Carlsen - the modern day experimenter!
I distinctly see Steinitz in Carlsen!
....in the way he uses his King, in the way he leaves the QB, at times, in its original square and develops the Rook other way, in the way he handles his pawns, in the way he perceives his centre, in the way he indulges in some extreme experiments to win as well as lose few games!
In short, like the first World Champion, Carlsen remains flexible in his approach and moves around like a river which will flow and meander with great ease without much exertion!
After a highly bizarre opening...., piece sac.... which made Greek and Latin easy to understand, Carlsen, playing White against Topalov in the first round of the ongoing Sinquefield Cup, did manage to reach the following position, which notwithstanding its continued confusion, appears to be in parity!
But....
BOOM came 17.e5? and it was curtains for White, who just managed to wag the tail weakly for some more moves.....before.....
In the second round, however, Carlsen played a true classic in the eyes of Steinitz!
Caruana - Carlsen, Sinquefield Cup, 2015
Is this not a perfect time to play Nf5!? For some reasons, Caruana felt no and hurried to play....
13.Ba2 Rfe8; 14.Ng5 d5!?
A luxury yielded by White's previous move which released the pressure on the 'e5' pawn! Always, the central expansion, its resolution is as delicate and life giving as a child birth! One needs to judge the optimum duration for incubation and right moment for delivery - for, like in childbirth, there is every chance of delivering a child with severe malformation or at times even stillborn if not waited for 'that optimal moment'!
15.Ne6 Qe6; 16.Bg5 h6!
The great Steinitz showed us when to use this pawn...
".....for the opponent by attacking the Bishop with P KR3 (h6 in this case) will either effect an exchange more favorable to himself, or the Bishop will have to retreat with great loss of time."
17.Bf6 Qf6; 18.Qf3 c6!
'Steinitzian move'....very typical of him! The move not only aims at strengthening the centre but as Grandmaster Kidambi viewed, it hems White's light squared bishop, more importantly!
19.c4 Rad8; 20.cd5 cd5; 21.Nf5
A cursory glance at the position would reveal that the Knight on f5 looks imposingly positioned....yet, it lacks stinging power. Black's position is sans weakness with a fluid centre, nicely positioned pieces.
White's pieces are also decently placed and hence we may comfortably say that the position is in perfect equilibrium! And it is time for some action!
21.....Bg5!
I love the 'silent stare' of this Bishop!
22.h4
Can you resist playing this move!?
22.....Bd2; 23.Re2 de4; 24.de4 Qf6; 25.g3 Kf8!!
Very poetic play by Carlsen....needless to mention that the conduct of a chess game was never and will never be evaluated on the basis of right or wrong, rather on how much clarity and belief you have in the scheme of play that you have devised and how it confuses your opponent on a given day, given position!
26.h5
And White preempts the "threat" of ....g6 and fixes Black's K-side pawns.
But, now Carlsen shocks Caruana with two more silent retreats!!
26....Bg5!?; 27.a4 b4; 28.a5 Kg8!
What Black has achieved with his last few moves may be imperceptible to pedantic perception, for its value rests in psychological realms.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez; the creator of One Hundred Years of Solitude; said, "A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it." So, a chess master can 'also' do anything that he wants so long as he makes his opponent believe him and his bluffs!!
Either one has to believe themselves or their opponent: to believe that they are bluffing and the opponent will get hoodwinked; and to believe that one's opponent is bluffing and hence you can take the chance and bust him!!
Don't...don't ever turn on that engine, it is the biggest cheat...robber which has the tendency to rob this great game off the excitement, splendor, mystery....beauty.....
Rather believe....keep faith in your ability...whatever may it be; if you are naive, believe in your naivety, if you are a master, believe in your mastery....but for heaven's sake never believe that 'silicon brain'...it will render you sterile, dull, lame, inane.... Rather I prefer to stumble, fumble with the hope that there is always a rise after a fall....with the realisation that imperfection is the primary nature of human beings...human perception...
29.Bc4
The cloud that was hovering in the central region has cleared a bit and this Bishop regained some sight!
29.....Rd7; 30.Ra4 Kh8!?
The King despite his short steps in a remote corner has impacted the course of the game on the other end from where he stands....'the butterfly effect'! Certain decisions and acts are oblivious to some loss of material on the obscure side from where the action is perceived. Chess is a game of give and take...you can never have it all.
31.Rb4 g6; 32.hg6 fg6; 33.Qb3!
White has become quite active. The next phase of the game takes a completely different contour: when sitting on the backyard and studying this can provide insufficient clues, then imagine what the players would have felt sitting on the board with their clock tick-ticking!
33.....Bc6; 34.Ne3 Be4; 35.Bd5! Bd5
35.....Qf3? meets up with 36.Re4!! Such is the nature of transformation in the position!
36.Nd5 Qc6; 37.Nc3 Qf3?
The Queen reaches the square which even now is potentially ill fated....but as it happens most of the time, when one strong player overlooks something which is not so apparent, his opponent follow suit too! Probably White was under the delusion that the e2 square was unprotected as it was on the 35th move....probably the Knights arrival on c3 may not have got imprinted in the minds eye.
