Think Like a Grandmaster Alexander Kotov Translated by Bernard Cafferty Algebraic Classics Series Series Editor: Dr. John Nunn GM B. T. Batsford Ltd, Londoning pabied i dhe USSR. Pnghth eandation © BT Basford Led, 1971 ith impresion 1978 Reprinced 1960, 192, 1964, 1985, 1986, 1988, 190, 1994 Fine altri edi 1995 Repented 2001, 2002 (wc) 2008 ISBN 0 7138 7585 3 Briss Library Caloguing-Pablicsion Dat, ‘Netalogue second for this Book ‘ibe fom de Beash Library |All igh reserved No put ofthis Book may be repmadced by any esas, wothou prior permision ofthe publishes, “Typeset by Jota Nunn and Pea Fink an printed in Great Bean by ‘Greve Pint ané Desig fr te publisher: BT Basford Ll “The Chrys Basing Bramley Road Landon WI0 6S ‘an pen of Calis 208s Grow le Unie State and Cana by Seking Publishing Co. South New Yor, NYI0016, USA A HATSFORD CHESS BOOK Contents Symbols Preface Introduction: An Unusual Experiment 1 Analysis of Variations Do you Know how to Analyse? Historical Digrssion ‘The Thee of Analysis, Forced and Uaforced Variations Different Types of Tree ‘Bare Tron ‘A‘Coppice” “Thickets of Variations’ ‘Selection of Candidate Moves ‘What is a Candidate Move? “Creeping Moves’ Grose Blunders Dizziness due to Success Conditioned Reflexes “The Blind Spot ‘Through the Eyes ofa Pater ~ Blumenfeld’s Rule More Practical Advice "To Analyse of Nott Analyse? Positions for Analysis or Judgement ‘Trust your Opponeat or Not? ‘Time-rouble Exercises 2 Positional Judgement ‘Open Lines and Diagonals "Modern Ideas on Open Lines ‘Pawn Strcnure and Weak Squares ‘Weak Squares Passed Pawns 3 BReeee ysrnssoasyyPawn Ilands ‘Weak Colour Complexes “The Poston ofthe Pieces oor Position ofa Number of Pieces Space and the Cente Exercises ‘Aa Experiment Continued Iitate Botvnnik or Najdort? ‘What is Concrete and What is General? General Questions and Preparation ‘The Opening Mialegame ‘The Ending General Formulae and Concrete Analysis 3 Planning ‘A Single Plan Planlssness Punished Be Flexible ‘The Ceare ‘Closed Cente Open Centre Mobile Cease Fixed Coote ‘Tension in the Centre Exercises 4 The Ending 5 APlayer’s Knowledge Opening Stady Init Posie to Sudy the Middlegame? Adjourned Games ‘Advice on Various Questions (Chess and Lite “The Factors of Saccest Know Your Opponent Know Thysef! Solutions tothe Exercises Index of Names 100 103 108 14 120 124 125 m 129 130 10 130 a a 136 136 140 143 147 147 49 150 152 133 184 156 165 166 110 m 15 us 116 17 178 a1 as Symbols check Good move Brilliant move Bad move Blunder Mate (D)_ Diagram follows egus-tPreface ‘An immense number of books have been writen on chess. Some chess ‘writers annotate recent games, oth ers compile aad bring up to date works on opening variations, but, strange as it may seem, no one has had the idea of describing the meth fds by which the leading players of fous time have reached the peak of thei playing svength. Yet study of these methods would prety faii- tate the process of mastering the in- tccacies of the game Th this book the author describes hhow Botvinnik, Tal, Smyslov, Pe- twosian, Keres, Bronstein and many other leading grandmasters studied chess theory, and tained themselves tounderstand the mysteries of chess strategy and tactics. They them- selves have revealed some of theit ‘methods in articles and game anno- tations, while T have become ac uainted with others from personal Conversations with my fellow grand= ‘The reader will also find an ac count of my own personal experi- ‘ence ~ my achievements inthe Held fof chess are the result of immense hard work in suidying theory, and 1 Aauer myself that this experience will prove to be of interest 1 the reader. Chess is a complex game, yet rillions of enthusiasts are fasci- ‘nated by it Some of them reach the playing strength of first or second fategory player, while others are ‘satisfied {o be known all their life as ‘a beginner’. Yet surely even a ‘weak player would lke 10 win a chess title and be known ab master, for even grandmaster. If someone could only show them how to reach this goal, then many of these enthu- siasts would be prepared to set off along the long and irksome road of tournament play wit ll its exciting and nerve-racking experiences. How then does one become & grandmaster? Is it the case that a strong player's abilities are purely natural and that hard work cannot change anything? Naturally there ‘mut be some inherent ability, but a= in other spheres of human endeay- ‘our the main factor i immense, on- stinting effort to master the skills of chess strategy and tactics. “That great chess thinker Emanuel Lasker asserted that inthe space of 100 hours he could produce a first- category player from a youag man ‘of average ability Could one go fur ther than that? Lasker never had ‘occasion to prove the validity of his claim: the queso naturally arises:10 Preface could one by dint of careful study ‘and hard work go as far as becoming ‘Amaster ori the end a grandmas: ‘My own experience tells me that such sud and hard work do lead to Immense improvements in one's practical results, I would remind the feader that up to 1938 T had never ‘managed to reach master standard, ‘but my study ofthe game inthe pe- od. 1936-37 led suddenly toa "great leap forward’ T gained the ‘matter title in 1938 and only one ‘year Iter that of grandmaster. fol- lows that one can become a grand- raster by one's own endeavours fone merely has to work hard at it How exacly 10 go about it is con tained inthis book. ‘A few points ae worth noting: 1) My dese wo make the book as clear and helpful as possible has {ed me to employ new names for some strategic laws and concepts. ‘This was not done in an atempt to tay for an unnecessarily scientific approach, but merely 10 help the ‘memorisation of important points 2) The book makes use to a large extent of the games and advice of those Soviet grandmasters who be- Jong to what is now called the older geaeration. The reason for this is that all my chess career I have rubbed shoulders with Botvinalk, Keres and Smysiov. The younger sgrandmastrs, on the other hand, are boty with dels current tournament Dates and write less about thei ‘thought processes at the board, nor mally restcting themselves 0 giv ing concrete variations. 5) The book contains games by ‘the author ~ again easily under- ‘Standable as, i aiming to describe the secrets ofthe chess mind, Thave naturally ha to dig down deep into ‘ny own bein 'So, dear reader, forward into bat- te, to storm the heights of grand- maser chest! Introductio An Unusual Experiment ‘We shall now uy to describe the complex proces of thinking which takes place ina grandmaster’ mind during play. To explain his thought processes as clearly as possible let ‘us wy a litle experiment that was suggested to me by the method of ‘studying mechanics in high schoo First ofall one staies Statics ~the cffect of forces on a body at est = fand then Dynamics, in which the ‘same phenomena are studied in ‘motion, So, Woo, we shall fst con- ‘sider how wo think about moves from the static point of view, and thea Intern the book from the dynamic, Let us thea imagine the room where @ top-class tournameat is being played. Let us go on t the stage and ask one of the player, for ‘ample Polugaevaky, to give up his ‘eat us, Let us now ask Smyslov torell us straight away without any further consideration the courte fof his thoughts as he stdies a posi- tion in which he, White, is to move. Tean be certai that his Fist r action would be count how many pawns there are, Ara rule «grand ‘master can take in aa glance, with ‘outcounting, how many pieces there are. However, he may al times also count the pieces. We now assume that Polugaevaky has ot sacrificed anything and so material is level "The next stage in Smysiow's think ing wil be to clarify the following points Fis, from which opening as this position srsen. f not many moves have been made, he will be able t9 ascertain this from the pawn con- figuration and the position of the pieces. If we are well into the ‘iddlegane then one has to work on the remnants ofthe pawa structure, fon the open files and diagonals and ‘outposts forthe knights. ‘Then there follows the question have I ever ad this poston before, orhas it ever occured in games bY other grandmasiers? This s a im portant point in clarifying mates, {if one can call to mind similar po. Sons from earlier games, then iis ‘azier to reach an astessment of how things stand, and to hit upon the cor- rect pla or analyse variations. Such 2 use of accumulated knowledge is fan excellent way of saving thinking time as well as avoiding errs or the wrong plan ‘This period of thought, which we ‘all the clarification period, is very12 Introduction important. Here the main role is played by the knowledge, experi- nce and eration ofthe grandmas- ter, Naturally the memory plays its ‘art in helping to bring to mind the moves played in games of loag ago (One can find remarkable examples of this techaigue in the games of ‘Alekhine and Botvinnik, who were thereby helped to produce great works of ar ‘Armed with these preliminary ‘soundings, the grandmaster then at- tempts to assess the position. He not ‘only has to solve the basic problem fof who stands better; be also has to discern the nature of the position ‘down to its smallest details. He wll rote the presence and comparative ‘value of various open lines, all the ‘while bearing in mind the concrete tasks tht ie before him: occupy this ‘open ile or diagonal, close that one, ‘on this file neutralise the action of the enemy rook He will lo work ‘out which important outposts he should occupy with his knights, from which outpost he should dive ‘out the enemy cavalry. Tt will be- ‘come clear t0 him which of his pawns and thote ofthe opponent are ‘weak, where there ae strong passed pawns. In amore subconscious than Conscious way he will establish ‘where there is co-operation and har- ‘mony between his pieces, and ike- wise forthe opponent. He wll sy to ‘himself menaly: this is what I have to pot right heres where I must re- 1009. 1 will not cause Smyslov much trouble to establish which side con- twols the conte, and what i the i- ‘uence onthe cente of this or that piece. Thea he wil assess the valve (ofeach side's pawn chains, and find fut where pawn advances are pos ble, After all this he wil understand ‘more clearly who bas the beter po- son, who has th initiative, who must attack, who will be forced 19 ‘efend. He will decide where White ‘must ack if Black merely defends, for instead ties to counter-attack on the flank, Or will Black ty for a blow in the centre ~ grandmaster ‘knows fll well that the bes answer toa flank atack isa couater-blow in the cent. Finally, ifthe position is even, Smyslov will decide that he must ‘manoeuvre quietly so asta provoke ‘weaknesses inthe enemy camp. “Tals thea isthe way that a rand ‘master inthe tournament room gees About asessing a postion. We ean- ‘not claim that be will deal with the ‘elements ofthe position inthis pee= ‘ise order, Much of what we have categorised be wil probably entrust ‘ois intuition, butin one way or an- ‘other the various problems will be ‘considered and solved. low mach time docs this process take? Naturally this depends om the ability of the grandmaster and onthe special features of each particular position, There is lo the element of {emperament It is wel known th ‘with some players sober snaljsis plays the main part, while with oth- 15, intuition developed by analyi- ‘al practice predominates. Assessing 2 postion s very important and alot of ime is devotsd os Only when he has gone through this preparatory work will Smysiov start to draw up aplan. The dzection Of a player's thoughts is governed Principally bythe features ofa given Position, but no small part belongs to the character ofthe player. Peto ‘an would most likely give fis thought to how to defend his weak nesses, whereas Tal would probably far to look for the chance to pre- pare a sacrifice. ‘So in one way or another our grandmaster will decide the general, plan of campaign, where to direct his pleces, what to attack, and in case of necessity how to defend. ‘Along with his general pan, he will have a more conerete plan, which decides what his next few moves will be: occupy this square, exchange ‘that pawn, et. He wil also see what his opponent's plan is, and how he ean eoss it. Up to this stage a grandmaster’s thoughts have been bated on general ‘ideas and strategic principles. Now, at Tong lst, he wil start looking for {he best move. He will exablsh What roves are possible, and how they fit in with his plan. Then he will begin analysing many variations. For each of the moves he will examine, he ‘will foresee the opponents reply. then his bet answer and 0.08. Oaly Introduction 13, after Hnishing this immense tsk, ‘ow purely analytical, will Smyslov move a piece and stop his clock. ‘Thinking over, move made! ‘Our experiment has enabled us to examine the sequence of» grand- master’s thoughts whea he is choos- {ng de best move na given poston. ‘We have also learned from it that real chess player mast have the fl- lowing qualities 1) He most be wel up in modern opening theory. 2) He must know and keepin his memory the principles behind typi cal middlegame positions learned both from his own games, and fom those of other players. The more a player knows and remembers, the tasier iti fr him 0 find a “prece eat’, i.e. a positon that has o&- ‘curred before and which sila 0 his own present position. Natrally, is not a question of mechanical smemorising, bat of knowing meth ‘de and possibly separate moves and ‘combinations employed at some time ‘or other and appropriately assessed in subsequent notes and analysis. ‘We shal call these fest two qualities with good reason ‘chess erudition’ 3), grandmaster must be abe to assess a positon accurately and cor- reel. 44) Noless importants the ability ‘to itupon te right plan, which must _meet the demands ofthe given posi= ') A grandmaster must be able to caleulate socuraely and quickly all16 Introduction the significant variations that might arise in the subsequeat course of, hay. "These then ae the most important ‘qualities which players should de- ‘elop within themselves, nsinly by practice, analysis and personal ef- fort We shall now examine all these ‘ualties and show how they can be ‘quired by dint of hard work To fa- litte their teatmeat we shall deal ‘vith them indifferent order, 1 Analysis of Variations Do you Know how to Analyse? Recently I was invited othe closing ceremony of a team tourameat in which both candidate masters and frst-category players were playing. 1 ‘asked my aadience what they would Tike me to talk to them about, and T was inundated with requests. Some players asked me to demonstrate fn interesting combination, while others wanted to Know how to play the Sicilian Defence comecty for Black, "But do you know how to analyse variations?” 1 asked my listeners, and without giving them time to re- ply weat on, “twill show you how to analyse variations and i'm wr0ag, then stop me. Let us suppose that at ‘one point in your game you have & choice between two moves, Hdl or ‘}g5. Which should you play? You settle down comfortably in your chair and start your analysis by aly saying to yourself the possible ‘moves. “Allright, I could play Hdl and he would probably play 267, ‘ore could take my a-pawn, which { now undefended. What then? Do I like the look of the postion then?” ‘You g0 one move further in your analysis and then you pall a long. face ~ the rook move no longer ap peals to you. Thea you look atthe Knight move, "What 1 go gs? He can dive away by 6,1 £0 ed, he captures it with his bishop. Ire- capture and he attacks my queen ‘with his rook. That doesn't look ‘ery nice 50 the knight move is 10 {Beod. Lets look atthe rook move again. Ihe plays 007 Lean reply £3, bot what if he captures my pewn, What can ply then? No, the ook move i no good. I must check the knight move again. So, 5. 