Caruana vs Gukesh: A perspective on the art of defence

 "A position can never be so bad as not to offer prospects of defence, and therein lies the great truth" - Lasker/Keres

The Art of Defence in Chess is underplayed, chiefly for two reasons:

1) It is presumed to be dull and devoid of sparks that an attack produces
2) Simply it is very difficult to understand

Defence is very difficult to understand because, the choices made cannot be substantiated by objective truth, it is tedious to annotate a defensive game.

A game of chess is won because a side commits or overextends the logic inherent in the position or the resources that a position offers and plays inappropriate moves, disturbing the equilibrium badly.

Art of successful defence is also about disturbing the equilibrium so as to confuse the side with upper hand or at least put the player with upper hand in discomfort by taking him or her from the path of least resistance! Fischer rightly said, "Chess is a fine art of knowing when to duck and how to punch"!

Gary Kasparov, in his introduction to the fine book "Petrosian's legacy" wrote, "Just as in nature there is also a great harmony in Chess. No matter what we do, whether it is sacrificing material, creating weak points in our opponent's camp, or just eliminating our own weak points, the main purpose is to achieve a harmony in our own position and a disharmony in our opponents. Petrosian's original decisions, his mastery of defense, where he found paradoxical possibilities, forced me to reappraise my own thinking"

Is there a logic in defence......, God knows! Is there a logic in chess......, God knows!! 

Like logic, truth is also a relative term: your truth, my truth and truth! What appears as truth now to one, may not appear as truth to the other and even to the same person at a different period of time. As Swami Vivekananda said, "We do not rise from error or false to truth; but rather from truth to truth: from lesser truth to greater truth" 

Understanding in Chess is similar to what Vivekananda said; a player evolves from lesser understanding to greater understanding and that understanding is never static!

The phenomenal success of D.Gukesh in the past few months, is perhaps due to something that happened within him, and that manifested over the board! Ask him to explain his various decisions in terms of objective truth, he might perhaps smile and remain mute - for, such decisions are inexplainable. The Art of Chess persay is beyond explanation.....then the question arises, "why this article". Well in reply, I can only quote the great Zen Saint Ryokan:

"Who says my poems are poems
My poems are not poems
When you know that my poems are not poems
Then we can speak of poetry"

Caruana vs Gukesh, Olympiad 2022, Chennai

Let us discuss from this position.

White has completed his development, castled, and his minor pieces are well placed and is ready to put the other Rook on the c-file and pressurise Black's c-pawn. On the other hand, Black is yet to complete his development, yet to castle and find a place for his light squared Bishop. We might conclude that there is slight discomfort for Black. 

13.....Qb7; 14.Na4

Fabi is in a very poor form in this tournament. Such a fantastic player that he is, for reasons best known to him, removes the Knight and puts it in the corner of the board.

Why not play 14.Rc1 or even 14.Qa4 attacking the c6 pawn!? Black may then have to decide on whether to exchange his lovely dark squared Bishop for that Knight on e5 or, give up that weak pawn on c6 and counter attack the one on d3. In either case, White will get comfortable position at the least and his moves would have been easier than Black's!

14......f6!?

A move - despite its ugliness - and the follow-up ......g5 and .....h5 constitute the base on which Black later on got some attack, ofcourse with the help of White. Gukesh took away some vital squares from White at the cost of weakening his Kingside, and then remained tight in defence - this perhaps is some transformation in his thought process that surfaced oflate. Till sometime back, in such positions, he would perhaps have tried to do something tactically instead of waiting, which might have made White's job easier!

15.Nf3 OO; 16.d4 g5!? 17.Bh2 h5; 18.Re4 Qd7; 19.Qc2

Perhaps 19.Qe2 would have been more appropriate, the Queen standing behind the Rook and eyeing e7 as well as the Queen side, along with the flexibility of putting the other Rook either on e1 or c1. No one can say which one is better, but, it is such decisions, which apparently look trivial, are the chief building blocks on how the game develops further. 

Rest assured even the greatest masters in the history were not clear of such things, they never knew what was right or wrong - this dichotomy itself is absurd....there is nothing right or wrong in life and in Chess.

19......Rf7; 20.Rae1 Bf8!

A cool defence by the young mind! He is prepared to wait after putting a few pieces in defence of his weaknesses!

21.Qe2 Qd5; 22.Nc3 Qd7; 23.Qc4?! 

Somehow, this move doesn't seem to fit into the scheme of things. It stands a loose piece on that square with the move ......Nd6 looming

23......Qb7; 24.b4 e6; 25.Rb1 Qd7; 26.Rbe1 Qb7; 27.Rb1 Qd7; 28.a3 a5!

White's indecisiveness gives the first opportunity for Black to get offensive! The position is still unclear for human mind.......forget the engine evaluations.