Else, the attack on the g6 pawn may not be the sole reason for the move which he plays now.
38.Qc2?
The losing move. Black has rendered his position quite loose and it required strong counter which the move 38.Rb8! offered. For example, if 38....Red8; 39.Rd8 Rd8 and the Queen can enter Black's den in a very assertive way and start dictating terms!
"Then, what about all the inventiveness and poetry that you described about, sometime back?", you might ask me! Yes, Black's play was indeed poetic and inventive, but he overdid with an unwarranted pawn offer which only succeeded in releasing White's pieces and emerge powerfully. Instead of 27....b4?!, Carlsen could have probably played 27....ba4 and then followed it with what he did! The a-file cannot be opened as Black's light squared Bishop can take control of the a-pawn from falling!
Gerald Abrahams in his great book "The Chess Mind" writes: "The most important mental activity in Chess is 'Vision', by which is meant the unforced intuition of possibilities by the mind's eye. A capacity for apprehension of this type, the capacity of the mind for making a path through time and complexity, is the essence and the moving edge of any intellectual process But whereas in many intellectual processes the mind is assisted by conceptual methods - i.e. by abstract ideas - in the mental activity which is Chess, such assistance is at a minimum. Consequently in Chess, the mind comes as near as possible to pure vision, to that spontaneous act of intuition which apprehends and controls processes and relationships without being forced to do so. With it we get the illusion of passivity and calm as the normal state of the chess player's mind. It is as if his mind lay open, and facts and ideas were flowing into it. That apparently passive receptivity is due to our unconsciousness of the provident activity of imagination, working as it does in darkness to create light. The calmness is as superficial as the calmness on the surface of a waterfall."
The reason for what happened here in this game that we discussed so far, and in most cases where such swing happens, lies in the nebulous region called 'vision' and its relative nature congruent with the changing circumstances on the board....in the coalition of two minds which is interpreting the position which in itself is very dynamic...changing moment to moment....!
38.....Red8! 39.Rbe4 Rd2; 40.Rd2??
BLINDNESS....TIME SCARCITY.....
40.....Rd2
The temporary blindness resolved, vision restored and the seriousness of the mistake committed became apparent and hence.....White Resigned!
Don't ask me what if White had played such and such move or what if Black had played such and such move.... by answering those questions we would only succeed in reaching the following position....!!!!
As the famous quote by Tartakover goes....."the winner of the game is the player who makes the next to last mistake!"
I shall deal with more 'bluffs' in my subsequent article!
Till then....
....in the way he uses his King, in the way he leaves the QB, at times, in its original square and develops the Rook other way, in the way he handles his pawns, in the way he perceives his centre, in the way he indulges in some extreme experiments to win as well as lose few games!
In short, like the first World Champion, Carlsen remains flexible in his approach and moves around like a river which will flow and meander with great ease without much exertion!
After a highly bizarre opening...., piece sac.... which made Greek and Latin easy to understand, Carlsen, playing White against Topalov in the first round of the ongoing Sinquefield Cup, did manage to reach the following position, which notwithstanding its continued confusion, appears to be in parity!
But....
BOOM came 17.e5? and it was curtains for White, who just managed to wag the tail weakly for some more moves.....before.....
In the second round, however, Carlsen played a true classic in the eyes of Steinitz!
Caruana - Carlsen, Sinquefield Cup, 2015
Is this not a perfect time to play Nf5!? For some reasons, Caruana felt no and hurried to play....
13.Ba2 Rfe8; 14.Ng5 d5!?
A luxury yielded by White's previous move which released the pressure on the 'e5' pawn! Always, the central expansion, its resolution is as delicate and life giving as a child birth! One needs to judge the optimum duration for incubation and right moment for delivery - for, like in childbirth, there is every chance of delivering a child with severe malformation or at times even stillborn if not waited for 'that optimal moment'!
15.Ne6 Qe6; 16.Bg5 h6!
The great Steinitz showed us when to use this pawn...
".....for the opponent by attacking the Bishop with P KR3 (h6 in this case) will either effect an exchange more favorable to himself, or the Bishop will have to retreat with great loss of time."
17.Bf6 Qf6; 18.Qf3 c6!
'Steinitzian move'....very typical of him! The move not only aims at strengthening the centre but as Grandmaster Kidambi viewed, it hems White's light squared bishop, more importantly!
19.c4 Rad8; 20.cd5 cd5; 21.Nf5
A cursory glance at the position would reveal that the Knight on f5 looks imposingly positioned....yet, it lacks stinging power. Black's position is sans weakness with a fluid centre, nicely positioned pieces.
White's pieces are also decently placed and hence we may comfortably say that the position is in perfect equilibrium! And it is time for some action!
21.....Bg5!
I love the 'silent stare' of this Bishop!
22.h4
Can you resist playing this move!?
22.....Bd2; 23.Re2 de4; 24.de4 Qf6; 25.g3 Kf8!!
