The Keres Enigma Part One

Hello Chess Lovers

Its always an honour to present the games of Paul Keres who perhaps will go down in history as the strongest player not to win a World Championship. He towered above the chess fraternity for many years and had to cope with immense difficulties at many times during his life. Despite this, he was one of the first truly universal players of the game. He played an immense amount of opening variations and wrote on the theory of the variations. He was also an avid Correspondence player. His style evolved as he aged and from the 1930s onwards he was always a threat to the very best players.

Lets look at one of his earlier games to see how brutally he punished inaccurate opening play.

Keres v Winter

1.e4c5 2.Nf3Nf6 3.e5Nd5 4.Nc3e6 5.Nd5ed5 6.d4d6 7.Bg5Qa5+? Already there is a crisis point.
Keres, like many great attacking players sought the most active moves and had a reverence for the element of time. Playing 1.e4 puts a great responsibility on the shoulders of the player with the white pieces as accuracy and timing are so important.

8.c3cd4 9.Bd3 At this point it is clear that Paul made a critical decision.One of the serious turning points.
He decided to go straight for development 9...dc3 10.0-0cb2? 11.Rb1de5 12.Ne5Bd6
At a very early stage in the game a crisis point has been reached. Black has reaped a harvest of pawns in the hope that he can withstand the punishment. White, on the other hand has made a commitment. He is simply at the point of no return as black is poised to castle and then escape.So...

13.Nf7!Kf7 14.Qh5 At this point Keres has the right ratio of pieces for an attack.Three in the vicinity of the black king. g6 15.Bg6hg6 16.Qh8Bf5 17.Rfe1 Perhaps the last critical moment. White brings up reinforcements. The greatest attacking players always allow for this moment in an attack.
17...Be4 Trying to cover e8.Keres had other ideas.
18.Re4de4 19.Qf6+ and black resigned. A possible finish could be
19...Ke8 20.Qe6Kf8 21.Bh6 mate. Now how would this apply to the serious amateur player:

1) A high level of alertness for inaccuracies in the opening when playing 1.e4
    Kasparov, Anand, Nunn,Svidler,Short, Velimirovic,Fischer,Keres and Tal as well as Shirov are famous for this alertness.

2) A deep respect for timing in chess. Keres sacrificed in a commital way knowing that his huge lead in development would pay off.

3) A strong visual sense for radical changes in positions.

4) The ability to sense the crisis points in a game.

5) Accurate conversion technique.