6: Det, fxet; Wes, Had. No good! ‘So I mustn't move the Knight. Try ‘the rook move again. Hdl, Wia2” At his point you glance atthe clock. “My goodness! Already 30 minstes gone on thinking whether to move the rook or the knight" It goes on ‘ke this you'l realy be in ime trouble. And then suddenly you are struck by the happy idea ~ why move ook or knight? "What about BI?" ‘And withot any more ado, without any analysis at all you move the bishop, just like that, with hardly any consideration a al” My words were interrupted by applause. The audience laughed, £0 securate was my plcure of thei ss and ebaltions16 Do you Know how to Analyse? ‘When I revealed that I was writ fing a book 10 ell all that T knew bout analysis, based on wht I had Teamned from other grandmasters and what Tha discovered myself, ‘yas rewarded yet again by applause ‘Thus [came to realise that players ‘even in high grades need such guid nce. Then I said jokingly, "Borvin- nik is working hard at tying to ‘make a computer play chess a well a a buman being, so et me teach hhuman beings to analyse with the soouracy of a machine” ‘The example Ihave described of incorrect, unsystematic thinking is {oite common even with players of ‘eal ability and high gradings. They ‘suddenly abandon their analysis and make a move which they haven't ‘examined property atall. Letuscon- ‘der one such caze. "White's attack on the kingside looks very threatening, and naturally the master who was White tried 10 {nd a concrete way to shatter the en- ‘em king oto get some decisive ad- ‘vantage. isnot very difficult to see this concrete line must involve a sc rife, "Thave to sacrifice the master told himeel, bat which piece? There are several possibilities: 26 &xh6, 26 @xg6 or 26 2g followed by 77 ‘@ixh6+ Which then? Let us analyse 26 Gxg6 Axg3 27 hag’ feg6 28 xe6 gxhS 29 Eat Eh). The ex- change down, the d-pawa weak, Black’ bishop is strong. No, that's not it What if 26 S1xh6? Let's have look. 26..gxh6 27 Wah6 fixe5 28 Bes Wg7 79 Wes (29 Kegs Wrg6!) 29,5 and here White has noth- ing concrete “Possibly 26 Qeg¢ is stronger? ‘Where will the black queen go? £5 fs bad because of 27 2xh6+ gxh6 28 Wels exf5 29 Hxgor @h7 30 Eixn6+ sb47 31 Hhé. Two pavns ‘up, White stands clearly beter Nor oes 26. save him since then 27 Bsher gxn6 28 Exg6> ot 28 ‘Bre and the back king cannot be defended, "S026 Ded is good? But what if 26..Wh4? Then 27 Dehs+ 8! 1No, White cannot allow that the ‘queens are exchanged aod all his Pieces ae en prise. So Dept doesn’t work, Let's look atthe other cap- tures on 6 and g6 again ‘And once again his thoughts dwelt onthe various ramifications of those two moves, and yet again the resulting positions did not appeal {the master Once more he returned consider 26 2g4 and once again he ‘id not ind a Win there. How many times he jumped from ove variation to the other, how often he thought About this and that attempt to win, fonly he can tell. But now time- ‘eouble came creeping up and the master decided 10 “pay a safe move" ‘which did not demand any real analysis: 26 Stc3. Alas, this was al- ‘mest the worst move he could have played, Blak replied withthe deck sive 26.904 and after 27 Was hs 28 Wal hs White was forced to re- sign. Note in passing that White was wrong to reject 26 Dgd. After 26,..Whd 27 DahG+ 05 28 Wadd ahd 29 Dxf7 x17 30 Bree $18 31 Bgd Qixg? 32 Addr 66 33 Aad6r Hxd6 34 Bixck Orel 35 ‘2x07 White would win, ‘Can you remember eases when this happened to you in tournament ‘games? No doubt you can! So let ws ‘iscuse how to learn to think about possible moves with the greatest ef- Beiency. Historical Digression Practice has shown tht ony afew players have mastered the technique of analysis; even highly rated play- sare lacking in his respect. In chess circles, where one hears many apt sayings, there i .common joke that no type of exercise can change a player's playing strength Wits like to quote the words of Ostap Bender (Translator's note: (One of the main characters in the well-known satirical novels by I and Petov, The Twelve Chairs and Bo you Know how to Analyse? 17 ‘Tae Golden Calf. One ofthe jokes of the book was that Bender, who could not play chess, gave lectures blonde plays well and the brunette plays badly, and no lectures will ‘change this state of afi!” How fever, the experience of many players ‘of widely diferent playing stength shows tha the opposite is tre. ‘We shall be mentioning egain the need for regular self-examination, forthe need to summarise the les- sons of the tournaments we have played in. tis by means of such el-ridcism that we can bes lar ity the faults of our chess thinking ‘To give the reader a better idea of ‘what Tmesn I-shall tell you about ‘the work I did myself inthis field, work which gave much biter results than Y expected, Tn the period 1935-36 I had man- ed to take first prize in a nomber fist-categorytourmaments Chad played with succes in two Moscow Championships, bt all the same T ‘was not satisfied with my lay. When 1 ida critical survey of my games f came to the conclusion that thee ‘were serous defects in my play. I fam looking, as T write this, at the ‘many exercise books that I filled in thoes days with notes to my games, Believe me, they are full of harsh self-critical comments. No splenetc Annotator ever gave such angry as- Sessments to my moves a5 I di 1 ‘ce wrote inthe press: “Most of all18 Do you Know how to Analyse? it became clear to me that my main trouble was not superficial know- ‘edge of the openings or poor end- fame technique, but my limited lnderstanding of the middlegame, My worst fault was an inability to analyse variations. I would spend far foo much time examining com- paratively simple postions, which ‘often renalted in ine-wouble. More- ‘over, [often made serious blunders. Finally, after the game I would al- ‘ways find out that my opponent had seen much more atthe board than 1 had. It became clear tome that Thad ‘Tot of hard work todo on master- ing the technique of analysis” "This was how I expressed it in public, but in my exercise books I Dut i much more strongly. “T had ‘worked out the following variations at random, and was duly punished by my opponent Such vague analy ses the main drawback in my play fand f must make every effort to r00t tout? That was what I wrote in my notes to my game with A. Yelisov. “A lack of deste realy to go into concrete variations thoroughly, a ‘vague wandering about, those are my characteristic mistakes in my playin the 1936 Moscow champion Ship’ was another gloomy sum- sming-p. 1 was particularly discouraged by ‘my game with Panov (Black) which after a sharp opening reacted the following position, ‘White's attack on the queenside, 0 seemed to me, was developing fn s systematic and logical way. 1 {idged tht the “ugly" formation of the back pieces wat proof of his e- lous positional difficulties. Inthe game there now came 22 5 gS! after which it suddenly became aob- ‘ious that Blak had very dangerous thyeats. The main point, however, ‘was that his kingside pieces which Thad thought gave the impression ‘of awkwardness and lack of c0-0p- eration were working together very ‘well, whereas my ‘nicely placed” pieces were unable wo pasty his nasty threats “There now followed 23 Bat £3 ‘bt ices 25 Sent Bal 26 Wiad 12e3.27 We2 WE and Black has & winning game. The finish was just ‘Punishment for my ill-founded opti- tmism: 28 4 e4 29 Hbel Qixdl 30 edt We3 31 Wes 65 32 tnt ‘Wre3 and Black easily won the end- ing. “After the game we analysed sev- ‘eral variations. Pano told me that after 22..g5! he thought White had no good defence. If 23 Riel then 23.13 24 BA (24 nd Qixed 25, ‘Bret fag? with the tcrible threats (0 26,.Wxd5, 26.7 and 26...) 24. -Bixh3! 25 Ssh @ixhs 26 dubs Wes 27 gt eT 28 g3 Wet 29 2n3 Whe+ 30 dogs Ande 31 dats Bike 32:p2 Wxf0+ wins the queen. Black's whole manoeuvre ~ his coviginal plan and the unexpected scrifice~ ae atte, These por- sibilities which were hidden in the position remained a mystery for ‘me to the end of the game. Thad not ‘examined a single one ofthe tacti- cal operations given above. Here is ‘what | wrote in my summary of the ‘tournament about my misconcep- ‘ions inthis game: "Twas not abe find a single one of the variations snd combinations while I wa a the board. I dida’t even suspect that there was a combination coming at move 24, and 1 was very surprised ‘when Panov showed it 1 me, TO ‘what a laughable exteat my thinking is based on general principles and Ta passing I did the following. summary ofthe thinking time I took in the games ofthe 1935 Moscow ‘championship: ‘From the 17 games, Twat in serious time-trouble in 7 games, in simple time-trouble (5 rinute for 8-10 moves) in S games, notin time-trouble in $ games (in 3 ‘of which the game did not last long ‘enough forthe time control to mat- ter), In ime-trouble I played badly, most ofthe time going on mixing up variations and general reflections” ‘Well then, that’s pretty clear. Such Do you Know how to Analyse? 19 severe selferticlom presupposes that the next step willbe efforts to root out the faults, and I started to ‘work. Having examined the games of other players, particularly masters, land read the occasional comments fm this point that appeared in game fannotations, { became even more Convinced thatthe ability to analyse ‘leary a sufficient umber of vari- ations so as to clarity the postion ‘was the basic condition for tuccest. However, [also came tothe conch sion that in ther analysis some play cre make various mistakes, Some ‘examine a few lines 10a consider- ble depth, others analyse a large number of variations two or three moves deep. The correct solution is to find the golden mean, especially ‘as one is playing against a time limit Ialso became clea tome that the ability to orientate oneself inthe labyrinth of possible variations is not only @ natural gif, but also the result of serious and prolonged ef- fort, and taining ‘How should one go about this training? Where was there a descrip- tion of how to tenn and discipline ‘one’s thought? There were no books fon the subject, and it dd not seem possible to get help from anyone tle, 20 had to fend for myself. 1 chorea method which seemed to me the most rational, and fortunately it was the right one. Ever since that Lime I have considered it the most etfective metho to get good results.20 Do.you Know how to Analyse? selected from tournament books ‘those games in which great compli- ‘tions hod arisen. Then T played them through on a board but when TPreached the crucial point where there were the greatest complicz- tions and the largest number of pos- sible variations [stopped reading the ‘notes. I either put aside the book or ‘covered the page with a sheet of pa- [per and st myself the task of think {ng long and hard to as to analyse all the possible variations. All the time I tied to work myself into the frame of mind that Iwas siting a the board in the tournament room, Having spent between half an hour and an hour on this task T would sometimes (especially in very ‘complex postions) waite down the variations [had examined and then T would compare them with those ofthe annotatoe. At fist there was 2 big discrepsney in favour of the lat ter but then I learned how to widen my scope and delineate each vari- tion with considerable exactitide [Naturally I analysed without mov- {ng the pieces 40 as to make it just like a tournament game, In this fashion Lexamined a large number of very tricky and compl. cated positions. Iremember one of them in particular. think the reader ‘wil be interested to study the many Variations which sre the product both ofthe players themselves and ‘of many annotatrs. ‘This postion arose after Black's 234d move inthe game Flohr-Fine, Hastings 1935/6, The tension has reached its peak and the outcome canbe resolved by the slightest in- accuracy. Grandmaster Flobr did in fact commit such an inaccuracy by playing the obvious 24 2d8?, which was convincingly refuted by Fine He retreated his queen to €?, after ‘hich he simply won the knight and all White's attempts to attack g7 came to nothing. "Annotators the whole world over ‘analysed this position. A win for ‘White found in one country was Auickly refuted in articles published in another. A practically invisible finesse spotied by one analyst was scon shown tobe an eroron further ‘examination. Finally the English ‘master Winter found the one and ‘only way to win. Thad worked out the same line in my own analysis. ‘Look atthe variations which arse after the winning pawn advance 24 DSI. The idea behind the move is not immediately apparent. is to open the a3-f8 diagonal for the white ‘queen to attack the enemy king, The ‘Win after the forced reply 24.Sixb5 25 DxgT is proved by the following, 1) 25..0xg7 26 Bg when none ‘ofthe various replies saves Black: 4a) 26. sone 27 Wot, 1b) 26. dih6 27 egS! and Black ‘cannot meet the two threats of 28 Wes and 28 Wel. Ic) 26..s0h8 27 Hxbs Bes 28 Bagh txg8 29 Kes eh! 30 1R(S og7 31 g4 and White must win, though not without technical dif. cules. 1d) 26..Oxga 27 Bess 08 28 WgT+ 7 29 Wa17+ as 30WEA+ with a decisive attack. 2) 25. x04 26 QYSI. This strong move creates mating threats as well asthe threat ofa family check one Black has various defensive tries but they ae all unsatisfactory: 2a) 26..We7 27 Beds ns 28 Hee. 126) 26..<0h8 27 Bred followed by Bess. 2c) 26..2le7 27 Rede hs 28 xo and 29 Hes. 72) 26..Wad (0 prevent a queen ‘check on the a3-f8 diagonal) 27 Heb Hre¥ 28 gts 18 29 Wr6 and after Black has run out of checks he has no defence against Ba. ‘Training exercises of this sort gradually led to an improvement in the accuracy of my analysis, and I was able to penetrate more deeply Into the secrets of very complicated positions. Finally 1 setup a personal record by analysing a possible vari ‘ation from the fourth game of the Do,ou Know how to Analyse? 21 ‘Chigorin-Tarasch match 24 moves ‘deep. [confess I was very proud of this though tis now clear tome that Twas helped by the exceptional ‘suaigh line’ nature ofthe variation, which had comparatively few side= fines. Her isthe position. CChigorin went wrong by 48 gx and after 48. fixf6 49 Wh3 a3 50 Dxl6 Wai6 51 Eg6 a2 $2 Bete x6 soon lost. After looking at the ‘postion many times, I found a win by 48 Wh3I. I give the main vari- ation and omit the subsidiary ones: 48.23 49 WHS £395 50 16 x16 51 xg5 42 52 ONT+ BF 53 Dhxss x16 54 Dn6+ Ges 55 Tx5+ ‘gxl6 56 WaSe dT $7 He7 We (G7..sec6 58 WaB+ and mate ino) 58 WdSe! des! (8._shes 59 Hgs+ WER 60 WH7+ wins) $9 Was a7 (60 Wh7+ He7 61 Hxe7s x07 62 ‘Wrc7+ @e6. Now despite his mate- jal advantage White's win is not ‘simple. He forces itby te following ‘ne manoeuvre: 63 We8+ eT (or (63.6 64 DISH) 64 IS B17 65 Wats p6 66 W y+ ns 67 Wiss22, Doyou Know how to Analyse? es 68 What 213 69 Was+ he2 70 Wg2+ xd 71 Wx02. ‘After further examination ofthe position I found a quicker win for ‘White, but this is not important Such exereiss, involving analysing tnd covering up the page with the fgrandmasters notes, are very bene ficial in perfecting the technique of analysis. Ifthe reader wil ty i for himself, he will 3000 realise how ef- fectively it helps him to improve However, one must not restict one- self to this method as there are ‘others. Great help can be obtained by solving studies from a diagram ‘without setting op the positon on the board. One can read chess books “blind” without osing a et here is analysis of positions where the task is given ‘White to play and force a ‘win’ and 20 on. Every player who spends sometime on such methods wrll soon notice an increase in his playing stength Sot was able to discover for my- self an excellent method for training ‘n analysis. Subsequently I shared this discovery witha number ofcan- ‘idate masters and first-grade play- tert who studied under me for several {years in a Moscow chess club, They Iiked it, and I feel it played apart in Improving their playing ability Later on I formulate for myself and also borowed fom othe sources ‘certain recommendations which one ‘must know in analysing, particularly the concept ofthe "we of analysis which shal deal witha ite later. 