King left in lurch.....!

“That Shadow, my
likeness that goes to
and fro seeking a
livelihood,
chattering, chaffering,

How often I find myself
standing and looking at it
where it flits,

How often I question and
doubt whether that is
really me…!”

- Walt Whitman


“That “I” that floats along the wave of time,
from a distance I watch him
With the dust and the water,
With the fruit and the flower,
With the All he is rushing forward.

He is always on the surface,
tossed by the waves and dancing to the
rhythm
of joy and suffering.
The least loss makes him suffer,
the least wound hurts him –
Him I see from afar.

That “I” is not my real self;
I am still within myself,
I do not float in the stream of death.
I am free, I am desireless,
I am peace, I am illumined –
Him I see from afar.”

- Rabindranath Tagore



The above two poems.....have a striking similarity.......written by two great poets at different times and different geographic locations......

Thoughts synchronise!

Great spirit permeates....in the form of vibrations.....!

In chess, what we see from the master games and perceive the beauty .....impacts us...uncannily! I do not subscribe to the term and method "pattern recognition".....as it reduces something which is natural and harmonious into a system.....crystallizes flow...something which is vibrant and permeating!

In his seminal work "The Tacit dimension", Michael Polanyi warned...."unbridled lucidity can destroy our understanding of complex matters. Scrutinize closely the particulars of a comprehensive entity and their meaning is effaced, our conception of the entity is destroyed..."

This is what will happen when one tries to overwork something, trying to make it a system .....

The art happens.....when things fall in place....naturally and not forcibly and consciously!

Antova Gabriela - V Varshini, World Junior - 2018

The above position arose in the recently concluded World Junior tmt. The position is finely balanced.... White seems to have commenced the thematic minority attack and Black gearing up for a counter on the other side.

White needed to continue here with ...19.a4 perhaps.....and the struggle was on to find who would prevail!

Instead, White played....

19. Nd2?!

There is always a danger in leaving one's King undefended. The great Steinitz did experiment leaving the King alone but he had a firm grip over his position and had great faith in his King....yet he too had to suffer some painful blows.

19.....Nh4!

Indian player Varshini....capitalised the moment and deployed here Knight on a square which was left undefended by White's previous inaccuracy....and...
....an unsuspecting White who failed to notice the clouds started gathering around her King...played...

20. Rfc1? Bh3!

Why not!

21. gh3 Re3!!

suddenly, heavens started falling on White King's head! The Rook is taboo!

22. Bf1

Too late....!

22.....Rg3! 23.Kh1 Re2!!

Varshini plays in Bronstein style.... the pieces land with great thud! 

24.Nde4 

The mate could be stopped only by giving up the Queen and the game is over now....and what happens further is only through inertia.....

Black won the game on 38th move.
Bronstein would have been proud of this combination!



To illustrate further....on the chosen subject.....let us now see an example where, Bronstein forces his opponent to leave his King undefended and pounce on him!

Bronstein - Simagin, URS - 1946

The position is calm and Bronstein stirs it up with.....

11.e5! Ng4 

Simagin also likes complications.....and takes the bait! 11......Qd1 12.Rd1 Ng4 13.Bf4 Be6 14.Nd5! is a line which would hardly please Black.

12.Bg5! Ne5 13.Ne5 Be5 14.Nd5! Bd6

White managed to drive a Bishop from defending his King.....now the dark squares around the King turn conspicuous.

15.Re1! Ne6 16.Bh4!!

A very interesting move which is the fulcrum for the events to come! The normal h6-square which the Bishop is expected to take is reserved for the Queen! Of course, the move maintains the pressure on e7!

16.....Bd7 17.Qd2 Rc8 18.Bb3 

Watch this Bishop keenly!

18.....Kg7 19.Rad1 Re8 20.Ne3!

20.....Nc5 21.Bc4! b5 22.Bd5 Qc7 23.Bf7!!

The wily intention of the Bishop sortie is apparent.....first it provoked the b-pawn to deprive Black of the b5 square and then waited for a tempo move for his Knight to clear the path for his Queen to h6!

23....Kf7 24.Nd5 Qb8

The postmortem suggested 24.....Qd8 as a better move....which may or may not have warded off the attack.....but nevertheless the move played by Simagin is very human choice and 10 out of 10 masters would play that....only an engine will ruthlessly put the Queen back on d8....!

25.Qh6 Bh2 26.Kf1!! 

Now the meaning for 21.Bc4 becomes apparent! But for that move, Kf1 would not have been possible!

There was a huge debate which lasted for months on this position between various players....especially Botvinnik who was trying to find fault with Bronstein's combination and Bronstein thwarting every attempt by counter analysis.

To deal with all those, you need pages.....

Bronstein won the game in a grand style and one would be richly paid if they spend time to analyse this game very deeply - ofcourse using only their brains!

Tal - Keres, Curacao - 1962

Even the greatest players are not immune to this habit of leaving their King undefended.....at times! Though, in their case, it is not because they are unaware of what they do....but in pursuit of something else!

Tal played .....

17.Bd2 Nd4 18.Nd4 Nd3! 

Tal invited this from Keres.....banking on his next move....and the Queen sacrifice that he was contemplating

19.Nc6 Nf2! 20.Qf3

Tal wrote in his "The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal"...."I thought up a very interesting combination and after making a preparatory move, I went up to Petrosian and joked: "I'm going to play for brilliancy prize". The point was, that, in my preliminary analysis, I was planning to sacrifice my Queen only for two minor pieces, but after writing down....20.Qh5 which would have led to the Queen sac, I instead changed my mind and played 20.Qf3 forgetting about Black's obvious reply"

20.....Nh3!

....and Keres won the game subsequently....

Tal's  intended Queen sacrifice would have happened if Black had played...

20.Qh5 Nh3 21.Kh2 Qc7 22.e5! g6 23.ef6!! gh5 24.gh3 Qc6 25.Be4 Qd7 26.Re3!

Don't look at any of this through the eyes of engines......most of these speculative sacrifice would fail under the brutal force of the machine.....but....

Chess lives and enlivens us because of such speculation and abstract contest....and not ...
"Where the clear stream of reason has lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.."


I remain!