kf8.

Once again, 16 e5 de 17 N:e5

£6 does not work, but this does
not mean he should have brought
the bishop back. 16 a3 was bet-
ter, allowing Black to recover
his pawn at the cost of his dark-
square bishop: 16..B:c3 17 bc
R:a3 18 Racl. Black would stand
actively on the queenside, but
with some dangerous darksquare
weaknesses about his king.

I did not want to capture the
a-pawn, since White would then
achieve his goal: 18..R:a2?
19 R:a2 R:a2 20 e5, and Black has
no queenside targets, while White
gets some dangerous threats in
the center.

lack's endgame advantage is
founded on the fact that hisbase
pawn at e7 is close to home and
therefore easy to defend, while
the white pawns at c3 and e4 af-
ford excellent targets to lack's
rooks. If the e-pawn advances,
then the pawn on d5 becomes weak.
The following lines give an ap-
proximate idea of what all this
means in practical terms: 21 Q:a6

R8:a6 22 Re2 Nf6; or 22 e5 Nc7;
or 22 Rabl R:a2 23 Rb8 Ra8
24 Rebl Ral. Taimanov was cor-
rect in avoiding this exchange
of queens - but he should also
have avoided it later on.

Either White overestimatedhis
endgame chances, or else he sim-
ply failed to give proper con-
sideration to Black s strong
24th move.

Black now has a weak pawn at

c5, and White could, for exam-
ple, exchange knights and give
up his two queenside pawns for
Black's one, and the draw would
be assured, since the rook end-
game with four pawns against
three on the same side is gene-
rally not winnable. All this,
however, is easier said than
done.

Taimanov is a born optimist.
Having weathered his troubles
reasonably enough, he immedi-
ately begins to ask himself
why he cannot simply win the
black pawn. 26 Kfl would have
been a more suitable move for
the endgame, and would have

left White far fewer, if any,
losing chances.

Meeting the threatened 29 Nd7+

and threatening in turn to at-
tack the pawn at c3. Suddenly it
becomes clear that Black can also
attack kingside pawns successful-
ly. A rook behind enemy lines is
a force to be reckoned with.

White was on the point of los-
ing his knight: 31 Kg3 £5; or if
31 Kg1 Re2 32 Ng3 Rel+ 33 Kh2 £5.

Taking the c-pawn would cost
White his f-pawn; after that, the
attempt to pick up the h-pawn is
refuted as follows: 34 R:c4 R:f2
35 N:h7+ Kg7 36 Ng5 R:g2+ 37 K:g2
Ne3+, and the knight endgame is
won for Black.

Take the knights from the
board, and this game must wind
up drawn; but Black's knight has
time to fork-

White protects his f-pawn, but

WHITE RESIGNED

6. Euwe-Kotov
(Benoni Defense)