1 soon realised that it is not ‘enough for a master simply to ana- Ise variations serupulously just ike ‘an accountant, He must lear t0 ‘work out which particular moves Ihe should consider and then exam- ine just as many variation as neces- sary ~ no more and 20 lest. With superficial analysis one cannot get ‘own tall the fine points of posi- tion, but to get carried away by a large numberof possible variations can lead to awkward consequences. I ‘now players who consider an in- smease number of possibilities, then regularly get into time-trouble and 0 lose al the fits oftheir labour In ordero avoid this I ied wo an- lyse the maximum number of vai- ations, wrote them down, and then {red to extablsh which of them were ‘worthy of consideration within the emanding conditions of tourna- ‘meat play, and which could be left ‘out so as to save time, Normally & master decides this by intuition, but you have to develop your intuition. 1 ‘managed to develop mine by the method described below and then [successfully tied out the same ‘method in study groups of second- and tir-category players. (shall da! later in detail with the ‘vestion of choosing moves and vari- ations, Here I describe the one ex- ample with which T began all my research) Tonce analysed in deta the ap- parently simple, but in fact very tricky poston of the diagram. Then 1 asked the people in the group to study it and in the course of half an hour write down all the variations ‘which they thought should be exam- ined. They were not allowed to move the pieces, Then we examined the position together and so exhausted All the possibilities it contained. It turned out that i was fr from sim- ple to discover all the special fe {ures of the position. This can be shown by the fact that one strong. master in his notes wrote tht White ‘would win by 1 e81 and gave the ‘eautfl variation 1_Jixe82 Wg7+ (g7 3 Hse + WE 4 Bare He also took account of the cunning reply Lgl which fails to 2bh3 WES+ 3 Bhs. However, he failed to find the excellent rejoinder 1 a2+! and Black draws. Taking the rook is bad Wxd2 Bred 3 Eres Wess and 428.266 (oe Moss wie re ply 2.8054, while after 2 hl there comes 3. 1+ with pexpet tal Black has avery fine wis after 2 3 viz. 2. WES+ 3 g6 WT 4 ahs Banas 5 dys Hose 6 Wieithertes Wr. Do you Know how to Analee? 23 “That isthe way to work on the second important factor in develop- ing analytical ability ~ the ability to find the really important lines "A thied factor which must be con- sidered in this respect is speed of analysis, $0 important in practical play. Anyone who has ever been in time-iouble wil not ned coavine ing ofthat —he will know the value fof the odd minute saved here and there. practised the following method: 1 would set up a complicated posi- tion and give myself the tsk of ‘working out all the possible var- ations inthe space of 20-30 minutes ‘Then I would write them down and check how well had worked out all the hidden secrets. Gradually, Ire ‘duced the amount of time, and each time checked how well [had done, Soon I managed to get rid of su perficality and speed up my think- ing, 1 the reader finds that he often get into ime-troube and just omits key variations when be resto save time, then there is something wrong in his thought processes. Current tournament rules give a near to op- ‘imum thinking time for moves ~on average about four minutes a move (Eedior's nove: Most events are now played at three minutes per move, but Kotoy's argument is just as rele- ‘vant~ in tournament playtime is at | premium and inefficient analysis cften proves costly near the end of, the session).24 The Tree of Analysis ‘This is quite adequate when you bear in mind that itis increased by quick play in the opening where ‘well-known series of moves are not- mally played. If this time is not ‘enough and your games are decided {in time-trouble with ite inevitable terrors, then you must devote a lot ‘of attention to mastering the tech- nique of analysis. "Three factors guarantee finding the right move. They are: an aceu- ate analysis of all variations that can be logically considered, conti- ence that you have taken account of all the best moves and strict econ- ‘omy in thinking time. ‘We shall deal with all dee in turn and dissect the most complex and incomprehensible caprices af- fecting a player's thinking. We shall thus endeavour to give as accurate a picture as possible of the compli- ‘ated proces that takes place when ‘a chess player tries to find the best The Tree of Analysis The course of a player's thoughts ‘when considering his move is best shown by a concrete example. The position in the diagram arose in Boleslavsky-Flohr, 18th USSR Ch (Moscow) 1950. ‘The game had begun thus: let c6 2Of3 d5 33 Rpt 4h x13 5 xO 06 6 df ZUG 7 £43 dees 8 Des Wrdd 9 hes Web 10 00-0 DbaT 11 Bed Was 12 ar Ws 13, hel xed 14 Exed D6 15 Bxe6 fre6 16 Bess Now Flohr did not pay 16.7, bout tied 16, de? and lost ia the tend, What interests ut is how the ‘game would have gone if Black had ‘moved his king to £7, and how Boleslavsky would have worked ‘out what to play in that event. We ‘cannot be sure that the course of his thoughts was exactly as we de- scribe i, but the general tend was, ‘bound tobe a follows “How did [intend to play if he moved the king when I sacrificed the bishop?” is Boleslavsky's frst ‘thought and he instantly remembers. “Yes, 17 Exf6+, Tremember think: ing that Thad a certain draw, while Black's king would have to move bout in the centre being harassed by all my pieces. Could there be a win there? So 17 Ext exf6, and now what? Tam arook down, Fmust ‘heck or play some other forcing move. Only one move comes t0 mind: 18 WhSe, otherwise Black will find a way to get his queen over to defend. What do I get from my queen check? Is ita good movel f ‘rust work it out, the position isn't ‘very complicated, I ean analyse it fight to the end. Let's analyse. have ‘enough ime and the whole game is ‘now in the balance, If T can find @ ‘mate thea ts worth spending a few ‘minutes on it So, analyse! "But do T need to sacrifice the 00k at ll? Could there be a simple ‘way to exploit my initiative without 2 further sacrifice? How?" For a ‘minute of 80 he examines the pos- tion wih this in mind ~istessential (o sacrifice? He quickly decides that ‘he must If 18 del Black has many defences, such as 18...WbS or even 18.228, It follows that the ex- ‘change sacrifice on {6 is not only the obvious move, but also the only winning attempt, while all the time ‘White has a guaranteed draw. So the grandmaster settles down comfortably in is chair and starts analysing.‘ play 17 Hits gxf6 18 Whs+, Where can hisking g0? A lot of squares ae possible ~ e7, e637, 18. Four defences. Let me see if | an force mate or get a decisive ad- ‘vantage . Start with €7 and e6 and Teave the other tl the end. They are more complicated ... So we have four candidate moves “18. eT 22 Wg7+ Right its going well, bt wat about g8? Analyse carefully! 4) 18.9298 19 Wyte. Quiet moves sre 0 use; 'm a ook down, Now two defences: 19.67 and 19,807 4a) 19.097. What is there 10 think about? 20 h6 Wer 21 a7 wins. No, stop! The rook move is a 705s blunder He gives up his queen by 21..Wxd7! 22 Wad? Sxh6+ and Tm the one to resign. No i's not so simple. How do I meet 19.477" ‘And after further thought Boles: lavsky finds two candidate moves, 20 We6+ and 20 Wet, which give him atacking chances, and he con- sider each in tum, 20 We6+ ©¢8 21 ies Was 22 Exds+ Wxd8 23 RaG+ Wrds 24 Wed6+ and White ‘must win; or 20 Wet 18 21 ‘Bbte and Black must give up his ‘queen, So that makes the fet vari tion clea. Now forthe seond. “4b) 19.9617 20 Wes, This is strong. I'm not going to repeat moves. Then 20.287 Or 20.896, Clearly not e8, right ito the eross- fire ofall my pieces. But if he docs? Maybe the few pieces I have left26 The Tree of Analysis ‘don’ frighten him? To be sure let's check it “4b1) 20...te8 21 Hel (beter than 21 We6+ eT) 21.67 (or 21 sbd8 22 WS e723 i+ he 24 Heb) 22 Abd! We7 23 ‘Wes! and Black can resign. 4b) 20..1g7. Now White has no usefUl checks, but he ean attack: the queen, which is as good as a check, Yes, that’s quite a move! 21 ‘Be3. This threatens a check with the rook at 7.1 21.-WeT, then 22 Weer 17 23 Ba7s. There is just 21.,WbA left, but then 22, Ra7+ Shg6-23 WIT IS 24 par des 25, ‘Wa{6 and he can’t sop all the mate threats T should think s0 too. King in the centre exposed to all my “4b3) 20,.<06. Can this save hima and 20 refte the sacrifice on £67 How ean that be, how ean the king defend himself from the attack of ‘my three pieces? Just look for the ight move!” ‘And without much touble White will ind the win here too, 21 Welt! ‘Moves which don't look too threat- ning a frst sight can turnout to be decisive, 21.207 22 aS. White ‘mast threaten the rook check at &7 ‘with gain of time. Two lst ditch de- fences are possible, but neither works: 22..We5 23 Rar fe? 24 ‘Biba West 25 14 and if 2_-Bh6+, 23 dbl Had8 (23..hd8 24 Wan? ‘BgT 25 Ws and 26 Bxd6) 24 Wess! ty? 25 Wet+ followed by 26.06" “Well, thank goodness, every- thing is in order’ was Boleslavaky's probable reaction. What does he do then? Does he sacrifice on 6 imme- diately or does he check the var ations once more? It all depends how much time he has left oa his clock. If he has plenty of time he will allow himself to check every” thing again. He might even do this even if he is short of time. The ea- ‘son fr such “squandering” of time is that this is the decisive moment in the whole game. White ether mates ‘or wins the queea, soe can isk get- ting into time-trouble. As a rue, however, a grandmaster will not start checking a second time all the ‘variations which he has already ex: amined. This is an unforgivable ‘waste of time which can have grave ‘consequences in the final phase be- fore the time contol, and moreover shows a lack of confidence in one's nalysis. One must tach oneself to snalyse accurately and then place fall confidence in the ‘computer ‘which nature has provided us with Of the many scientific techniques studied at secondary-school level (nd after) for clarifying problems, a ‘particularly helpful one isthe draw {ng of graphs and diagrams. Let us ow depict in diagram form the snalysis which we have jst consid- ced (se Fig. 1. Here is what the analysis looks like. What we have produced re- ‘minds one of a family tree. The trunk of this tree is the main move ‘we are considering. The opponent’ replies form the four main branches, ie. 1) 1867, 2) 18.866, 3) 18.,s0g7 and 4) 18.98. These bbanches in their turn are divided {no smaller branches and 4008, The ‘number of branches depends wpon the special features of the position ‘and our ability to find candidate ‘moves, and 30 reveals the level of ‘our analytical ability. The Tree of Analysis 27 ouble-checking ean only be lack of ontidence in oneself tis beter to suffer the consequences of an over. Sight than suffer from foolish and panicky disorder in analysis ‘A exitically-minded reader might bere pose the question: ‘What if none of the moves which I examine ap- peals to me? What should Ido then?” Tm this case, the only advice Tean gives: even if you are faced by such We shall deal with other aspects of the analytical tree later, bat now ‘we can formulate a rule which one should uy to assimilate from one's ealiestatempts at seftaining: ‘When analysing complicated variations, examine each branch ofthe tree once and once only. ‘You simply must not wander to and fro, here and there through the branches, losing time in checking your analysis. The reason for such 8 critical situation do not repeat yourself, Can you be sure that you ‘will ind a flly satisfactory line? OF ‘course not! And you will lose time “Take the best decision you can. Re member that Burdan’s ais died be- ‘cause it could not make up its mind from which bundle of hay it should Start eating. From two evils choose the lesser, but if you stand really badly then look round just once more fora saving move,28 The Tree of Analysis ‘So thatthe reader can get more ‘used tothe concept of the analytical ‘uee, and of analysing lines once and ‘once only, let us examine another interesting example. The reader should draw up for himself in as detailed manner 26 possible the analytical tee forthe following po- ‘tion. Tam sure this wil bring both benefit and pleasure. This postion arose in Rossolimo- Nestle, Venice 1950. The American ‘grandmaster had just sacrificed the exchange twice over. These sacri- fices were based on intuition, but to some extent were backed up by con rete analysis. The point for us to ‘analyse is Black's obvious defence 23,8146 and also White's attacking answer 24 WhS (Translators note: In the sctwal game Nestler played 23,,.x45 which is considered a¢ better than 23.46 by Kotov inthe Soviet tournament book). ‘Does White win then? If he does, how ean we prove this by analysis? [must warn the reader that i will be far from easy fo work out all the possible defences and atacks, £0 {ake the trouble to spend a east half ‘an hour going through the text. To discover for yourself all Black's ‘possible defences and White's at. tacking replies will ake a great deal ‘oftime, but that isthe way th reader ‘should try to perfect his method of analysis! ‘White’ intentions are clear. If it were his move, then he coald play 25 Wh6! and force the win of queen, for knight as there is no other de- fence to the threat of 26 Dxi6+ (Q5..fuxd5 opens the 61-87 diago- nal and diasater follows again st 17). Hence 25 Wh isa threat which ‘must be defended against. How? First ofall, according to ous rle cof analysing all possbiies in tar, ‘we establish which are the candi- date moves, We must not skimp thie ob, but be very conscientious over {it Miss out some insignificant move and it might turn out to be the one that would save the game. We repeat the rule: candidate moves must be established straight away and they ‘must be clearly enumerated. This {ask cannot be split into parts by ex- mining one move fully and thea Tooking for the next one. This brings isorganisation to your thinking. ‘Without knowing how many candi- ate moves there are, you could de- ‘ote 100 much ime 10 one of them and when you finish examining its ramifications find that you just don’ Ihave enough time forthe other pos- sibiiues So let us enumerate ina system atic way all the candidate moves. It is not hard to find that Black's de- feasive chances are enhanced by these moves: I) 24,8; 2) 24.65, 3) 24,.f0xdS. But this isn't all. Co. ing deeper into the position we discover that there are many tricky points in playing a rook to e8, so as to meet 25 Ws by 25. Heb defend ing (6. So we add two more candi dates: 4) 24,-HaeB and 5) 24..2¢e8. ‘Before analysing, let ws chock to see if we have missed anything? Have you checked’? You're right, thre are ‘o other candidates, s0.0n to analy- 1) 24..deh8. Now 25 Whe is met bby 25.28 and the rook defends the crucial h7 square from g7. How can ‘will prove very handy to him in ‘ther variations too. The point of the ‘manoeuvre lies in the moves 25, heS! Wes 26 Be, Let us work ‘ut the consequences. If 26.65, 27 exdS attacks the queen a¢ wel (Greatening mate on h7. 26.28 27 xf) 28 Wes Hage 29 D7! is also a win. This positon ie quite prety, 129..WxeT then 30 x97 ‘Erg? 31 WcT wins, while any other 29h move is met by the decisive 30, 2M o 30 Dix. 2) 24..15. This defence looks very sound since Black's queen is ‘brought into the defence of his king: side. White, however, sll has a win The Tree of Anairis 28 though itis far from obvious, by 25 she5 (as before, the same leimo- fi) 25. Wes (itis not hard to see that all other queen moves lose at once) 26 WS+ 8 26.46 27 DeT+) ‘27 x81 We6 27 EXE is bad be- cause of 28 6 and now there is ‘Bo answer to the threat of 29 Wh attacking 7 and £8) 28 Weg6 ixg6 (28.46 29 a6 ZeB 30 De7 at tacking the bishop and threstening 31 Jaxe5#) 29 4.d6 and White gains ‘decisive material avanage. 