Chess Strategy for Club Players by Herman Grooten

Author:Herman Grooten
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9789056914462
Publisher: New in Chess
Published: 2014-02-21T05:00:00+00:00

White has a gigantic space advantage, but in a position like this, with quite a lot of pawns, it is hard for the bishops to find employment. The bishop on e4 attacks c6, but that point can easily be protected. On the kingside this bishop is ‘biting on granite’, so there is not much to play for there either. The b2 bishop is altogether a piece of ‘dead wood’ at the moment. With this observation, and on top of that the fact that the c5 pawn is hanging, the following move is not so hard to find:

1.Rd6!

White is more than willing to ‘sacrifice’ an exchange. Actually, this can hardly be called a sacrifice, since the protected passed pawn on d6, combined with the formidable bishop on b2, provide fantastic compensation.

1…Rc8

Black refuses to accept the peace offering, but this means that he will now be confronted with a dangerous intruder.

After 1…Bxd6 2.exd6, the main threat is 3.Qc3, so 2…f5 is forced. After 3.Bc2 Bc8 4.b4, the light-squared bishop comes into play as well. Black must sit and watch how White will deal the decisive blow.

2.b4 Ba8 3.g3 Kg7 4.h4

Very cleverly played by White. He increases his space advantage on the kingside, and, more importantly, the move makes a bishop manoeuvre possible that Black can hardly prevent.

4…Bd8

After another waiting move, such as 4…Bb7, White comes forward with the same bishop manoeuvre: 5.Be1 Bxd6 6.Qf6+ Kg8 7.exd6 Qd8, and now both 8.Bb2 and 8.Bg5 are killing.

5.Bc1!

The egg of Columbus. As long as the bishop on b2 is looking at the back of its own pawn, it can do nothing. But now White has finally found the solution to the problem.

5…Be7 6.Bg5 Bxg5

This makes things worse, but passive defence would not have helped Black either: 6…Bb7 7.Bf6+ Kg8 8.Qd3, and he cannot deal with all the threats.

7.hxg5 Kg8 8.Qf6 Bb7 9.Bc2

The good thing is that White has exchanged his bad bishop for Black’s ‘good’ one, and now all he has to do is deploy his other bishop effectively on the kingside.

9…Ba8 10.Bb3

And Black resigned. The threat of Rxe6 is impossible to prevent, and that means curtains for him.

Now it is time to show a bishop that controls a splendid open diagonal. One of the clearest examples in chess history on this theme is perhaps the following.

□ Medina Garcia,Antonio

■ Botvinnik,Mikhail

Palma de Mallorca 1967 (3)

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