How the greatest players wield minor pieces as weapons of mass destruction Part One n.

 
Hello Chess lovers,

I would like to share with you a chess masterpiece by Vladimir Kramnik against Gary Kasparov.
Played in 1996 it was one of the few occasions where Kasparov was confronted with defensive tasks with the white pieces. Generally Kasparov would use the white pieces to break through. In this game he plays a novelty however Kramnik, divining what his opponent was up to took a high-risk high reward decision which paid off.

 In this game the two bishops are used as a weapon of mass destruction:

Kasparov v Kramnik Dos Hermanas 1996

1.d4d5 2.c4c6 3.Nc3Nf6 4.Nf3e6 5.e3Nbd7 6.Bd3 
With this move order, Kasparov gives his opponent information. He wishes to enter into t.he sharp
Meran lines.
6...dc4 7.Bc4b5 8.Bd3Bb7 
This sub variation goes by two names: the Wade or Wade-Larsen variation. It is popular because it
offers imbalances and asymmetry, often important for victory.
9.0-0 Kasparov was always an advocate of rapid development and decides not to play 9.e4 or 9.a3
9...a6 Preparing c6-c5-c4. 10.e4c5 11.d5 The usual line. Black has not castled yet and so white seeks to open central files. 11....c4 12.Bc2Qc7 13.Nd4Nc5 In Gelfand v Dreev Tilburg 1993 and Carlsen v Shirov 2011 13...e5?! was played.

14.b4 Harassing the defender of e6 and hoping to open lines. 14...cb3 15.ab3b4  16.Na4Nce4 
Kramnik centralises the knight and leaves Kasparov's knight on a4 -where it will stay till the end of the game.

17.Be4!? At the time this was played this was a new move and the aim of it was to free the g4 square for the Queen. Kasparov gives up the bishop pair in order to open up the central lines faster. Kramnik's king is in the center and time is of the essence.
17...Ne4 18.de6Bd6!?  A very brave move. There are a number of reasons why Kramnik will play this move. Time is also important and he saw that castling queen side would mean face 19.Qg4 right away with
the idea of e7+. One line given by Igor Stohl is 19....Nf6 20.Qh3Rd4 21.e7+Kb8 22.ef8Rf8 23.Be3Bc8
24.Nc5Qc5 25.Qg3+ followed by Qg7. Kramnik prepares for King side castling but also takes aim at the white king which is about to come under serious attack from the two bishops. If one looks on the left of the board for black, almost everything is aimed at white's king side. White has a rook on a1, bishop on c1 and a knight at a4.
19.ef7Qf7 20.f3Qh5! Kramnik gets an exclamation mark for this act of courage.Black is willing to sacrifice a piece for an attack against the white king.No less than four black pieces are trained on the white king.The two bishops are aimed at him like long range missiles or snipers.
21.g3 The only move. If 21.fe4?Qh2 22.Kf20-0 ! If  21.h3Qe5 22.f4Qf6 and in both cases black is better.
Psychologically it would have been difficult for Kasparov to cope with this turn of events. He created a new move then finds himself on the defensive with the white pieces-which is very rare.It would have been hard to make this adjustment.

21...0-0 The alternative was the hyper aggressive and accurate ...Ng3.Kramnik is human after all and he must have been anxious about leaving the king in the open.In addition the rook is on the f-file now and this gives rise to some more possibilities.
22.fe4 Kasparov challenges his opponent to prove his concept. He had another move :22.Ra2Nc3 23.Nc3bc3 24.Ne6Bc5 with and advantage for black. 22.Ne6?Ng3 23hg3Bg3 24.Ra2Rf3 and black has the  two bishops.


22....Qh3 This is the move that pushes Kasparov towards his first blunder.He has five different moves and two of them are very bad :
A) 23.Nf5?Be4 24.Ra2Rf5 25.Rf5Qf5 26.Qd6Qf3 winning.
B) 23.Bf4Bf4 24.Rf4Rf4 25.gf4Qe3 26.Kf1Be4 27.Ne2Qf3+
C)23.Ra2!?Be4 I will challenge the reader to finish the analysis.
D)23.Rf8Rf8 24.Qe2
E)23.Qe2!Bg3 
I have decided to leave the reader to figure out the remaining moves in order to promote active reading.
In lines c to e the motif is the same: lateral defense along the second rank.
23.Nf3? Bg3! Black's idea is brutally simple: Rf3 and take on h2 with the queen.
24.Nc5? This is possibly the decisive mistake. 24.Qe2 was available.
24....Rf3 25.Rf3?? 25.Ra2Rf1 26.Qf1Qf1 27.Kf1Rc8 28.Be3Bf4!? Allows white to stagger bleeding into
an endgame which is not so clear cut.
25...Qh2 26.Kf1Bc6!!  Kramnik moves his second bishop in like a sniper who will hit the king from another angle. I really believe Kasparov missed this. He saw the direct threats and then he has to contend with this new idea.
27.Bg5 Kasparov sees another attack coming when his king tries to "run away" so he guards d8.
27...Bb5 28.Nd3Re8 ! With the idea of Qh1 and Re4. 29.Ra2Qh1 30.Ke2Re4 31.Kd2Qg2 
32.Kc1Qa2 33.Rg3 Qa1 34.Kc2Qc3 35.Kb1Rd4 At this point Kasparov simply had enough.
0-1

I hope you enjoyed that. Rarely has Kasparov been so roughly treated as white and it is so odd
to see his king being ripped like that. What was interesting was how Kramnik deployed his bishop straight away on d6 not bothering to recapture on e6. The big turning point came at move 20 when ...Qh5 brought another black piece to the party. At that moment the imbalance on the board was clear. White had three assets -rook bishop and knight stuck on the queen side. Black had a queen and two bishops trained on the white king.
Moves 23 to 25 decided the outcome with the bishops and the queen doing the damage. Kramnik proved in this game that he was more than a match for Kasparov's idea and built a fear factor around the way he used the two bishops.