3) 24. Bxd5 25 exdS. Mate on ‘bis deatened and Black has many defensive moves t9 choose from. ‘Will White force mate inthe end, oF ‘not? Thats the question we have to answer in ouranalysis. As the analy- Sis is complex we again proceed ax at the beginning and subdivide into the following five candidate moves: 3a) 25...fe8: 3b) 25.H0GR: 30) 25..BfcB; 34) 25.15; 3e) 25.04 ‘Letus now move along all the sub- ‘beaches of our tree of analysis. 3a) 25. fe 26 WahT+ 18 27 5 winning the queen '3b) 25.28 loses the queen ar before 3c) 25, 8. Now eS is guarded by the rook, but the simple 27 WS, threatening 28 Qxh74, forces the win asthe queen is now unguarded at d6, and 15 is thus ruled out 13d) 25.£5 26 x65. Now there are only two reasonable defensive (ries: 26.2008 and 26.46, 341) 26.2168 27 Sac8 Bacb 28 Watt ond 29 Wes30 The Tree of Analysis 342) 26..n6 27 xno WI5 28 Weds the 29 Bes Wy? 30 2/61 We16 31 Whs+ and mate in two. Te is hardly any consolation for Black. that there ie another win by 30 ‘Whs+ and 31 206. Be) 25..04 26 Bes (5 27 Bxt5 is 28 Weis Gh 29 dts 16 30 We6 Ha7 31 Wah6+ gS 32 eo+ a7 33 Aixf6 forcing mate on BS ‘Thus the apparently sound defence ‘of taking off the knight and then ad- ‘vancing the pawn is refuted. There ‘remain two other main lines to con- sider 4) 24,Hae8 25 Ss Was (ter. wite after 25,..Wes 26 Whe Sixas 27 exd5 the queen is attacked) 26 ‘2x18. Now equally bad for Black ‘026. x8 27 Wh6 and 26...0205 27 Whe! Ext8 28 exa3 wit forced 5) 24_fe8 (cms out that this is the most stubborn defence and ‘White's win is achieved only after a ‘number of tricky points) 25 eS! ‘Wa (here, too, this particular retest is forced so a8 not to have the queen attacked by apawn ater 25.626 ‘Who SxS 27 exds) 26 bo! Was 27 oT! WS 28 Dxi6+ eg7 29 ‘B16! Teas to an amazing position Black loses in all variations, e.g 5a) 29..1d6 30 Wg5+ and now 30,. ‘uence onthe correctness ofthe a sessment ofthe final position. Every player has experienced at times the fact that having worked outa tong. variation comet he cannot decide Whether iti favourable o him oF not, which as far as I can se is due to the lack of clarity with which he imagines the final position in his mind. A chess player's thoughts are linked with visual pater. Hence the clearer the pitue in the mind's eye, the greater the ease and aceu ‘acy with Which the mind works and the richer the content of thought ‘Then Blumenfeld adds the follow- ing usefl advice: “After your opponent has moved you should start thinking net onthe basis of your previous conclusion, buts it were fom serach, and asa Sirs stp take in visually the present position. No mater how strong is your imaginative faculty, thatthe picture in your mind must be {ecber than the one you get by lok: ing atthe board, So when your op poneat moves, even when he has made the move you expected, you should never (except inthe ease of severe time-tcouble when you have to option) make the move you in- tended without further thought. For the move you prepared was on the basis of a potition seen in your imagination. Tis quite possible that ‘when you now look atthe positon directly with al its characteristics, i.e. including your opponent's last ‘move, you will have new ideas be- cause of the greater clarity with Which you now see the postion” ‘The reflections of an outsunding practical player thus coincide with the conclusions of a research worker In the eld of chess psychology. So let ue agroe that when oer opponent moves, we should asess the posi- tion and analyse variations as if the position were one with which we ‘were not familar. The fact that you hhave seen the position in your sind’s eye will help you in analys- fing, but do not let your previous ‘nsiysis dominate what you are now working xt, If you observe this rule, the risk of overlooking something will be ‘considerably reduced and you will Jean o examine just the number of candidates that a given position de- ‘mands. To develop this ability fur- ther, you should examine frequently ‘games by grandmasters with their Selection of Candidate Moves. 49 which possiblities they considered (On top of that try 10 get to know ‘your own individual characteristics, ‘Can you withstand a bg stain; how ‘guickly do you tre? Then in accord- fnce with these waits, decide each time ina concrete fashion whether it is worthwhile to think along time looking for hidden resources, or whether you should conserve Your energy and limit yourself to a mini- ‘mum of variation anslyss ‘We used the words ‘looking for" and the choice of words was inten- tional. A player's though ae pet- petually engaged in just such a Search, Dont make the mistake of thinking that unexpected combina- tions an tactical blows are lying on the surface. No, the search forthe ‘cunning (and atthe same time beau- Uiful) in chess is hard work — work that reminds one ofthe efforts ofa Is in any other Held such as musi, seulpture, painting and literature. ‘You have to work hard at developing your powers. We have already indi- ated some training methods. Now want to advise the reader to solve studies, preferably blindfold with- ‘ut the use of board and men. You ‘should try to find combinations in the “Spot the next move" quizzes ‘published in chess magazines. No grandmaster will pass by such paz le features, but wil always make the effort wo solve the problem. All this comes to him by force of habit,50 Selection of Candidate Moves the habit of always tuning up his analytical powers. do not know whether Lam using the correct word fom the literary point of view, but Iam sure the eader will understand me corecly ‘when I say, “Train your fantasy’ ‘That is the right advice to give to students ofthe game, for inventive= ness can be improved by experience and training. Tas is shown by the ‘experience of many grandmaster. Botinaik in his early days when be had alresdy had alot of sucess, stil lacked the flight of fancy which he was to develop later, much 10 the benefit ofthe chess world. hope it wil nt be thought in- modest of me to mention that fora Tong time before 1939 I was criti- cised forthe dryness of my play, ‘whereas after 1939 the ericism was ‘often for just the opposite reason! Look forthe exceptions, lok for the most unusual moves inthe most varied of positions. Of course there ‘are positions in which, no mater Ihow hard you look, you won't find an unusual move, becaut the posi- tion isso simple and dry. But once there isthe slightest suggestion of, ‘combinational possibilities on the board, look for unusual. moves. ‘Apart from making your play erea- tive and interesting, twill help you to get better results. {Let us now take some concrete examples. Unusual moves. which cause great surprise and make peo- ple shake thelr heads in amazement ‘can occur in situations when you are attacking and when you are defend- ing. In the fst case they help to shatter the opponent in defence they help to save a bad position. T quote some examples from my games to ‘erate is. Im this position (Avesbakh-Kotov, ‘Zurich Candidates 1953), Black is ‘tuacking but he would not have got ‘very far had i nt been for the new ‘energy he imparted tothe attack by the shattering move 30...8xh3+!! ‘The white king is made to move into the enemy camp and finaly perished there. "No less energetic wa the impetus imparted to White's atackin the fl- lowing postion from Kotov-Keres, Budapest Candidates 1950 (D). ‘White is atacking, but he would probably aot have broken through had it aot been for the explosive move 16 Qa! after which Black's ‘tame fll apart like a house of cards. No less effective are moves of anuasy when employed for defen- sive purposes. ‘Trade Union Championship 1949 the following position was reached. x i! Hee a a Be nonam 2m 7] ‘White has unpleasant treats. His queen can get to 7 whenever it ‘wants and 20 drive the enemy King fot towards the centre. From the times of Anderssen and Mosphy it has been well known that a King so exposed inthe middle has afar fom. easy life. Yet ow comes 23.71; the black king voluntarily sets off towards the centre, having spotted that the safest square for himself in this particular postion is 7. So off toe? moves the nimble fellow, This paradoxical move is a successful “Creeping Moves’ 51 “find” and enables Black 19 win (quickly. Ater 24 03 he7 25 Wed (5 hs was beter) 25.251 Black ‘went over tothe attack and won afer the further moves 26 Ochs Zhi 27 ‘Wag Hxhs 28 Wahs Hhs 29 247 Bled 30 £4 Wh2 31 Wags+ £66 32 ‘Wri6+ x16 33 Bred Wea et. ‘So look for unusual moves at every stage of the game, whether {You ae attacking or defending. ‘Creeping Moves’ ‘Over the many years of my chess ca- ree Ihave had oecasion wo see ~ and hhave played myself ~ moves of the ‘most varied content, strength and ef- fectiveness. Sometimes bastion ‘hat has been long and painstakingly built up to seem impregnable can besthaltered in an instant bya spec- tacular move. Sometimes an insig- nificant pawn move refutes a deep scheme ofthe opponent can boldly claim to have seen every sort of move thatthe wit of ‘man can think up, bat there is one {ype of move that has always won ‘my admiration and respect. I hap pens that a position looks quite level, and one cannot see any way of, gaining an advantage for ether side ‘when suddenly there comes a sim- ple, insignificant looking move. In 8 frie one's assessment is changed as the opponent’ position is now seen to be indefensible, Yet his quiet move doesnot destroy any defensive32. “Creeping Moves’ bastions, does not lead to a forced combination, it only changes the piece formation slightly. After such ‘creeping move the opponent some- {imes has o resign suaight away. ‘Lets start with recent example “The final match of the 1968 Candi dates’ Tournament was played at Kiev between Spassky and Korch- foi, A group of Moscow players, in cluding myself, received the moves fover the telephone as they Were played, Our correspondent phoned tus the frst 25 moves ofthe seventh game and we started to analyse the following position White's advantage is undeniabie; Black's pawns are weak and the = pawn practically indefensible. The ‘dS-aquae, where a white aight will 000 establish itself, can serve sub- fequently a a tansfer point forthe advance of other white attacking pieces. Even so our group could not find a concrete win for Whit. How can White continue so as to ensure the win? If 26 @a5 then 26.16! land Black has managed to defend all his weaknesses. Nor are other lines too convincing. Finally the telephone rang and we sot Spassky’s next move. Ik was 2 uprising one: elegant, far from ob- ‘ious, modest ~ in other words a “ereeping move’. White just plays his queen one square sideways by 26 Woo!, But what a difference it makes - the position now comes alive for White. Black infact isin rugawang as the saving move in ‘many variations, ..We6, no longer ‘works now thatthe white queen is fo longer on 6. 26..e6 would fnow be simply met by 27 sixes, Korchnol ad to reply 26.7 and after 27 O45 Wes 28 SxcS RxcS 29 Wxcs Dds 30 Wed Wes+ 31 ‘boi ad 32 Het Wes 33.07 Wer 134 Qe6+ 7 there came the bil: lian fini 35 WhO 1-0. am sll, fot ture, however, which queen ‘move of Spssky's was the best the sacrifice to force mate or the insig- rifcant Wb6. The frst move is far preter but i not foo hard to find ‘The second is the sort that many ‘people just woulda’ think of at al. ‘A similar picture canbe seen in the next two examples. In the st, the game looks fairly equal. How- ‘ever afar from obvious queen move ‘again decides the game. This is from the game Smyslov- Reshevaky, World Championship Match Tournament 1948. Whitecer- tainly stands better bat how is he to realise his advantage? It is hard to et at the backward d-pawn a if 25, a2 threatening 26 Wal then the re- ply 25..a7 dives the white bishop away from is active post, However after 25 x06 fxe6 White payed the ‘strikingly creeping move 26 Wh! ‘Once again a queen is moved just ‘one square sideways and once again Blacks game immediately becomes hopeless. If queens are exchanged then the d-pawn is Tost and, even ‘more important, Black's pieces are ‘boxed in on the queenside and he has no counterplay Reshevsky chose to keep queens fon by 26... but then 27 Was Wat 28 dixa8 47 29 fe7 Des 30 Hixds Hef 31 Ab6 left White ‘with an extra pawn which, com- bined with his positional advantage, Fed to aquick win, “The Kooy -Levenfish game inthe 1th Soviet Champioaship 1949 ‘was tense fora longtime. White had 8 slight advantage but could not re- sly make this tell, when suddenly the situation changed, ‘Black's queen occupies a com: smanding position and holds his ‘game together. Hence the thought of ‘Creeping Moves’ 53 exchanging queens arose here not ‘only asa result of fatary but also 4 result of assessment ofthe post tion, 28 WA! in effect decides the game. Retreating the queen is bad but exchanging also let Black with hopeless game after 28..18xd4 29 exdd g5 30 He7 Abs 31 Ext pxtt 32 Hae? Ho8 33 SxbS axbS 34 ht, land White won ea No less a player than Smysiov failed to notice # winning creeping ‘move in his game against Petrosian in the Candidates’ Tournament, Zarich 1953,54 Gross Blunders the would get a draw. The threat is mate in two by 47..@.2+ 48 hd ‘Wak2, Smyslov took this on trast and replied 47 Wads+ cxd3 48 a8W with a daw. However the creeping ‘move 47 Wd6!! would have forced Black to resign. This move was found several months after the ame bya Swedish amateur! So learn to find “i creeping moves! ignifcant™ Gross Blunders ‘A grandmaster tournament is bat tle between finely trained minds ‘which aze capable of carying out tense mental work for hours oa end ‘A grandmaster, by int of extensive practice and taining, gets uted to ‘making the deepest analysis, ena- bling him to foresee the course of events many moves ahead, "Yet atthe same time there is nota single grandmaster, not to mention master or player below that clas, ‘who has not made the grosses of, ‘blunders in his ine. He overlooked ‘an elementary mate ina couple of, ‘moves, gave away his queen or rook. ‘or what have you. How can this be? How can a trained mind suddenly have a blind spot how can syste atic analysis suddenly be replaced by chaos and confusion? Naturally, asin life self, everything that hap- pens by chance has some explana- thon and there i some strange logic {nthe appearance of Blunders, They hhappen by chance yet do have area- son for thes. Our tak ito fad the reason in the paychology of the ‘grandmaste's mind. Once we have ound the real reason we can find ‘ways to combat the occurence of ‘blunders in our own play "What short circuit in the bean, ‘what overloading, can cause a player to put hit queen en prise, or over- Took mate? Despite extensive work in other ‘elds of the psychology of chess there has been no teal research in this particular fed, 50 our short at- tempt to deal with this topic in & systematic way may well help the student ofthe game to reduce the in- fidence of such unpleasant occur fences in his own play Dizziness due to Success (Tronslator' note: “Dizziness due to success! is @ phrase that will be ‘uch more familie to Soviet than to English-speaking readers. Ii the litle of s 1930 article by Stalin, ad siting that, “dizzy with success’, ome local activists were using coer” sion inthe campaign to collectivise great) “When I give check I am afraid ‘of nobody. a Leningrad player once told me with pide. Admittedly there Js nothing more concrete and defi nite than acheck, unless it be mate (hich in any events also a check, the lat one of the game). Hence these players have a pret respect or checks and always bea the Pos- sibility of sack moves in mind when analysing. ‘Due to a number of psychological factors, an