Game - 10: Fine, with a Moth...if not a Butterfly!

"To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, -

One clover, and a bee,

And revery.

The revery alone will do

If bees are few."

                                                             - Emily Dickinson

The bees are a rare commodity....and so is clover - for they have been laboured, cloned and destroyed....  And what we are left with is the revery and a few...who knows how to....occasionally!

Grunfeld defence reappears in this match!

A fine chess struggle - more importantly both the players thought over the board and developed the opening into a promising middle-game and the game ended in just fashion.

This for me is the ideal chess play - relying on thought process and ideas that gets churned out over the board....with the heat of every passing moment and above all "forgetting to remember"!!

Before we get into the game, a few questions:

Is this a match to determine who is the best!?

Is this exercise of playing a world championship done to entertain public?, find truth in chess?, or a mere ritual?

Are the players playing for title?, money?, prove their mastery?

And who are we....the millions sitting in our drawing room for the clock to strike....and see in unison - notwithstanding the geographical separation - ...see the hand of the white player to make his first move; with great many trying to speculate....what it would be!  

And who are we...the breed that sits after the completion of 'duet'....trying to decipher what was....what if....what might....and plausibly what will!?

Is it an escape from boredom...the drudgery?

These questions are not for seeking a dry answer...rather to seek ourselves...!

"Man's noblest gift to man is his sincerity, for it embraces his integrity also...for in the presence of nature there is no reserve, not effrontery." 

The words of Henry David Thoreau aptly finds and fixes the place of man and his effulgence...nature never pretends unlike man and takes no cognizance of man who is pretending either.  The beauty lies in the bareness, the stripping of pretensions.

For, to know our place and position in the scheme of things, makes it easier to understand the whole...better and would let us enjoy the game of chess that is played in another corner of this world, as we would see the sun emerging from the eastern horizon and a small flower that has blossomed on a particular day!

Happiness is a spontaneous feeling...that ensues....and is evoked and yesterday's play did evoke happiness!

1) d4 Nf6; 2) c4 g6; 3) Nc3 d5

Incidentally....or accidentally, I discovered today that this position occurred in a game played in 1855! And the move 3.....d5 was played by an Indian, 38 years before Grunfeld was even born!! Apple has been falling from the trees for millions of years before Newton was born.  But it was he who first asked why it is falling down instead of going up!

Therefore, instead of who played first, what matters is why he played!

4) Nf3 Bg7; 5) Qb3 dc4; 6) Qc4 OO; 7) e4 Na6; 8) Be2 c5

In Grunfeld, Black concedes a pawn center to white deliberately and attacks it with his pieces and the 'c' and 'e' pawns. Bronstein explains the underlying principle beautifully:

"Black attacks the central pawn with 'c5' and 'e6', exchanges on the d5, and blockades the pawn with (preferably) a Knight on d6. But even though White's QP will be isolated and blockaded it will remain very strong. Black will always have to consider its advance a possibility, especially since it will not be so simple to post one of his Knights on d6.

The future course of the struggle depends on whether White can advance the pawn to "d6" at the right moment and reinforce it there. If he can, White will have the upper hand, if not, good counter-chances will appear for Black."

This strategy is akin to a lion which chases a herd of gazelle and separates one from the herd and continues its chase....at times the lion wins and at times the gazelle succeeds in outrunning the lion!

9) d5 e6; 10) OO ed5; 11) ed5 Re8; 12) Bg5 h6; 13) Be3 Bf5; 14) Rad1 Ne4; 

And the World Champion deviates first!  Time to weigh the position.

The move played aims at eliminating one of the piece which is supporting the passed d-pawn. Except the Rook on a8, all the Black pieces are playing a role - a potent one; including the corner Knight!

One would wonder why the Rook on a1 comes to d-file and will not his counterpart suit that square better and assign the c-file for this Rook!?

Well, a move played in the game of Chess is not considered in isolation and it has to combine more than one fundamental force that acts behind, if it has to achieve or progress towards a chosen objective.  

A Rook is moved to the d-file not only to reinforce the passed d-pawn, as Black is eliminating one of its supporter; but also is essential to aid its advance. If the Rook on f1 comes to the "d1" square, then in some variations (forget this game continuation, which makes it impossible!) the Rook on a1 might feel uncomfortable with the distant "x-ray gaze" of the Black Bishop on g7! White may not get time to remove it from 'a1' on time and may lose out on a nuance or two!

15) Ne4 Be4; 16) Qc1 Qf6!?

Chess is not merely attack and defence...more importantly it is attack and counterattack. 

White played Bg5 to provoke the "h" pawn and then used a tempo to attack it.  Black foreseeing this plan, commenced a counterattack plan by vacating the 'f6' square for his Queen and target White's 'b' pawn, which would yield him a passed 'c' pawn in exchange for his 'h6' pawn.

Carlsen probably saw the simplicity in execution of this plan when he opted to recapture on "e4" with his Bishop instead of Rook - which would have stirred the position and would require squeezing the frontal lobes intensely! 

17) Bh6 Qb2; 18) Qb2 Bb2; 19) Ng5! Bd4!

The exclamation mark for the last moves by White and Black is to acknowledge their intent to remain and not dissipate the contest!

The move 19) Ng5 by Anand opened up possibilities....the point f7, the advance of d-pawn. Carlsen had to consider options and 19) ......Bc2 putting one more piece dangling in air and justifying the move Ng5!, was certainly not a part of his scheme!  And at times, one should have the temerity to part with the loved ones...the darling light squared Bishop for a hopping Knight - for certain values are subjective.

The move 19) ......Bd4 which 'popped out' after a prolonged deliberation within,  fortified his position and the gazelle on d5 is isolated!  The bishop and the square it found are the result of deeper understanding of the board, the pieces and the squares that Carlsen brings into 'being'... when required and at will!

I loved those two moves and who cares if the machines too found it and was tweeted in anticipation...

20) Ne4 Re4; 21) Bf3 Re7; 22) d6 Rd7; 23) Bf4 Nb4!?

At last, this Knight is allowed to move!  It is debatable whether Vishy could have prevented this with "a3" before committing the push "d6"...but...

24) Rd2

"We learnt in class - 1 that the Rooks belonged to the open file..." someone tweeted and (s)he may be pardoned for the naivety to believe that the former World Champion has 'forgotten' it!  The materialistic engine had to be primed with the move in order to make it consider!

24) ......Re8; 25) Rc1 Re6; 26) h4 Be5! 27) Be5 Re5; 28) Bb7 Rb7; 29) d7 Nc6; 30) d8=Q!!

And for the first time in this match, a pawn got a promotion, even if it had to die the next moment and that calls for a celebration and hence "!!" and the diagram!

Anand fans would have loved to have this position with White to play, though!!

30) ......Nd8; 31) Rd8 Kg7; 32) Rd2

and Magnus was not foolhardy this time to continue when Vishy extended his arm!

Is this enough!?  

Well, it is perfectly fine.... if this is what the product will look like, on a chosen day, despite the best...by the bests...!  

We look forward eagerly to seeing butterflies....and brilliant colours!  But a moth is fine, despite the lack of splendid colours....as a moth too is primarily doing the same job that a butterfly does...collecting the nectar and carrying the pollen on its back for pollination!

One down and two to go....to be or not to be....!