Very poetic play by Carlsen....needless to mention that the conduct of a chess game was never and will never be evaluated on the basis of right or wrong, rather on how much clarity and belief you have in the scheme of play that you have devised and how it confuses your opponent on a given day, given position!
26.h5
And White preempts the "threat" of ....g6 and fixes Black's K-side pawns.
But, now Carlsen shocks Caruana with two more silent retreats!!
26....Bg5!?; 27.a4 b4; 28.a5 Kg8!
What Black has achieved with his last few moves may be imperceptible to pedantic perception, for its value rests in psychological realms.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez; the creator of One Hundred Years of Solitude; said, "A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it." So, a chess master can 'also' do anything that he wants so long as he makes his opponent believe him and his bluffs!!
Either one has to believe themselves or their opponent: to believe that they are bluffing and the opponent will get hoodwinked; and to believe that one's opponent is bluffing and hence you can take the chance and bust him!!
Don't...don't ever turn on that engine, it is the biggest cheat...robber which has the tendency to rob this great game off the excitement, splendor, mystery....beauty.....
Rather believe....keep faith in your ability...whatever may it be; if you are naive, believe in your naivety, if you are a master, believe in your mastery....but for heaven's sake never believe that 'silicon brain'...it will render you sterile, dull, lame, inane.... Rather I prefer to stumble, fumble with the hope that there is always a rise after a fall....with the realisation that imperfection is the primary nature of human beings...human perception...
29.Bc4
The cloud that was hovering in the central region has cleared a bit and this Bishop regained some sight!
29.....Rd7; 30.Ra4 Kh8!?
The King despite his short steps in a remote corner has impacted the course of the game on the other end from where he stands....'the butterfly effect'! Certain decisions and acts are oblivious to some loss of material on the obscure side from where the action is perceived. Chess is a game of give and take...you can never have it all.
31.Rb4 g6; 32.hg6 fg6; 33.Qb3!
White has become quite active. The next phase of the game takes a completely different contour: when sitting on the backyard and studying this can provide insufficient clues, then imagine what the players would have felt sitting on the board with their clock tick-ticking!
33.....Bc6; 34.Ne3 Be4; 35.Bd5! Bd5
35.....Qf3? meets up with 36.Re4!! Such is the nature of transformation in the position!
36.Nd5 Qc6; 37.Nc3 Qf3?
The Queen reaches the square which even now is potentially ill fated....but as it happens most of the time, when one strong player overlooks something which is not so apparent, his opponent follow suit too! Probably White was under the delusion that the e2 square was unprotected as it was on the 35th move....probably the Knights arrival on c3 may not have got imprinted in the minds eye.
Else, the attack on the g6 pawn may not be the sole reason for the move which he plays now.
38.Qc2?
The losing move. Black has rendered his position quite loose and it required strong counter which the move 38.Rb8! offered. For example, if 38....Red8; 39.Rd8 Rd8 and the Queen can enter Black's den in a very assertive way and start dictating terms!
"Then, what about all the inventiveness and poetry that you described about, sometime back?", you might ask me! Yes, Black's play was indeed poetic and inventive, but he overdid with an unwarranted pawn offer which only succeeded in releasing White's pieces and emerge powerfully. Instead of 27....b4?!, Carlsen could have probably played 27....ba4 and then followed it with what he did! The a-file cannot be opened as Black's light squared Bishop can take control of the a-pawn from falling!
Gerald Abrahams in his great book "The Chess Mind" writes: "The most important mental activity in Chess is 'Vision', by which is meant the unforced intuition of possibilities by the mind's eye. A capacity for apprehension of this type, the capacity of the mind for making a path through time and complexity, is the essence and the moving edge of any intellectual process But whereas in many intellectual processes the mind is assisted by conceptual methods - i.e. by abstract ideas - in the mental activity which is Chess, such assistance is at a minimum. Consequently in Chess, the mind comes as near as possible to pure vision, to that spontaneous act of intuition which apprehends and controls processes and relationships without being forced to do so. With it we get the illusion of passivity and calm as the normal state of the chess player's mind. It is as if his mind lay open, and facts and ideas were flowing into it. That apparently passive receptivity is due to our unconsciousness of the provident activity of imagination, working as it does in darkness to create light. The calmness is as superficial as the calmness on the surface of a waterfall."
The reason for what happened here in this game that we discussed so far, and in most cases where such swing happens, lies in the nebulous region called 'vision' and its relative nature congruent with the changing circumstances on the board....in the coalition of two minds which is interpreting the position which in itself is very dynamic...changing moment to moment....!
38.....Red8! 39.Rbe4 Rd2; 40.Rd2??
BLINDNESS....TIME SCARCITY.....
40.....Rd2
The temporary blindness resolved, vision restored and the seriousness of the mistake committed became apparent and hence.....White Resigned!
Don't ask me what if White had played such and such move or what if Black had played such and such move.... by answering those questions we would only succeed in reaching the following position....!!!!
As the famous quote by Tartakover goes....."the winner of the game is the player who makes the next to last mistake!"
I shall deal with more 'bluffs' in my subsequent article!
Till then....
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