unexpected check is ct- pable of swinging a game round, ‘and so affecting the final result. We should study why a player suddenly ‘becomes blind wo the possibility of check so as not to beso afflicted our selves. In my distant boyhood in Tula 1 reached this position in a tourna ‘ent game (Tcannot be sure of the ‘exact postion but the basic essen tials were etched in my bin so that ever forgo them, 1 was Black and had a completely ‘von position was annoyed that my ‘opponent ~ certain Golubev — did not resign although he was a whole ook down, It was my turn to move snd I realised that the jy of vietory ‘could ot be long delayed. My op- [ponent had already folded his sore Sheet in two, writen “Resigns” on it Diszines duet Success 55 and put it im his pocket. With an ir of hopelessness he was looking found and seemed to express with his whole demeanour that as soon as made my move he would resign. ‘So made my move ~ the most ‘obvious one there was ~ taking hit bishop with my rook. Immediately the other bishop whizzed through the air and landed witha bang ond ‘Again with @ bang my opponeat Started my clock and looked round {in tiumph atthe people who were watching the game. Then he took (out the score sheet, weote down his ‘ove and mine and crossed out the ‘word ‘Resigns’ Twas the one who had to resign! “There was no limit to my annoy- ance, but shortly after this [saw a copy of the magazine Shabmatny [Lisok ia which lyin-Zhenevsky eloquently described how be had missed an unexpected check and 30 ruined the work of hour in building ‘op an advantage in a serious game. He wrote: ‘Thad piece for wo pawns with @ good postion and56 ieziness due to Success naturally wanted to fais the game fff quickly. I thought up the fol- Towing combination: | ext x6 2 ‘es (attacking both the queen and the bishop at £5) 2.6 2.SxeS ‘would Tote him the two bishops and fatally weaken his d-pawn) 3 fia3 {everythings going fine) 3.7 (ll forced: now T thought Black most lose the exchange) 4 Wh and Black. has a Tot of things en prise. There followed 4,..ne5 5 x45 and then suddenly 5... Now it would be best to cll ofthe attempt wo win the exchange and reconcile myself to the los ofa piece by 6292, but in the heat of batile I played 6 hl and after 6, et 7 Sed Wrote 8 ‘Sept Wess T resigned, as mate is {otced. If you look at the position two moves before the unfortunate check you wil realise why I over: Tooked it.The bishop at {6 blocked the queen's pth og while my own bishop at ¢2 stopped a check along, the pefle. The check only became feasibe because each bishop in tra lefts original post? ‘This explanation is worth con: Siderng. Ie is tue that at times the blocking of piece’s line of force, followed by line opening due 10 the removal ofthe blocking man, can be the reason for a blunder, as the reader can discover from many ex: ‘amples, All the same I don't think that such mechanical reasons alone ‘explain the missing of the check at 86, or in the previous example the missing ofthe inactive bishop ata. “The main reason forthe two bun ers was the lowering of vigilance ‘that can go with the recognition that ‘the win is eae. Tam prety sure that if Hyia-Zhenevsky had not been material up then he would not have ‘ised the check. The same applies in my case. You could be cerain that these possibilities would not have ben missed iit had been 8 question of defending a difficult game instead of playing 1 win a won one. ‘Alekhine believed it essential {or every strong player to develop in himself “unwavering attention, ‘wich must isolate the player com: pletely from the world around him’ ‘We failed wo find this attention in the cease ofthe two players who threw sway the win in the two previous ex: fmples. On the contrary, they were ‘overconfident, complacent in their recognition of the fat that they had marked advantage, and 59 their igllance was blunted, ‘We call his widespread compla- cency when the win is near “Dizzi- ess de to succes Tn my game with Smyslov in the 1950 Candidates’ Toornament at Budapest I reached the following ‘position in which I had to play my 59th move as White: His not hard to see that White has 8 comfortably won position. Quite cary on in the gume Smysiov had ‘made a serious positional mistake and for many moves had been me- ‘hanically playing his pieces 1 and {ro without any hope of salvation. I two had not been trying to force mat- “Why are you moving 20 aim- lesaly? enquired the Argentinian ‘grandmaster Najdort in surprise “Tl just adjourn it and let my se fod do some work, Treplied with a ‘confident smile ‘Possibly Vasily will resign itas hopeless without playing on after th adjournment ‘This was the way things had been going for about couple of hours, but suddenly T saw an interesting combination and I had a long think. analysed frst oe variation, then another. Everything fs! So T played my move in a decisive fash fon. Smyslov was in time-troubl and had no choice anyway 50 he re- plied quickly and [weat on playing fut the line 39 xh7+? xh? 40 Ws Wes 41 De7 Begs 42-e0 "Now Black's positon looks hope less. We had got the moves infor the first session of play and Smysiov had gone away somewhere. Having played my 42nd move I got up too find not without some pride walked shout the sage. Diziness due to Success 57 “Marvellous” whispered « de- lighted Najdorf into my ear, pot an arm round my shoulder and walked ‘with me across the stage. Suddenly ‘we both froze om the pot. Appar nly the same unexpected ies had Struck both of usar the same time — ‘we realised that Black had a nasty check that refutes the whole combi- went back tothe board only to confirm that 42.2024"! would win for Black at once. Smysiov appeared and sat down at the board withthe Same glooay look on his face at be- fore. He sa like that for a couple of sminutes and then suddenly Tsaw a ‘ash of glee in is eyes. He looked fp at me and realised it was all (over. He moved his rook o give the Lilling check and I resigned as 43 xt2 Kh wins ot of hand "There is no doubt thatthe reason for my awful oversight was over. confidence that sapped my sense of ‘danger. So that is where t lok for the cause of bad Blunders, namely {nthe exulting feeling of self-con- atulation. Whea your head is spin- fing with success that is the time ‘when te blunders occu. So try t0 ‘develop the rule for yourself that ‘when you seem tbe geting close 10 win, be on the look-out. The nearer the win seems, the more pychologi- cal basis there is for making a mis- take Hyin-Zhenevaky quotes another such example: “In my game with5 Diszines due to Success ‘Emanuel Lasker in he 1925 Moscow ‘Tournament I eached this pasion aftr my 13th move 13 Bec?! “Instead of exchanging queens Lasker, 10 the surprise of everybody, played 13..Wxa2 14 Bal Wxb2 15 EEfol abit 16 Zbl, giving up his {queen for rook, bishop and pawn. 1 bhave to adit that even now Ido not tunderstind this combination and share the opinion of Bogeljubow ‘who wrote im his notes to the game ‘hat Black has run grave risks of los ing by his sacrifice. AC the time T ‘thought Lasker andthe other play- es, including Bopoljbow, held the ‘sue opinion. Th thought relly set ‘me going Just think The day before Thad beaten Capablanca, today ‘vas winning against Lasker. Things ‘were really going my way! So T Started playing sharply, pay be- cause I wa in some time trouble: 16,-Bfg8 17 4 Ge 18 14 a6 19, hi Be 20 Wes Bos 21 Bai Db 22 Wes a5 23 Hal 66 24 Wes, but ‘ow came 24,.5 and Lasker won the exchange and pretty soon the ‘game too, Naturally my last move is 2 gross blunder but I had already compromised my position by this Stage. That is how you are punished when you get carried away by sce ‘Cleary a cate where no further comment is needed! have had occasion to analyse ad journed games and other postions ‘with Paul Keres, and Thave always been struck by ‘one strange thing about his lin of approach, Having found one way to win the Estonian grandmaster straight away starts Tooking for another ‘Everything looks simple, White wins apiece, but he isnt satisfied nd he tres to find something even better. Can't he win the queen in- stead? Llose patience and say loudly, “Is all this really necessary’ but yy friend continues in silence to ‘move the pieces about the boar. It {S-habit of his and he sucks toi ‘The explanation must lie in the at temp ofan inquiring mind to ty 19 {ind as much as possible in every po- ston, to discover all the finesse, 12 now tothe nth degree al the sate- sic problems and tactical tricks that 2 position can hold However, this habit has a danger- cous side tt. You find a way to win, but you don't stop there, you look for another. Having found it you start exulting: "What a position T havel ean win this ay, Tean win that way"Thea you iad a third pos- sibiliy and you really have a high opinion of yourself, However, you then get the “dizziness this over. serupulousness turns into selfnd miration and you could well be ding fo a al. In Ketes-Flip, Candidates’ Tour- rnament, Amsterdam 1956 the fol: lowing position arose: White has various ways 19 win, He could reteat the bishop to 2, while an immediate Gnish comes fom the line 38 WH De 39 Wes, ‘According to his second, Keres amined no less than five ways to Win, but chase a sixth possibility 38 e007 and after 33. Hos! 39 WIS ‘Daxes was apiece down as 40 Wes allows the exchange of queens by 40,4924, when the ending is hope lessly lost for White ’ fairly common situation, simi- larto the above cases, is that a payer ‘can win in ether of two ways. One is simple and straightforward, the ‘other is pretty and involves a saeri- fice. At such dines a player's charac- ter shows itself very clearly: those who set great store by winning, by Dieziness due 1 Success 39 4 certain point in the ‘method; others doa't need any invi- {ation to sacrifice and fear no risk, ‘even the risk of losing a whole point. Tnevery case aplayer ought to de cide in accordance with hie own Considerations, tastes and tourna ment position, buta striving fr false ‘brliance, especially wit this does ‘not arse from the logical require: ‘ments ofthe position, isto be com emned as faulty practice. ‘Moreover a stiving after bel lance arises from a wrong attitude ‘of mind ~ you thnk to yourself, “I ‘ean pul off anything; just look, 1 fan even sacrifice my queen” Its ‘only one short step from this atitude to the dizziness which encourages blunders Th Freiman-Kan from the 9th USSR Championship 1934, the fl lowing position was reached aftr White's 28th move: Black's simplest way of deciding the game was 28..xd4 29 gxtt WseS and Whit as no defence, but60. Dieziness due to Success ‘such a prosaic line dd nt suit Black land he went for a combination by 28..Dh3s 29 Wand WaeS. Another Dit of prety play, bot 29nd was Still probably good enough to sete ‘matters in his favour, whereas now by 30 dxes Hai 31 Wt Batle 32 ‘Ex White could get a winning ‘ending, and Black's striving after brilliancy would have been pur: ‘shed. “However it was now White's tan to blunder by 30 N77? es 31 Be} End and White immediately Hopped the clock, Conditioned Reflexes 1 trust my fellow grandmatters will forgive me fo applying tothe noble are of chess a term developed by physiologists in experiments with ‘animals, but in essence the term. “conditioned reflex” does explain very well many ofa players actions daring the game. Just asa dog ean bbe wained osalivate at the sound of bell, so many of chess playe defensive reactions have been i ‘duced to appear by many years of habitsforming experiences. Recall, for example, how subconsciously {you ae on the look-out fora snap. ‘ack-row mate, or ow, without aay ‘eal thought, you can asess the cor~ rectness or otherwise of the Greck fit sacrifice ora threat of smothered ‘mate, Such aotomatic responses are ‘generally helpful as they speed up ‘one's thought processes and assist ‘in making a correct assessment of, strategic plans. However, at mes thin atomati reponse patra can ‘be harmful, at we shal see from the following examples in which i was the eause of mistakes, Such cases ‘are admitedly rae, but anyone who Wishes to tidy his own reactions nd o now the Ener points of win ning chess must be familie with Soch things. Which of usin playing the Ruy Lopez has not thousends of times played his bishop from a6 9 3 when it was atacked by a pawn? Which of usin the Sicilian hae not played his bishop back from o4 to 3 when Black has auacked it by 1S? Te is almost as if your hand ‘wanted to play the move straight away without the mind even think Ing about it Ia most cases the move Js correct and force, but there are exceptions. Take the following posi- tion from Grekov ~ Iiyin-Zhenev- sky, Moscow Championship 1920. ‘opening. a Philidor Defence, and thre it has the extra poat that Write has casled queenside. My oppo. nents reply Seemed equally clear tome. He would answer? 243, You tack a piece, he has to move it away. Nothing ofthe sort! He con tinted 2 dxeST de (ao choice, ei 2--bxcd then 3 exf Date 4 Wret ‘witha winsiag position) 3 @xeS! bed 4 @ixc6 WES 5 eS! This last move is the key tothe whole Line ‘The attacked knight has no ight square, so White win bac the piece And sett with a won ending “An attacked piece has to move away.’ How many games have been lost because a player blindly fa Towed this reflex that had been de- veloped ia his subconscious! ‘A similar reflex tothe ove above {s "Make everything safe!” This sa guiding principle that lies behind ‘many strategic and tatieal plans of. 8 grandmaster, and you may find it hard to go against the urge to do $0, yetin a concrete station this nati. ‘al principle ean be quite mislead Diezines due 1 Success 61 ‘This is taken from a game in a ‘match between Iyin-Zhenevsky and Grigoriev played in 1919. (Alexan- der Iyia-Zhenevsky seems to have made a significant contbation to the ueasury of ches quirks and cur ‘sites, possibly beease he was that sort of person, possibly because he wat active ata time when boldness ‘was more successful than accuracy.) 1 £4 g62 4 would give the initia tive to White, bot he automatically decided wo play a safeguarding move fand chose 13? which tarned oot to be the loss of a decisive tempo and Black got in fst on the other side of the board by 1.65 2 £4 bt 3 axba nba 4 ET bxe3 5 Sixes Waod 6 be3 x3 and went on to win, Why id White need to guard his go Square? ARtr all, the black bishop ould not leave its present position because the d-pawn would be en prize! Thee can be no otber exp ‘ation tan an automat sponse ‘One ofthe most interesting cases of the appearance of conditioned feflexes is when we reveal the pre- dominance, above all othe factors, ‘four respect forthe absolute power ofthe piece that we lean very early on. This respect is most often shown towards the queen, even in positions when a win Is be had by sacri ing it Even the strongest payers are ‘ot immune to this dieser. Here is Alethine-Euwe, World (Championship Return Match 1937, 16th game. Its not too had o find 8 queea sacrifice that would win a(2 Dieziness ue 1 Success key pawn and decide the game in ‘White's four. However, evea such aplayeras Alekhine, wid his fantas- tie imagination showed too much ‘concern for his queen and he did not find the move 26 Wh8+!. (Transla tor's note: Koto fais tl the fall tory Alekhine actually played 26 ‘Ab? guarding his attacked Knight tnd Buwe replied 26.62, where- ‘pon Alekhine played a second safe- iuarding move 7 23, fling to spot the win ofthe pawn a second time. Euwe then guarded his queen by 277.26 andthe chance had gone for good.) ‘Max Euwe himself also suffered ‘tom excessive concer frhis stomg- st plece and so filed to finish off (quickly this game against Smysiov fn the 1948 World Championship Match-Tournament (D). ‘After Euwe played 27 We3 the ‘game dragged on along time, but {he “obvious” 27 WaET+! Ext? 28 ots wins after either 28..22¢7 or 28, 28 29 Heft uP asin both cases the whit ght now comes in ‘wih a fork on 6. ‘A horrible example of how an “obvious" move is conditioned by various factors arose in this posi- tion from the Botvianik- Bronstein ‘World Championship of 1951 In this drawn position Bronstein (White) decided to try his luck by playing 37 e2, thinking that after the obvious 57.3 his knight ‘would still get back in time to stop the pawn as it would check on <4 However, Botvinaik made the far from obvious move 57.