Hello Chess Lovers
I move now to one of the most romantic of chess openings-an opening that from move 2 breaks the balance of the game in material terms and seeks gains in time and quality and hopefully leads to all out offensives on black's king.As with many openings the quick victories gave way to new defenses which included a contribution from the late Robert Fischer. After 1.e4e4 2.f4 white invests material in the hope of building a big center and getting an open f-file.However the drawback is that black also gets chances as early as move two to give a check on the white king -Qh4 and then go back to e7.
A few GMs will pull it out as a surprise every now and then and some like Federov insist on trying to find some edge in it.However most GMs would rather develop some pieces and then go for another Gambit which does not compromise the security of the white king. Many attacking players simply do not like being attacked.Kasparov has never played it in a serious game and he is known for securing his king before he launches all out assaults on his opponent's king. Now we will look at the sequence 1.e4e5 2.f4ef4 3.Nf3Ne7!? -Black's move is a departure from the pawn moves like 3...d6-favoured by Fischer- or 3...g5 or 3..h6-favoured by Leko or 3...d5.It has two meritorious points. Firstly, it is ready to relocate to g6 where it will have an interesting function in delaying the recapture of the f4 pawn and inviting white to play h2-h4 which in turn gives black a target when he plays ...Be7. Secondly it makes ...d5 even more sound and this cuts across white's plan of Bishop to c4. A third point could be made in that black avoids a commital pawn move.
Lets see how this might work in practice:
Blom v Bok 2010
1e4e5 2.f4ef4 3.Nf3Ne7 4.d4d5! This poses a serious question to white: will he alter the pawn structure in such a way that the game takes on a closed character?
5.e5 In this game he answered in the affirmative. 5...Ng6 6.Bd3Be7 Now white faces the task of removing the annoying f4 pawn. 7.0-00-0 8.c4 and here we have a departure from the typical King's Gambit. A center crowded with pawns.
8...dc4 9.Bc4Nc6 Black has managed to develop his pieces to good squares and d4 will become a target.
10.Nc3Bg4 -A crisis point has been reached.Black confronts white with another problem-defending d4.
11.Bd5Bb4 Now the black queen has more scope and the white knights are under pressure.
12.Bc6bc6 13.Ne2Bf3 14.Rf3Ne5! Black's central strategy has been a success. White tried to defend d4 by removing the c6 knight but lost an essential attacking unit in the shape of the white-square bishop.What is more troubling is that he is two pawns down.He cannot be thinking about an attack at the moment.Therefore this switch from an offensive mode of thinking to a defensive mode will have an impact on him.
15.Rb3Be7 16.Bf4Ng6 17.Bg3Bd6 going for the exchange of white's active pieces. 18.Rc1Qd7 19.R3c3Rb8 20.Qc2Ne7 21.Bf2Nd5 This knight has been a star!! 22.Rh3f5! cutting across white's intentions. 23.b3Rbe8 24.Kf1Qe6 For the next few moves black improves his queen's scope. 25.Re1Qe4! 26.Qc4Kh8 27.Nc3Qf4 28.Ne2Qg5 and black has found an good address for his queen.
29.Qc6f4 30.Rf3Re6 31.Nc3Re1 32.Ke1Bb4!After this the game favours black.Notice that the play has no intensely tactical character to it.
33.Kf1Bc3 34.Rc3Nc3 35.Qc3Qh5! The double attack on h2 and d1 is decisive. 36.Qc7Qd1 ! 37.Be1Re8! and white had enough 0-1
It is interesting to note that the game had a positional character in which both sides were trying to improve their pieces.
The move 8.c4?! -Changed the structure and the trend of the game.Black got a clear target in terms of hitting d4. Instead of attacking black's king, white ended up trying to defend d4 and then hitting queen side targets on the c-file.The queen side migration meant that black could go to the king side for counter play- this is against the spirit of the King's Gambit.Therefore black's strategy succeeded. Hopefully 3...Ne7 will see many more practical tests.
No comments:
Post a Comment