The Chess Mind

Peter Leko may not be the most popular player among amateurs, but to neglect his chess would be a pity both aesthetically and instructionally. He is one of the world’s strongest players, after all, and came within a single draw of the world title back in 2004. His wins have a strategic clarity reminiscent of players like Capablanca and Fischer, and that makes them very useful to study. We’ll have a look at just such a model game in this week’s show, a win over Alexander Beliavsky from the 2002 Olympiad in Bled.

Beliavsky, no slouch himself, essayed the Breyer Variation of the Ruy Lopez, and despite many years of experience on the Black side of the Ruy, he found himself on the receiving end of a chess clinic. First, Leko put into action a then little-known prophylactic plan which neutralized Black’s hopes of queenside and central counterplay. With that taken care of, he started augmenting the pressure on the kingside, forcing a series of small concessions along the way. The next step was to stretch Black’s defenses too thin, and that required finding the game’s best move. Having found the move, and the various plans it made possible, it was time to administer the denouement, and Leko finished the game in style.

The win was beautiful and strategically complete, and very much worthy of our attention. I hope therefore that you’ll join me tonight, Wednesday night, at 9 p.m. ET (3 a.m. CET) as we examine this masterpiece; you’ll be glad you did! Watching the show live is free, and you can find out how to do so if you don't already know, here.

We're down to #14 in the countdown to the U.S. Chess League's 2007 Game of the Year, and this week's entrant was perhaps unique among the year's games. Some judges thought its distinguishing feature was the Tangborn's poor play, while others were more impressed by Kuljasevic's attacking buildup and the nice combinational finish. I think there's something to be said for both points of view, as well as the meta-point that it's easy to play comparatively weakly when faced with an unfamiliar sort of position. That both mitigates the criticism against the loser and increases the value of the winner's play - after all, he did manage to successfully navigate the unfamiliar terrain.

However you come down on the matter, I think you'll find it was an interesting game, and you can see my video presentation (free and on-demand) here.

[Fans of my ChessBase show are especially invited to join in, as for obvious reasons (obvious if you read this blog, anyway!) there won't be a CB show tonight, as I'm playing in an IM norm tournament all week.]

After three weeks of Bobby Fischer's games, it's time to take a look at his great predecessor, Boris Spassky. Spassky is a legend of the game, but he had the bad luck of being continually overshadowed by others, especially Mikhail Tal and Fischer. Boris Spassky became a grandmaster at 18 and a Candidate at 19; only to have Fischer achieve both titles at the age of 15. Having become a GM and a Candidate, he'd at least seem the likeliest Soviet to achieve great successes. But Tal zipped past him to win a couple of Soviet Championships and ultimately the World Championship, while Spassky suffered from bad nerves and bad luck, missing out on two consecutive Candidates' cycles.

It looked like one of the greatest talents in chess history up to that point might go to waste, but in the mid-60s Spassky finally pulled it all together. He made it to the World Championship in 1966, losing a tough match to Tigran Petrosian, and the next time around he again qualified and this time beat the great Armenian.

We'll look at a game from his second run to the title match, from his 1968 Candidates match with Efim Geller. In all of his games with White in that match, Spassky faced the Sicilian with the Closed Variation, and each time it turned into a race between Geller's queenside counterplay and Spassky's king-hunting. In the second and fourth game of the match, Geller managed to get a better position, though Spassky's outwitted him in the complications and won both games. In game six, however, everything worked perfectly for Spassky. He found the best way to handle the opening, and he conducted the attack perfectly.

It's a beautiful game, and it also gives us the chance to take a look at the ever-popular Closed Sicilian. If you're interested in playing or meeting this line, or if you just want to see Spassky's fine creative achievement, you'll want to tune in tomorrow - Wednesday - at 9 p.m. ET. It's free, and you can find directions for tuning in here. Hope to see you then!

And so we come to the end of our three-part series commemorating the chess of Bobby Fischer (though it's my intent to revisit more of his games in the future). We started with a look at his early career, looking at his brilliant 1956 win over Donald Byrne. Last week we continued with a game from his middle period, a nice victory of Lajos Portisch in 1966. And now we conclude with a game from the culminating event of his career, his 1972 World Championship match against the defending champion, Boris Spassky.

Fischer started off down 2-0, losing the first game on a blunder and the second game with an intentional forfeit. It seemed the match might not continue, but after much cajoling from others and tremendous sportsmanship from Spassky game three finally occurred, and it was a Fischer win. After a narrow escape in game 4, Fischer won again in game 5 to tie the scores. And now we come to game 6, the subject of our show this week.

The game was notable for several reasons. First, the opening. While Fischer had occasionally dabbled with non-1.e4 openings with White, those outings were rare and hadn't occurred even once in his three Candidates matches. When Fischer opened this game with 1.c4, it came as a palpable shock to most observers, and Spassky, as I'll explain during the show, didn't react as he should have during the game. The second noteworthy aspect is the game's quality: this is widely thought to be one of Fischer's two strongest creative achievements in the match. And third, this game him the lead for the first time in the match, a lead he never relinquished.

It is therefore a game not only of aesthetic and instructional value, but of historical significance to boot. All told, a fine reason to join me tonight - Wednesday night - at 9 p.m. ET on ChessBase's playchess.com server. The show is free, and you can find directions for tuning in here. Hope to see you there!

Marc Widmaier writes:

Hey Dennis, Great show, I haven't had the chance to see one in a while. After your rant vs. Botvinnik-Capa, I think I've got a new idea for your next CB show - Great Overrated Games in Chess History! :) Best, -Marc-

Marc is referring to a comment I made during this last week's show, covering Portisch-Fischer, 2nd Piatigorsky Cup 1966. I remarked that while the famous game Botvinnik-Capablanca, AVRO 1938 was indeed a great one (it's the famous 30.Ba3!! Qxa3 31.Nh5+! game), it's overrated; in fact, it might be the most overrated game in all of chess history. Capablanca was in terrible form and bad health in that event, played the middlegame most cooperatively, and still just barely lost to a combination Botvinnik didn't calculate to a win until a number of moves later. This isn't to deny its greatness (it's an excellent game and Botvinnik's plan has great theoretical significance), but it seemed that for many years the game was presented in every single book celebrating the highlights of chess history.

In any case, I mention this not to bury the game (nor to praise it), but to follow up on Marc's suggestion. Readers, what are some other overrated games you can think of? Morphy vs. Count and Duke, maybe? The rook ending of Capablanca-Tartakower, New York 1924? (It's a great, marvelously instructive ending, but writers should stop giving Kg3 two exclams and calling it a sacrifice - White's losing pawns anyway, and there's no other sensible White move. The brilliancy came earlier, in foreseeing Kg3 and its underlying idea.)

While we're at it, we can go the other way around. What are some candidates for the most underrated game in chess history?