-s0g3! and White had to resign as tow neither king nor knight can stop the pawn, Botvinnik makes the following com. rment:"A tragic oversight Naturally ‘White coud draw easily by bringing his knight back, as the reader can See for himself Apparently White lost his sense of danger due tothe in- ‘lvence of his material advantage [Note thatthe losing move was made fer the time contol This isan ine ‘eresting comment. From it we get confirmation that a player can be influenced in the heat of the batle by overeonfidence due to having ‘ined the advantage. We have al- teady spoken of this under “dizri- ness de to success. There are no less striking examples of Bowinaik himself falling under the influence of over-confidence and suffering for it What is one to make ofthe 15th ‘game of the return match against Smysiov in 1988, when during the second session of play Botvinnik had a much beter position, bt est ‘on time while looking long and hard for the most accurate way to win”? ‘We also draw special attention to Botvinnik’s comment about losing {your sense of danger, point Shall ake up later, Note that ia the very simple Bronstein ending the ‘conaitioned reflex was at wor, tell ing you that the shortest distance be- tween 4 and £2 is via {3 (which in the exceptional case ofa king docs ‘ot necessarily apply, as Bronstein failed to notice), Having brought up the question of the geometry ofthe chess board, the tragic happenings in the Kotov- Dicziness due to Success 63 ‘Smyslov game, (sce page 57) White's failure to foresee the rook check on £2 was not just due vo dizziness. It ‘was also based on a conditioned re- ‘ex that he rook was in fron of the queen on the gle and that they ould not exchange places. If you think about kingside attacks that ‘you have played with the aid of ma- Joe pleces you will be able to con- {firm that you realise subconsciously ‘whether the queen isin freat of ook onthe open file or vice versa. In the Smyslov game, if there were the slightest chance thatthe major pieces could change places with black queea on g2 and black rook on g8, then no grandmaster ‘would ever fail to see the danger, but as this swap was impossible, White fet perfectly happy. Conf dence that something cannot poss. bly happen isthe source of many landers ‘Take another similar case. Have you ever found in your games that ‘when thee is a white bishop at 43 and a white queen a 2, a check is given at 87? Agreed, not very often! ‘Why? Because there is no mate and s0 the check is pointless and unnec- essary in the majority of cas. So Tite by litle the brain gets used to ‘not worrying about such a piece configuration. I th pieces were the other way round it would be a difer- cent keule of fsh! Tn that case a [Frandmaster would be prepared to St for hours working out every pos: sibility arising from Wh7+,64 Dieziness due to Success 1 was just such a belie in the harmlessness of h7+ that ruined Black in the next postion, which is from Lengyel-Kotoy, IBM Tourna: seat, Amsterdam 1968. had calculated alot of variations ‘which seemed quit all ight for me and so Thad just played my bishop ‘rom 26 to 4. As the small room in ‘which we were playing was thick ‘vith smoke, I efit (as T usually do) land went fora stroll inthe large ‘adjacent hall. From there I noticed ‘that my opponent moved withthe sort of hand movement that indi- ated a ‘Tong’ move. I coulda't make ‘this out,s0 Teturned tothe playing oom and was surprised to find that his bishop was next to my king. giv= ing check. My frst reaction was to ‘write i off a8 a stupid move, but in the end T thought fora whole hour merely to conviace myself that my game was hopeless. "The reason for ll his isnot hard to find. White went | 15 straight away, Black exchanges bishops and plays his attacked knight on €7 to 16, when everything holds. Now, however, after the check the black king will be om either £8 oF BB and pawn is lost after 2.45. The ex- change of bishops is forced and af- {er 3 Wrf5 the f-pawn is lost if the black king i on BS, while if ison 18 then he must let the queen in on 17 again withthe loss ofa pawn. A single unexpected check led to catastrophe. Consider two other curious exam- ples in which reflexes played theit Dart In yin-Zhenevsky ~ Nenaro- kor, Moscow Championship 1922 this position was reached Look at Black's g8-square. Can the black king get there? Certainly ‘not! tis tacked by both bishop and ‘queen, Tis fact had been impressed ‘Seep into White's mind and in his analysis he did not consider for a ‘moment thatthe enemy king could set there. In fact he analysed a vari- ation right to lis end witha forced win for White 1 ATs! es (Lit? 2 BGs bee 3 REG mate) 2 Whe+ x07 3 Rese ‘Now I waited for Black to play 3.68 when I would mate him by 4 Wiss G47 5 We7+ des 6 es. ‘Suddenly, horror of horrors, came 3..cbg8 and there is no mate, Yet if Thad played 2 Wxpd Black would Ihave Had to resp Examine your own games and see if inthe course of your thoughs you hhave had such oversights ~ "He just can't move to that square’ [No ess common are cates where certain fle, rank or diagonal is closed by a pawn. Throughout the ‘whole courte ofthe game this line is seen as closed and therefore there ean be no danger along it. Thea in four analysis we envisage a move ‘which moves the blocking pawn, yet ‘we sil visualise the line as close, Here is yet another blunder by Uyin-Zhenevsky. In the 3rd game of his 1923 match with Nenarokov the black queen and white bishop are hheld firmly apart by the black e- pawn. White played 1 1 g62 Wes 227318. Noweame 3.8 4 Wait Dicziness due to Success 65 Wxbs. “This was something Thad’t dreamed of he comments, and adds: “The idea that the queen couldn't attack the bishop because othe barrier ofthe black pawn had become so firmly established in my ‘consciousness that even when the ‘queen took the bishop T thought that it had played an legal move by Jumping over the pawn” The lind Spot In Perelman's book Physics for Fun the mentions this interesting exper ment. Get a person to stare fixedly for atime at a square and quite $000, he will fail to see a lage black dot that lies near the perimeter of the ‘square. The reason is that we have a 0 called blind spot in our eye, s0 that we can mise an object which falls within this lind spot. ‘Something lke this happens in chess. Sometimes a stong player fails to see an elementary attack on fone of his picces. Iti a8 if for a ‘moment that piece has come cuside ‘the range of his vision and be forgets about it completely. ‘A classical example of such & blind spot is Alekhine-Blackbure, ‘St Petersburg 1914 (D). Here Alethine played 1 42 and after 1a 2 9426 the bishop was lost. After the game Alekhine was asked how he could explain this blunder, and he replied that he had forgoten about the piece, just as if it wwasn'ton the board.66, iziness due to Sucers Yes, forgot! The future world champion, who was already a very Stony grandmaster, fled to n0- tice the bishop. After that you can ‘ot fall o concede that there is such 4 thing as the blind spot Her is another example, possibly even more striking, as yet another funure world champion forgets about his queen and loses material not just, into moves as in the let example, Dutstraight away. In Petrosian-Bronstein, Amster. ‘dam Candidates’ 1956 White had twually won game ater 35 moves. [Now any queen retreat would se- cure the win, but instead of this Petrosian forgot about his queen and played 36 572, Natraly af ter 36..Oxd6 he resigned steaight away. Petrosian commented later that the most comic feature of the blunder was that he overlooked an attack from the oly back pce that wae at all active. “Take anther caze, During one round ofthe 1946 Moscow Champi- ‘ship the usual silence of the our ‘ament room was shatered by ‘rightful ery. The players jumped up from thei seats and went over to the board where the game between Bronstein and Bonch-Ormalovsky ‘was being played, The temperamen- {al player of Black (who by the way was a good boxer and was well used to receiving physical Blows as well a mental ones) was sitting there holding his head in his hands, while young David Bronstein, who was also very upset by the unexpected ‘eation of his opponent, was show= ing everybody what had happened “Hinasata we fon" Inthe diagram position Black ha just checked with his queea. White moved out of check by 2 and af- ter some thought Black played <3. Bronstein ten replied Eb. “It’s just terible’ said Bonch-Os- molovsky in his disuess "The white ing on g2is big piece and die’ notice the fact thatthe white rook behind it wae now attacking my queen’ Possibly the height of the king had something todo with it bat there is no doubt that here we have the ind spot at work again Finally two clear examples of @ blind spot Ia Romanovsky- Kaspar Jan, Semi-Final 11th USSR Cham- Pionship 1938, the famous study Composer had schieved a won game ‘with Black, and now found to his ‘own eaifaction a studylike way t0 ‘win the game He played witha decisive gesture ofthe hand 1 Exh. Head worked ‘out 2 dexh3 Wd mate of 2 23h3 25 mate. White captured the rook ‘wit his bishop and athe same time stopped Kasparan's hand from mov- ing the knight. An legal move the [nights pinned against the king. Diaziness duet Success 67 “This is Ebralidze-Ragozin, 1005 USSR Championship, Thls 1937, ‘The position and what follows has already passed into chess folklore. In order to dafend himself against the various threats, Ragezin played 40,2277? intending after 41 He torccover the piece by 41.86. I is related thatthe Georgian fans in the audience noticed staight away that the bishop was pinned and some of them were even so carted away as to shout out, “Arhil, take his ook’. But Arcil Ebaldze merely laced angrily atthe offenders. The blind spot di its work, be filed to notice the pin and reeated his a- tacked rook! ‘Through the Eyes of a Patzor: ‘Blumentole'e Rule “Many ofthe errors we ave consid- ered have one other caus, which we ‘consider tobe the most common of all In analysing a tong vaciation, & frandmaster is naturally worried bout falling o notice something in the postion that he thinks wil aise(68 Dizziness due 1 Success five or six moves hence. Its hard to foresee what will happen thea, to notice all the finesses on the way’ to that distant future, so the player con- centrale all his atention on it. "And then it often happens that at the very fit move, ight atthe base ofthe analytial wee, the player fails to notice a elementary piece of tac- ties or an obvious threat. Believe ‘me, ths is often the reaton for our ‘mistakes, reader, and I must confess that in my care such Blindness, such 8 failure to spot what has beea right lnder my note, has been @ common How can one combat this tex dency? Many years ago T went into ‘hie question withthe leading Soviet ‘matter Blumenfeld. He had done a otto reveal the psychological as pects of the game and had writen a postgraduate thesis on the subject Blumenfeld himself also had occa- son to bemoan the fact that he too ‘often failed to see what was “under his nose’ and he claimed thatthe same thing applied in varying de- recs to the world's best players "To fight against this grave risk be suggested the following rule which Til call the Blumenfeld Rule. "When you have finished analys ing all the variations and gone along all the branches of the tee of analy: Sia, you must first of all write the ‘move down on your score sheet be- fore you ply it T have observed the practice of many of my fellow grand ‘matters and [have noticed thatthe great majority of them write the ‘move down before playing, though a ‘minority dit the other way round. "You should write the move down, {nthe long form (be. att e2-of 67-05, 2 OgL-f3 Db8-c6 3 A-b5 47-26 ‘and not the ‘short form I ef eS 2 13 He6 3 S65 26) in neat hand- weiting. Every figure, every leer should be written very clearly and carefully. By writing the move down in this fashion, you tear yourself away from the distant Future of your ‘game to which you have just de- ‘Yoted a valuable half-hour, and you ‘return to the here-and-now of the ‘actual postion on the board in font of you. ‘Then, when you look at the board again, with your move written down but not yet played, you will be look- Jing ait not with the eyes of one gx2- ing ito the distant Future bat with the eyes of someone who ie present inthe tournament oom, of someone ‘who recognises the present reality and the worries of the present mo- ‘meat. Tis is your first sep on the road that brings you back to the pee fent, Bven now you must not hurry tomake your move. Spend ancthet ‘gute looking atthe position ~ you ‘won't have cause to regret it and Jak atthe postion through the eyes of a patzer. Imagine you are not a grandmaster or master, but a mere beginner. Am I threatened with mate in one? In two? Is my queen en ‘prise, omy rook? Am I blundering 4 pawn away? Such an elementary check will almost certainly save you from an immediate oversight onthe first move and is a sound supple- ‘ment tothe deep analysis you have Just inishea By following this Blumenfeld Role you will be able to combine ‘depth of thought with practical ac tracy and blunder-fre play More Practical Advice ‘To Analyse or Not to Analyse? Having dealt with questions such as the correct way to analyse, bow 19 find and choose the strongest moves, the reasons for blunders and how to avoid them, there now remains the {ask of giving some valuable pieces of advice In grandmaster and master games ‘one often comes across complicated positions in which the search forthe Fight move involves analysing an Inumense number of perplexing vari- In the great majority of cases this analysis has to be undertaken. within the limits of practical play. However there are cases when the purely practical side of things in- duces the player to choose another Tine entirely. “This can be best explained by ‘considering the following game, Keree-Smysiov, Candidates’ Tour” ramen, Zarich 1953. ‘Keres ast move 19 He3-h3 of fers a rook sactfice. Should Black take it? The natural thing for Smys- lov to do would be to sete down and analyse the acceptance ofthe of- fecright through tothe end. Natal, agresd, bat not a the given position fnd in the given tournament situ- ‘ton in which Black found himself. Sometimes a player has to con- sider not jst the demands ofthe po- sition ut the whole question of tournament tacts. How much time has he onthe clock, is tie-trouble coming up, does his standing in the tournament demand taking risk, ot 4s steady play called for? ‘The Keres-Smysiov game was played near the end of a very im: portant tournament, the winner of which was to play Botvinnk forthe world ile. Saystov was half apo head of Keres and natrally wanted to beat Keres and so beat off his challenge; but a loss would make ‘Keres the tournament leader instead, and Reshevsky and Bronstein were not far behind either. Hens70 More Practical Advice rook sacrifice, which would carry the risk of time-wouble, when any: thing can happea. He had no wish to lose first prize and the chance of be ing world champion by a hasty ‘move in a time seramble ‘Now here is how Bronstein de- seribes the situation in his marvel Tous book on this tournament: ‘As Sanysoy elated later,“ spent long time thinking here. [felt ike taking the ook, especialy 28 I could ‘ot abe a win for White in that Line” tis indeed nice to bea whole rook tp, and one's first thought must be that if tis not taken and Black fails towin the game, how annoyed one willbe. Moreover, next