A cursory look at this position from the first position given in the beginning, will reveal how much Black has improved his position! The Bishop on c8 is well developed in its original square. The a8 Rook is now ready to spring to action without making a single move!

Such optimisation of one's resources in terms of notching the time and using the space that is available, is the crux of the art of defence! You do not try to create something, but wait for opponent to give you space and utilise them by keep your pieces in proper positions! This sort of play is what defines understanding in Chess and a player who is capable of displaying it in practice consistently, emerges into a great player ultimately!

29.Na5? 

The second time this Knight goes to the flank. It was well placed on c3. Perhaps, this is the time, White should have remained patient and wait for Black to commit!!

29......Qd8; 30.ba5

Undoing what one did earlier, at times, is the best way to move forward! In this context, the following position and the observation made by Najdorf is pivotal.

In the great book, "Second Piatigorsky cup" tournament book, Najdorf, wrote.....in the above position, where Portisch would have moved that Rook on b2 to d2 and put it back again on b2: "Portisch recognises his error and attends to the weakness of his Queen side. This shows the quality of great players. Not only do they objectively appraise each situation, but they are ready to rearrange their pieces"

30.....Ra5; 31.Nc5? Qd5!

The defining moment in the game!

Caruana puts the Knight deliberately on a square where it is least effective, despite its apparent active outpost. This is what makes Chess to be considered as a great art and not a science and calculation as many wishes to treat in the modern computer age. They try to approach Chess from a scientific view point, given the pseudo belief by the brute force of the engines. 

Chess is a very difficult art, but it is an impossible science. Human mind understands and enjoys art better than science and therefore, many great scientists approached science as an art and not searched for certainity. Nothing is static in nature and is always in a state of flux.

Human mind is never static and therefore the constellations on the board appear differently at different times, which leads to various choices which are subsequently annotated as appropriate and inappropriate. A game of chess is always in a state of flow - until you reach a concrete finish leading to material loss or mate. Understanding the game requires one to be in a state of flow and not stagnate with concrete approach.

32.Qe2 Ra3!

The floodgates are opened for Black pieces! Observe how quickly Black pieces shift to attack White and push White pieces to defence.

33.Rd1 Rfa7; 34.g4?

As the chess adage goes......'mistakes never come singly!'

34......hg4; 35.hg4 Nh6; 36.Bg3 e5; 37.Ne5

A desparate attempt, which hastens the inevitable.

37.....fe5; 38.Re5 Bg4; 39.Qd2 Qf3; 40.Rg5 Rg7; 41.Re1 Bh3; 42.Bd6 Bd6; 43.Rg7 Kg7; 44.Qg5 Kh7! 45.Ne4 Qe4!
White Resigned

A fantastic fightback by the kid!

Let me offer the reader a few positions where one side fought back from difficult positions.

Gelfand vs Karpov, Linares, 1994

After a particularly a difficult opening, Karpov already played his Queen to various parts of the Board and returned it back to its original square. Here Karpov played....

23.......b5!

Somehow, this move ......b5! has a long history of getting prominence! Two other occasions it happened that readily comes to my mind are.....

               

- Stahlberg vs Sultan Khan, Olympiad, Prague - 1931

- Geller vs Euwe, Zurich Candidates, 1953

24.Bg6

This move was condemned by the commentators and the move 25.c5! was suggested. It may be true, why to giveup that fine! But perhaps, Karpov's play, the move ......b5 in particular, must have lead to this decision.....  'exploit' that Bishop on b7. Perhaps the earlier seemingly aimless Queen manoeuvre would have caused the mind to assume things and lead to complacency.

Gelfand is a high calibre player with extremely fine tuned feel for strategic moves, and it is inappropriate to find fault with his decision making - the man who wrote manuals on the process of Decision making!

Just to reemphasise the fact that, no human mind is perfect and that fallibility is the basis on which the game of Chess thrives!

24......hg6; 25.Rh3?!

Not sure why the Rook is going there!?

25.....Rc7; 26.d5 ed5 27.c5 Bc8!

This Bishop heads to an active outpost in the Central and play a central role!

28.Rb3 Qe8; 29.Qd4 Bf5; 30.Re3 Qf8; 31.Bf6 gf6; 32.Nf3 Be4!

.....and Karpov went on to win the game in another 20 moves.

I would love to deal with some more games.....say by such legends as Lasker, Petrosian, Anand, Carlsen .....to name a few, but that would make this article too big to have the attention of those who read it.

The subject of defence is vast and pivotal to the art of Chess. Many books and articles have been written in the past on this subject and a thorough study of the art of defence is the surest path for enduring success....and perhaps greatness! Wish Grand Master Gukesh all success in mastering this great art of defence (and ofcourse attack!) in his own unique way guided by his Guru GM Vishnu Prasanna and reach supreme level in Chess! 

I remain