Art Happens - a perspective on Bronstein vs Simagin

 "....but you are painting for yourself, not for the jury" - Robert Henri

Any art, is primarily for self - it is purely an expression of self. Chess is a supreme art and the games and the ideas are primarily an expression of inner self and only such games, played in this spirit, stand the test of time and gives great joy to the onlooker!

Do Chess masters leave a legacy for posterity? Yes and no!

What will remain as my legacy?

Flowers in the spring,

The hototogisu in summer,

And the crimson leaves of autumn 

wrote Ryokan - the great Zen poet saint!

Yet....time carries innumerable creations as the butterflies and bees carry pollen on their back and polinate the minds of those who come across these creations in future and profoundly impact them!

David Bronstein is an artist of the highest order in Chess. The present tense is to denote the immortality of his ideas and creations!

A well known masterpiece which has been analysed in depth both in journals at that time and books, subsequently. In fact there was an ongoing debate which ran for months on variations in support and refuting, inconclusively, as those were the times when players and analysts used only their brains!

I am not going into variations to show accuracy or correctness as I find these terms blasphemous to the act of creation! Chess is not a zerosum game - rather an art created by two minds sitting on opposite sides of the board. But for the other player, nobody can create a game of chess.

Robert Henri wrote; "Don't try to paint good landscapes. Try to paint canvases that will show how interesting landscapes can be" 

What I will do here is to lay open the canvas that Bronstein has painted and allow the reader to explore the beauty, by just giving a few markers here and there. 

After a very interesting opening phase, the above position was reached. Bronstein's opponent, Vladimir Simagin is also an artist of very high order. He was know to us - players from 1980's - through the Black series Russian monographs on Soviet Masters. 

Recently, Mihail Marin wrote a fine book on Simagin and in the preface, he wrote: "I do love the classics, but I do not remember having had a similar mystical experience connected with any other player from the past."

When two players of this calibre create, we are in for a pure delight! 

Black, earlier accepted the offer of a central pawn by White, which lead to this very unique cluster of pieces in the centre on the Black side, in return, allowing White pieces to operate on the first five ranks, as compensation for the pawn.

"Sound and image should ideally be separate elements. as a filmmaker, consider them independent of each other. Just as an image shouldn't require a sound to make it comprehensible, neither should an audience need an image in order to understand a particular sound. The aesthetics of cinema are rooted in the separation of what we hear and what we see", said the great Iranian film maker Abbas Kiarostami  

Sound and image were integral part of a cinema once the sound track was added to the film in 1930s or a bit earlier to that. The point Kiarostami is making is to release the cinema from the clutches of imposed image and sound and let them independently reveal aspects which otherwise gets masked or overpowered by each other.

He explains a scene; "Picture a scene in which we hear the noise of a motorcycle, then the screech of it breaking and crashing. Two women pass by the accident site and the camera holds only on them, with the crashed motorcycle and motorist out of the frame, but from the reactions of the women, the audience perceive the seriousness of the situation."

Those who watch this scene are free to infer on what might have happened from the sound and the reactions of the women, a visual of the accident scene would only have grossly limited this scope.

We shall explore this aspect in the above Chess position! 

We cannot separate material from space in Chess - as chess is fundamentally about the interaction of these two elements and how material manifests over space. But it helps us to observe the free space available that could possibly be utilised by the pieces - the proverbial "empty square"!

The power of empty squares is perhaps not appreciated much atleast by the observers of the game, as the focus is always on the pieces that moves over the space, i.e, squares.

In this position, Black Rook on c8 is the only "active" piece, as per the norms and definition, as it occupies the only open file. But....is it really active!? 

A digression....

The classical example is seen in the game between Zukertort - Blackburn, London 1883

Black Rooks are doubled on the only open file and White Rooks apparently are hampered by its own pawns! A few moves later, Black position looked like a bomb shelled ruins!

The black Rooks stand "majestically" on the c-file; but its once hampered counterparts now ravage Black monarch 

Coming back to the main position:

The Bishop which should be standing on g7 guarding the dark squares around the King was forced to occupy a very innocuous square with Black pawn still on e7!

As a result, the King himself had to move up one square to guard h6 from the White Queen.

And the Black Knight ideally should be on f6; instead it travelled from b8-d7-c5 and landed on e6 - a very unusual square!

The Black Queen has no move and the other Rook customarily moved to e8 to defend the e7 pawn....incase....

Coming to the White side, I crossed the LOC by an inch as, though it belongs to Black, only a lone White Knight stands majestically on that side on d5! 

Therefore, Bronstein has infiltrated into Blacks camp and as the picture above reveals, has conquered a lot of space in return for the pawn for his pieces to manoeuvre!

The Bishop on h4 remained a thorn in Black's flesh throughout the game, even in the many variations! And so did the Knight. 

I shall not speak about White Queen and his Rooks as they played their part much later in the game.

What I will do now is to take you upto a point where the "accident" happens - the main landscape that Bronstein reveals, notwithstanding the various landscapes that he revealed till then and thereof!

(The position pasted again.....)

20.Ne3!?

There are many options: 20.f4! intending f5; 20.Re3-h3 which were powerful too!

But.....the artists brush will go where it has to go!

The move played has manifold ideas radiating in different lines. The Knight eyes for g4 allowing the Queen to go to h6; The d-file poses many menacing threats along with the Bh4 pin on that h4-d8 diagonal. 

And, therefore, it nudges a very natural response, so as to let the hidden agenda manifest on the board.

20......Nc5; 21.Bc4! b5; 22.Bd5!

Couldn't White have played 20.Bd5 directly, why a pitstop on c4!? This profound sortie is to provoke the reaction by Black, which deprives of the b5 square for his Bishop on d7 as the game proceeds further!

22......Qc7; 23.Bf7!! Kf7; 24.Nd5!

The painting is complete! Black pieces are still struggling for space , while White pieces still dominate the board with huge space for maneouvrability and the White Queen is ready to infiltrate into the sixth rank where the Black King is lurking alone!

The reader may enjoy the whole game from Chess base as well as from the wonderful book "Chess Improviser". Please do not use Chess engines - which will tantamount peeling of the petals of a beautiful rose to see what its beauty is made of!

Before I conclude.....

Vassily Ivanchuk - Vaselin Topalov, Novgorod, 1996

White played....

30.Nb6! Qc7; 31.Bd5 Kh7; 32.Be4 Kg8; 33.Nd5!

Does this ring a bell....!?

I remain!