move he will {ake the h-pawn, $0 take his rook! ‘There canbe no question of working ‘tall oot over the board. You simply have to examine the main lines and thea rely on your judgement” ‘Smyslov, however, did not take the rook but played instead 19. dxo4, ‘which Bronstein awards two excla. ‘mation marks. Bronstein then con- tinves wih this comment: “Smyslow's intuition did not let him down and he played the best move as was shown by subsequent analysis. But how did be make up hhismind? If one may pu ithis way, how did intuition work? Did be weigh it up carefully or did he jast “Obviously the move must have been the product of deep study of the postion. Firstly Black opens the diagonal of hie b7-bishop, which ‘can now be transferred to of and then £6 He also opens the die and {24 the chance o put his quecn on 45, threatening mate, or even just 19 take the d pawn. Thirdly. be gets jast, for the momenta pasted pawn on the efile which can advance to c3 30 ‘sto block the dangerous long black iagonal. Meanwhile the rook i eft fen prise and could be safely cap- ‘ured, for example in the variation 20 bred gxhs 21 WahS es “For curiosity’s sake, though, ‘what would happen if Black took the rook stsight away’? Would the king Aight tempt 19..gxh5 20 Webs 2Be8 sve him? Itscems White could lose the door on the reat by 21 4th threatening £3, 0g 1) 2nducd 22 Wah? bes 23 ass Be7 242g. 2) 21.86 22 5 and now: 2a) 22..bxe5 23 Wh6 Ag? 24 Wahi 8 25 des, 2b) 22..W8 23 06 Bac6 24-ha3 as 25 Wis Rat 26 RA 22) 22.84 23 EG Wes 24 Bes. ‘Considerations such as fear of time-trouble and the tournament po sition ofthe leaders thus led Smys- Tov to refuse the rook offer, without even looking too deeply into the ‘ariadons. True, he did have a good ‘move in reserve which general con- Sderations led him to choose, con- Sderations which it took mach leas time to weigh than deep analysis ‘would. The great majority of grand ‘masters, with the possible exception ‘of Tal, would play the way Smysiov i, especially ast led toa quick win for Back. ‘The remaining moves were 20, eh? (Keres could sill have dawn. by 20 Wet e3 21 xcs Bxcs 22, Hhecs Wat 23 Wedd Bxdd 24 WoT ‘pxhs 25 Bxb7, bathe was playing to win) 20..031 21 Wel! Wea 22 ne Bide 23 ei Aig 24 Wes 16 25 Wed c2 26 Be? Bas 2714 Ris 28 xd Wade 0-1 ‘We ean conclude that itis some- times advisable to avoid analysing ‘complicated variations at al, 0 a5 ‘not to get into time-trouble or 0 avoid unnecessary risk. This can be done when you have a sound move Inreserve, even though itmay not be the very best one. The fact that it is ‘ot best is compensated for by the fact that you save time. You will be ‘thankful for this pragmatic decision ‘whea your opponeat is short of ime fd you ail ave on your clock the ‘aluable minutes saved earlier on. ‘Such eases of avoiding complica- tions and risks are quite common ‘Take for example the Keres-Taima- nov game from the last round of the 19th USSR Championship 1951, Which began 1 o4 26 2 23 06 3 Bed d5 43 e7 503.006.8626 7 46 7 8 RAB dx04 9 bro cS 10 00 cxdé LI exdd e612 We2 Be 13 Hid Het 14 Hact Was 15 £1 Wes 16451 exa (D) Keres now had two candidate moves 17 @xd5 and 17 exd5. This ‘ot ard o ee thatthe caprre with More Practical Advice 71 the Knight leads to great complica tions, while the pawn capture leaves ‘much more ofa calm position. The analysis ofthe fit ine cost Keres 8 {reat deal of time Here ar the vai- tion which he examined after the forced Sequence 17 xd Qa (or 17-.Wh6 18 Bel leaves White with big advantage) 1 oxd 16! 1) 19 We2 xb? 20 dxe6 dxct! 21 Wah7+ $8 and aow 22 cxb7 22a of 2247 Wh6 and Black wins, whilst 22 Wh is also bad because of 22..sie7 23 Hats 6 24 WhS 156 with abig advantage to Black. 2) 19 dxe6! (a queen sacrifice which Keres spent alot of ume on) 19, He? 20 exb7. Keres writes: “True, | could not analyse all the ramifications of the complicated ‘variations which would then arise” ‘Then he gives what he did soe while stadyig this positon: 2a) 20.. Excl 21 Heel £48 (or 24, Bed 22 He8 Wad 23 g3 WET 24 ‘B65 winning) 22 B8 WA6 23 53 ixs2 24 Set and wins 2b) 20..Boe8 21 x66 (ater 21 Hoe? ixb2i 22 Kads Wels! 2372 More Practieal Advice ‘Rel Hrd 24 HS Hee8) 21..2x06 @L..Wet6 22 Hes Wes 23 det and Black is in rouble; heals is in ad way after 21.198 22 sat) 22 Hes dg7 23 paw Wats 24 Buds ‘Zab 253 and the ending isa win for White 22) 20.208 21 eS! Hse 22 Dares 96 2..Wres 23 Rede Wes 24 Rdct! eS 25 Bee8+ Bued 26 el! is winning for White) 23 a7 1Bxb7 24 g3! and now Black loses his bishop, whereupon White has ‘both material advantage and the at- tack 24..WO 25 Set, 26) 20.508 21 a3 (21 Sxf6 Wr16 22 eB is worse since after 22, keo8 23 b8W Bxc8 24 WaT ‘We? Black has adequate counter- play) 21 fteT 22 Bxe7 (or 22 Bos ‘Bir 23 Bade Wel) 22. fixe7 23, Bes g6 24 baw Wits 25 Bs ‘ending may not be enough 0 win [No doubt about it, Keres did a very deep and taxing piece of analy Sin After the natural night capture fon d5 White has an advantage in all, variations. What does the experi cnced grandmaster do now”? Keres in fact comments: “This analysis shows that 17 @ixd5 would ‘undoubtedly leave White withthe ‘beter game, but the complicated a ture ofthe variations arising rather Incline one to prefer 17 exdS as ‘more appropriatin practical play” "And infact after 17 exd5 b8 18 at Wee 19 Zedl £8 20 Det Dred 21 Exes Exes 22 Wrot Ws 23 @g5! White gota crushing atack. fon all fonts. The end of the game was 23.86 24 bat Qa 25 WES 6 26 te gxt6 27 Oar7 Wel 28 Wars 8 29 Bede Wadl+ 30 ho Weds 31 xb? West 32 g3 e733 Whee €7 34 n5 Exb7 35 Wars ses 36 Wab7 Wihs+ 37 ep 10 Positions for Analysis or Judgement? In considering analysis we have now seen a number of positions where the game was decided by a player penetrating deeply into intricacies ‘Of complex positions. The positions ‘ould only be assess by this means because oftheir nature. ‘We have already stressed that 2 player who wishes to become a {grandmaster must be able to analyse sceurately, as this is what decides the majority of games. Nevertheless, there are positions and even whole games where analysis recedes into the background and the principal {actors positional judgement, over- all assesement. In och cases ‘randmaster relies on the quality ‘which is developed by experience, the quality we ell his positional un. esstanding oc adgement. How does one decide which posi- tions come under this heading and ‘which demand thorough analysis? I feel the answer should be wnder- stood by everyone. The character of 1 position is generally determined by the pe of opening, When apo tion is closed and lacks direct con- tact between the opposing forces, thea the choice of the best move i normally made based on positional {actors and positional considerations predominate: when the opening leads o sharp hand-to-hand fighting then you analyse and analyse. "To clarify this let us take two ex- amples from the opening. In the ‘Queen's Gambit, after 1 d4 45 24 ©63 @e3 26 dcxd5 exd5 5 L506 63 e7 7.43 0.08.6 Diba 9 ‘We2 Les 10 0-0 O8 it would bea needless and pointless waste of en- ergy to analyse variations. In such positions a grandmaster considers where to move each piece, what weakening be can thereby in- Guce in his opponents pesiton and ‘what point in hs own position needs Sengthening. Thinking wil be based fn general considerations without ‘concrete analysis. "The case that arses from the moves 148 2152. 653.04 £5 403 eb 5 ed eS 6 ord DD47 More Practical Advice 73 26 Binet 8-ROS+ 06 9 deo6 bxo6 10 Des Aes is quite diferent ‘This position arose in Belavenets- Listsys, 10th USSR Championship 1937. Here itis easy to understand that ‘if one side worked only on genera Principles then one would nat get ‘very far Be careful, oF you could ‘nish up losing apiece. In this posi- tion analysis isthe main feature: ool, accurate analysis, checking ‘every possibility “Laing read this chapter, hope you will not start analysing. ari= ations where you should be choos ing the best move by judgement and assessing positional factors, and conversely will not go soaring off into the cloude when the white and black armies are closely locked in mortal combat. ‘One final point. Experience and the constant analysis of the most ‘red potions builds up a sore of knowledge in player's mind, ena bling him, often ata glance, to as. ‘088 this or that position, I is this74 More Practical Advice erudition that help a grandmaster to ‘choose the right move without deep In this position, from the game Alekhine-Flobs, Notingham 1936, White played 46 Hre6! and com- mented on the move: “One of those Combinations which an experienced player does not analyse tothe end, ince he knows that the Kingside pawns must force their way hough ‘So make sure that you have such an arsenal of chess knowledge that ‘You can foresee what wil happen. ‘Trust Your Opponent or Not? In the heat ofthe bate a grandmas ter often comes up against the fol- lowing situation: after analysing he ‘comes to the conclusion that one of the candidate moves is filysatis- factory for him, but then notices the twicky point that ihe delays playing the move and induces his opponent to make a cerain reply, the candi date will then win the game. ‘Then he begins to be troubled by ‘doubis; should he play the mave im mediately of should he wait? There isa lotto be said for waiting. Your ‘opponent might make the move you ‘want him to, and then you will win, ‘Tre, he might notice your cunning scheme and not make the concession you want from him ~ but there is @ hance he might! In soc situations faly the strong-minded can resist the temptation and play strictly in accordance with the demands ofthe positon. Thote of weaker character ‘will probably try their ck. Let us take an example of such weakness which was shown by a ‘very gifted player of great practical Mrength. A’ game Ragozin-Leven- fish, Masters’ Training Tournament 1922 reached tis position Levenfish analysed these lines aficr 13..Wee3+ 14 f1 Bc} 15 bcs 1) 15.06! 16 Sxed duet 17 el WaS+18 12 0.0-0 19 Waed ‘Wre3 20 Hbl 06 21 het Wad with the beter game for Black, 2) 15.69! 16 Ret Ops! 17 De5 Dies (this isthe reason Black {id not castle on the queenside, but ‘moved his king instead) 18 dxeS es 193 Wrel+ winning. "What more could ane want? Cap- ‘uring on 3 gives Black the advan- tage in two separate ways, yet inthe game Levenfish played the weaker 13.-h3? and explained his erorsub- sequently in these words: "The appe- tie grows while you are eating. In ‘ot variations White could go into the ending a pawa dowa, so started lookiag for even more and hit upon the combination 13..Oe¢ 14 Wrgt Wreds 15 Se? 2xc+ 16 bed Wred+ 17 22 io 18 Wes Dots and White must resign, How ever, White has the reply 13..g¢ 14.0.0! Wxe3t 15 hl fixed 16 xed Qins 17 Bed Waid 18 Belt ‘S819 Wof7 and itis White who i ‘winning and not Black. So T made 2 ‘move which prepares the combina- tion with igs, which would then win even after the reply 0.0" ‘Sohe played 13.43 with the idea ‘hat if White made the instinctive reply 14g3, the move on which Lev- cenfish pinned all his hopes, D4 would have gained in stength as White would not then have time Capture te pawn with is queen a the end ofthe variation. ‘Bot what if White plays a differ cent 14th move? This probably did not occur to Black, who was hoping that Ragezin would not see all the {nesses ofthe position and would More Practical Advice 75 Ioce a once by 143. However, hit ‘move was not played So after looking at this example of faulty judgement we make the rue, ‘Never rely on your opponent ‘making a mistake’. How many good ‘games have suddealy been spall because this rle was broken, be- cause a player was carried away by ‘he temptation ofa quick win! ‘Consider another cate. Your op- ponent soddenly spends over half an hour over one move, then series ‘pav. Should you cape itor not? If we look at it from a sticty theo- retical point of view, you ae bound to settle down and do the tame a Your oppencat and consider all the Possibilities right o the end. Only analysis can give you the right an- However, in practice a player often tackles i the other way round, He trusts his opponent's judgement, arguing that if «pawn has been of- fered after 20 much thought then it must be correct. The opponent has checked it through and has seen fomething, so "Why should I waste half an hour when at the end oft all 1 shall probably come tothe conc son that tis sound? Ia’ i simpler Jus test your opponent and save "TE you happen to know your op- ponent well, then another exiterion pplies. What sort of player is he? If you know that he is very exact in his analysis then you can probably re- fase the offer straight away. [fhe is76 More Practical Advice ‘ota rational player but loves com plications and sks ~ifyou have no- ticed in his play cases of Buffing ~ thea you should check his analysis, provided you have the ime to spare fon your clock. If you check and ‘catch him out in an incomrect offer then the extra pawn will come in handy! In such cases don’ rely on him but check it yourself However, if you really have confidence in your ‘opponcat’s analytical powers then save time ~it may be useful later on ‘One final remark. It was estab- lished long ago that many players ‘think ofthe right move immediately ‘thei opponent makes his move. This ‘unconscious working of one's chess intuition, developed by experience, has been formed by all te tour ment games you have played over the years My own personal observa- tion is thatthe move that I have played reluctandy, as it were against the wishes of my hand, has often tamed out to bea decisive mistake. "Naturally here you have to know ‘your own reactions. Does the move that your hand is itching to make generally tum out tobe the ight po- Sitional reply? In that case you can generally ely omits promptings. I repeat: this isthe product of experi- tence, Your frst reaction, your desire {stretch out your hand and make 12 move without analysis, is the roduct of some significant thought process and on the whole the im- plse can be rusted, though not un- conditionally Time-trouble ‘A grandmaster sits for hous a the ‘board, amid the quiet ofthe tourna- ‘ment room. Sunk in thought, the ‘only action comes every now and again as he moves apiece, stops his ‘lock and changes his posture. Then follows another quit, inacive pe- tied, "This isthe case atthe tart ofthe game, bat as time goes on and the fend of the playing session ap- the way, that most interesting yet worrying stage ofthe game, Tis is ‘when the game is normally decided, ‘when the most mistakes are made, ‘Time trouble aime of undeserved jy and painul sorow. ‘When the flag rises and you have only afew seconds forthe remaining ‘moves you cannot help getting nerv= ‘us. Some strong players lose con twol oftheir nerves, Reshevsky, for ‘example, bounces up and down on his chair, whispers to himself and in fright glances atthe clock. ‘With some the revere is tue Bronstein, even in the most fear- some time: touble, stil manages not only to write down the moves but also continues to note the time taken by each player, ‘Time-toubles blunder time. Can you justify these blunders by poi ing cut how shor of time you were, and what a misery ration of time you had left in which to make eru- ‘lal decisions? No, you cannot No- body will take mich note; 0 official wil change the result in the tournament table advise you to de velop a sternly ertical attitude to time-trouble errors, following the example of Alekhine who wrote of ‘one of is moves in a game against ‘Tylor, Nottingham 1936: A horrible ‘move, and in my opinion the fact that White was intime-trouble when the made itis no more justification than the claim ofa law breaker that the was drunk when he commited ‘the crime. The inability of an expt ‘enced master o cope with the clock should be considered at faulty a ‘making an oversight in analysis” Remember that! Still, time-trouble is real trial for the