This Week's ChessBase Show: Fedorov-Kasparov
When I’ve talked about our game with non-chess players, sometimes they’ll ask me what formations are best. For those of us who know the game, this may sound like a naïve question – there is no set formation we can use, because it depends on what our opponent does. Yet there may be more to it than this quick dismissal might suggest. For beginners, there’s that old standby, what we might call the Scholar’s Mate Attack, going for mate on f7. Moving up a few notches in sophistication, White can often make 20 moves or more mindlessly against the Sicilian Dragon, play h4-h5, sac, sac and mate! (At least that’s what Fischer claimed 40 years ago. Dragon players might tell their own story about …Rxc3, sac, sac and mate right back.) And there are other formula approaches too.
One we’ll take a look at in this week’s show is also a White option, and like the Yugoslav Attack against the Dragon it’s used against a kingside fianchetto. The plan includes the moves Qd1-e1-h4, Bc1-h6, Ng5, f2-f4-f5 and hopes to culminate with something like 1.Bxg7 Kxg7 2.fxg6 hxg6 3.Rxf6 exf6 4.Qxh7#. It occurs in the Grand Prix Attack, in the 6.f4 line against the Najdorf (when Black follows up with …g6), in the Austrian Attack against the Pirc and elsewhere. It can be devastating, as I know from both sides of the board (mostly the white side, happily), and even very strong GMs can fall prey to this attack (as we’ll see).
But having given the non-chess player his due, and having acknowledged that there’s more to his question than our initial reaction might allow, there’s something to be said for our initial trepidation, too. A one-size-fits-all attacking approach might work against weaker players, but thoughtful, experienced opponents will see the big punch coming a mile away and take suitable precautions. And this leads us to our game of the week, a short, bloody battle between Alexei Fedorov, a strong and very aggressive grandmaster from Belarus, and one Garry Kasparov, almost indisputably the greatest player of all time. In their game from the Corus 2001 tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Fedorov decided to go head-hunting on the white side of a Closed Sicilian, constructing the aforementioned kingside pileup while neglecting just about everything else.
Fedorov has mauled many strong GMs in his career, and many lesser players might panic in the face of this all-out assault. Not Kasparov, however. The “boss” understood exactly how dangerous White’s attack was, knew how much time he’d have to make things happen elsewhere, and with extreme efficiency took advantage of the sectors his opponent had neglected. The game concluded quickly – as Fedorov had probably intended – and with a mating attack – again as Fedorov had intended. The only problem was that it was Fedorov’s king that was getting mated.
The game offers a fine model of an efficient, well-planned counterattack from Black’s point of view, and also a model of what not to do when attacking. Both aspects are extremely useful to reflect on, and the specific knowledge the game provides about the attacking formation with Qh4, Bh6 etc. is also valuable. With Kasparov as our model, how can we pass up this week’s show? If you agree, and I hope you do, then please join me this Thursday night at 9 p.m. ET. See you then!
(Directions for watching the show - free - are here.)
One we’ll take a look at in this week’s show is also a White option, and like the Yugoslav Attack against the Dragon it’s used against a kingside fianchetto. The plan includes the moves Qd1-e1-h4, Bc1-h6, Ng5, f2-f4-f5 and hopes to culminate with something like 1.Bxg7 Kxg7 2.fxg6 hxg6 3.Rxf6 exf6 4.Qxh7#. It occurs in the Grand Prix Attack, in the 6.f4 line against the Najdorf (when Black follows up with …g6), in the Austrian Attack against the Pirc and elsewhere. It can be devastating, as I know from both sides of the board (mostly the white side, happily), and even very strong GMs can fall prey to this attack (as we’ll see).
But having given the non-chess player his due, and having acknowledged that there’s more to his question than our initial reaction might allow, there’s something to be said for our initial trepidation, too. A one-size-fits-all attacking approach might work against weaker players, but thoughtful, experienced opponents will see the big punch coming a mile away and take suitable precautions. And this leads us to our game of the week, a short, bloody battle between Alexei Fedorov, a strong and very aggressive grandmaster from Belarus, and one Garry Kasparov, almost indisputably the greatest player of all time. In their game from the Corus 2001 tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Fedorov decided to go head-hunting on the white side of a Closed Sicilian, constructing the aforementioned kingside pileup while neglecting just about everything else.
Fedorov has mauled many strong GMs in his career, and many lesser players might panic in the face of this all-out assault. Not Kasparov, however. The “boss” understood exactly how dangerous White’s attack was, knew how much time he’d have to make things happen elsewhere, and with extreme efficiency took advantage of the sectors his opponent had neglected. The game concluded quickly – as Fedorov had probably intended – and with a mating attack – again as Fedorov had intended. The only problem was that it was Fedorov’s king that was getting mated.
The game offers a fine model of an efficient, well-planned counterattack from Black’s point of view, and also a model of what not to do when attacking. Both aspects are extremely useful to reflect on, and the specific knowledge the game provides about the attacking formation with Qh4, Bh6 etc. is also valuable. With Kasparov as our model, how can we pass up this week’s show? If you agree, and I hope you do, then please join me this Thursday night at 9 p.m. ET. See you then!
(Directions for watching the show - free - are here.)
Posted by Dennis Monokroussos on
Wednesday June 27, 2007 at 4:12pm