player and in my time T have seen all sorts of nervous reactions ‘nd unusual behaviour during it T have told elsewhere ofthe controller wn himself lst control and sid 10 the players, ‘Don't move s9 quickly, {can’t follow what's going on! ‘Once in a Moscow chess club I saw how two frst-ategory payers knocked pieces off the Board as they were exchanged, so thatthe pieees {ell onto the floor. It was a If they were playing skitles and aot chess Once’ the master Mazel stopped ‘tng his moves down and wied to find out whether they had made enough moves by looking at the Score sheet of his opponent, master More Practical Advice 77 ‘Kopaev. The later was annoyed by this and hid his score shect under the table and brought it out again ‘only after Mazel puta piece en prise fon move 52, when the next time ‘control was almost de! ‘So many stange happenings, so ‘many tragedies! But if one has got Into time-trouble, what is the best ‘way to play? What advice can help? This isa big topic about which one could write reams, and in this book ‘we must devote some atention to the problem ‘AS time-trouble approaches, the character of player's thoughts changes. He thinks moce about sin- {ple moves than general problems, ‘or, as Bronstein pats it, the nearer time-trouble you ae, the more ta ties you get and theless strategy. He isan expert on this topie and his many time-troube experiences have ‘generally worked in is favour. Peshaps the main problem is to keep contol of your nerves. Not everybody can do this, which i why Some cunning players deliberately am to run short of time if they have ‘dificult position. They hope thelr opponent will get flustered and ‘make a mistake, One has to kaow hhow to counteract such people and. certainly you must recognise that some people do adopt tates ofthis, "To some extent time shortage by your opponent mustaffect you. How an you keep calm if your opponent fitting right opposite you keeps78 More Practical Advice ‘visting about takes hold of his ears tnd bounces up and down oa his chair? Smysiov told me his invari- able defence against such conduct. ‘When T grumbled o him that I could ot stand the sight of Reshevaky ‘squirming about in ine-wouble, as ithe were in a frying pan, he gave ‘me this advice: "You just go away fom the board. You have enough time. Take a litle stroll and let him suffer on his own. When i's your fur to move, come back. and thea repeat the process! 1 tied the ‘method. Although you lose some time itis a great help, ‘Some players argue that they ‘must exploit their opponent's time shortage by playing quickly them- felves, They take the line that they do not want to give their opponent the chance to thnk when hs clock ‘not going. Knowing that itis unwise to move quickly because ofthe risk ‘of blundering themseves, they ty 0 think out along variation, and thea play these moves quickly, hoping to ‘atch out their opponent. who has Tine tie to work ut the sequence, However, such a method of playing "by portions’ more fea lead to = rors on the pat of the player with ‘Naturally the greatest problems come when iis you, and not your ‘opponent, who Is pressed for time. Fst ofall, how are you to keep count of how many moves you have ‘made, and how many there ar © $9 te the contrl? You have given up keeping score and you can get no help fom ouside =the laws of chess do not allow you to ask anyone In- Yeative players have thought up many devices to solve this one. Some set up a row of picces that have already been taken off by the board and every die they nove they take one away. As the orginal nur ber of peces inthe row comespoads to the number of moves left you havea visual check, but what if in your haste you forget to remove one ach time? Then You will have to ‘make more moves than in fact are ‘equized before you fel safe Sometimes they write instruc. tions for themacives on the score sheet For examples against the 30th move they write Di hours, against ‘he 50h — 1 hour 45 minutes, but in practice they don't obey their own Instructions and sit there short of time a wal! ‘There is only one piece of advice ‘Lean give. Either don't get into time ‘rouble at all, or if you do, train yourself to play in time-troble as if {you were in fact not shor. If your ‘opponent is sort, ignore him: play just as you played caller inthe ‘game, Ifyou are short, keep calm; Trepeat, don't ge flustered. Keep up the sume neat writing of the ‘moves, the same methodical exami- ‘ation of variations, but ofcourse at quicker rte. ‘Someone is bound to react here, “That's all very well to advise, but how do you react yourself? T can Exercises 79 only say that as arte the best players as if they were not shot of time. So inthe world do In order to give the reader a ch toanintlsaalycal powers toler ww crete ame ae TReccne ioepe moon 9 hme Teer ech pee vei” gg pg pg wittntsaattperaencrscos: MA Ipwe te postions Gxply oncoar OA BA tty ouside lp Only en sad [AES BUA erefertotheanswers atthe end of (iE EES | the book. Ihave tied to choose ex- amples which have been deply ana lysed in tournament books and games collections so thatthe inter- ‘The knight at can move tofive Can Whit save himself? Analyse possible squares. Which isthe best he vasiatons. EEnight move? Support your concla- sion by giving variations.80 Exercises Bxercizes 81 plus, but does the move have acoa- black candidate moves had he ex- (Can he save himself by 1.sbaa? ‘ree refutation? Quote a number of amined in answer to this? Which ‘Can White play 1 @xc7 Exe7 2 x05? ‘White played 1 2f1.Coulda’the Can White move his knight or his save bimself by 1 Wd6 or 1 xd? queen? (Can Black sacrifice his knight by 1.Oxgte?2 Positional Judgement Let ue begin with an analogy In the distant past, when a scientist work ing in the field of chemistry had to analyse a substance and discover its Properties, he had to work mainly by tye. He did not have available the immense help that was provided by the later discovery ofthe elements, particularly by Mendclev'speioic table. Once this powerful weapon in analysis had been discovered, a sci- enlist was provided with the means ‘of not only accurately determining the composition ofa substance, bat also of foresecing certain scientific ‘Pheoomena, ‘Chess players, forthe greater part, ofthe last century, found themselves in the same postion as our old chemist, and had to work by rule of thumb, because they did not have available the positional teachings of ‘Wilhelo Seitz. They had to ares the position on the basis of their experience, by their own methods which were based mainly on com- parisons. Once Steintz had given his teaching to the world, chess mas ters had an analytical apparaus which enabled them to assess all chess postions witha fair degree of securaey. ‘How does a chemist determine the composition ofa substance? He determines frst of all the presence of this or that chemical element, then determines the proportion of ‘each element. Breaking down into elements is method which one finds in many other branches of science, For example, the field which I worked ~ mechanics and ‘mechanical engineering ~ the most complex designs consist of le- ments, No matter how complex an cngineering drawing o blueprint, & ‘and engineer will dcern the ba- sic elements of the design thei in teraction and then finally can assess the design ofthe new machine, “Injust the same way does a chess master work in our tine ~a time of highly developed technique in all fields of human knowledge. To as- S58 a position, the maser has to break it down into its elements. He ecides which pieces, both his own ‘and his opponents, are active and ‘eh pa wt ere ea where there are strong. He ‘il ace where ther ae ope les and diagonals, those highways along ‘which the lin-moving pieces work in the direction ofthe enemy camp. ‘The master takes accouat of every clement and the role it plays inthe given position. Thi analysis ofthe ‘lements takes a great deal of the Aime devoted tothe process of a- "Then a the hein, having done baal, comer ois ge tra conlsion ss 0 he sbtace fis dealing wih, soothe chess taster syntheses te wort he hat {ove and enhes» general us tent ofthe poston er sone inp i te work hate hat one sil ive in the data om wich to Secide who. if anyone, stands bat. tes and enable to freee the future couse of Geetopment Ht Cooclsions are adie nots pevect au cena smlys of ‘bwane, but forthe present sage of development of chess sien ey aves arora spose Summing up, the proces of a sesing poion costs ofthe Toto pens anlyig thee ten of ponon aden she ‘Sing he rs The sly to sss poskion corey one of th a ingar tan guslis of god player As Bown pts "Sveyhing ime roving cing the echo of ontoeal ply. Plyers ae becom: ing falar wih a powing amber of piel portions, now mete fr being developed, yt seems 0 te that ane of crate ot - a | td S In this postion Smystov (Black. against Botvinnk in the 1954 World ‘Championship match) weat in for a bold sacrifice of the exchange, in- tending to exploit the consequent separation of the white pieces from, fone another, while his own pieces covoperated well gether. TIvexdat 12 at Wa6 13 bxes 5 14 Gad beat 15 Qixc6 Wires 16 5 Wro4 17 xad Des [Now Botvinnik astestes the posi- tion this way, “White has a difficult position. His pieces are split up, Black's pieces control the centre, and White's Kingsie is weak" These advantages enabled Smysiov o £0 ‘on and win the game. Lette reader ‘ote what « powerful well-kni force the black pleces are from now on, fight the end of the game. 18 et Woa 19 a3! Wxb2 20 ‘Wrat 67 21 ZI Botvinnik goes wrong. By 21 xb7 Wxb7 22 Be3 he thought af- terwards that he could still have re- tained some drawing chances. Now ‘the united black pieces mount an at- tack that cannot be stopped. 721..2f3+ 22 tht Read! 23 cho OegS+ 24 oh? D134 25:83 ‘Bixb2 26 Wra7 Shes 27 a4 7 28 [Hai es 29 We7 Hes! 30 a5 He2 Look atthe compact unite black forcer, a marvellous example of piece ton 31 og? Date 32 Or 29 33 RoI He6 0-1 ‘One final defect, and possibly the most significant, is backwardness in evelopment when several pieces are still on their original squares. ‘The way to exploit this isto start making threats and mixing things straightaway. If there are no direct ways of attacking, then find some Indirect way of keeping your 0pp0- nent busy, Do not give hi a chance to complete his development, a5 ‘once he gets is pieces cur your ad ‘meat, especially onthe queensie. If White does not hury, Black will play .Bb7,« We7 and thea castle Tong In this ase the game would be level, However, White isnot going to davedle and begins an immediate hand-to-hand fight 10 Wns! ‘Threatening to win the h-pawn by 11 WT. Then the passed hepawn ‘would be a powerful weapon. Black thas to stop this by reteating his The Position ofthe Pieces. 119 bishop, leaving his development ‘even more backward. 10.f8 11 WEs 287 12 0-0-0 ns 13 BL e7 14 Wes! ‘Once again with a concrete threat of 15 WgT delving the rook to 18 and s0 winning the b-pawn, This calls fora defesive move 14,08 13 Bhel 15 16451 ‘This is a crushing move as if 16.-ex48 17 @16 #, while 16.04 loses to 17 dxe6 and 18 ext. 16..cxd5 17 s+ a7 18 Des wer [Now White just took the knight and won. After 18.ftc8 there is an ‘amusing mate: 19 W7 E820 Reds (exd5 21 016+ Bxi6 22 De6+ Se? 23 Wait In conclusion, I should like to emphasise the importance of corect Piece positioning. Remember that in fecking the solotion of concrete tasks by analysing variations you should never allow yourself to be ‘atred away and lose sight of the ‘eed fora harmonious link between all your pieces. Take itasarle once ‘0¢ {ce to look atthe position from. 8 different point of view during the fame, Ask youre, “Are my pieces All co-operating, of is there some disharmony in ther ranks?” A quick check ike this canbe of great hep. ‘A grandmaster normally reies on fan unconscious feling developed by years of experience to see if he thas put his pieces on the right squares. Possibly the reader iss yet lacking such intuition. Try to make120 The Position ofthe Pleces up fr this a rt by conscious ort to make the check we have de- scribed, and then you will not get {no the tort of difficalties we have been desribing inthis section, the dificales which arse from having poorly poste pieces. ‘Space and the Centre ‘We have decided to examine these ‘two important positional concepts together. In fact there is & genuine ‘organic connection between them. If ‘we wish to gain a noticeable ad- vantage in space se must have @ firm control over the centre ~ we ‘must break the opponent's resis- tance there and drive his pieces away. If wehave taken conto of the entre, oar opponent cannot im prove the postion of his pieces. Conversely, any strategically well- ‘based gain of space must give us contol ofthe cenize, The question of the centre has received a great deal ofatention in the last century or 50, ie. during ‘the period of maturing of positional, ‘thought, Fist ofall the experts pro- posed the moto, ‘Occupy the centre with your pawas'.In such openings asthe Giuoco Pian, King’s Gambit ‘and Evant Gambit the two white centre pawas were generally played ‘two squares forward. The pawn cen ‘ae at that time was considered si- red and its creation was thought to bbe an carl sign ofthe fact that you ‘were approaching a wis, ‘Then came the hypermoderns. ‘They said that central pawns were ‘not all hat formidable. You merely had to exert pressure on them by means of your pieces and the paw centre had ost its force. It was in these years that such openings asthe [R&U Opening, Alekhine's Defence, NimzorIndian Defence and Grin {eld Defence were invented In all these lines a pawn centre ‘was formed by one side, but his op- pponeat took measures to attack it sSraight away, ‘Years went by and Soviet players took a hand in this dispate about sategic problems. Since then, 2 treat deal has fitted into its right place. The pawn centre is still re- spected, sometimes even praised as ‘enthusiastically as in the days of ‘Andersen and Morphy, but with the ‘qualification that such a centre has to be firmly supported by pieces, that one's whole army must unite to suengthen cent postions. ‘At the same time there has been an immense amount of work done fon new ways. of atlcking 2 pawn centre. The most varied methods hhave been found in established de- fences, and pride of place has been taken by the King’s Indian Defence, that most complicated counterat tacking defence. In such openings, the cenre sin White's hands forthe moment, but Black has counter- chances which will force White 0 very great effors to defend his cen- tral build op. Or take the example of Saysiov's Variation ofthe Grunfeld Defence: 1.64 @if6 2 o4 p63 De3 45 4013 Sg? 5 Wo duos 6 Wac4 0.07 4 et 8 203 D447, Black would really be in hot war tee with Tarrich for having och 3 position! He would probably pro- ‘ounce Black's game tobe hopeless, yet how many interesting games hhave been won by Black from this position by means of a counterat- {ack on the white cente! In recent years there has been a tendency to neglect the pawn cent completly. Ia any recent top-class tournament you might find & game starting with a sequence of moves such as 14 462 4 g6 304 Sg7 4.203 65 0e3 OT 6 Wa? ‘The whole centre is in White's hhands, and Black has not yet even started fighting fora single central ‘square, unless one counts the g7- bishop's attack on the white centre pawn, Yet modern masters do not fear this formidable cen. The Postion ofthe Pieces 121 ‘They pin theie hopes on the smiddlegame. At that stage they n= tend to Ske hard at White's central fortress, hoping in the rough and tumble that arses to destroy or put to flight the apparently welln- ‘tenched white amy. ‘We shall consider the question of, the centre in more detail when we dal with planning. For the moment, ‘bear in mind that you must be flex: ‘ble in your intentions and in your

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