BtM 3A: Calculation < Understanding
July 1988, POSITION A
White to play
Akhmilovskaya - Ioseliani, USSR Women’s Championship 1987
Contributions are welcome in the comments box. I’ll reply with what the Masters have to say about their choice to anybody who suggests a move.
Scroll down when you’re ready to see what the Beat the Masters panel chose and the points scored for each move.
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Apologies if you’re coming from the English Chess Forum and have already seen this one. I wanted to include it early on because, after procrastinating for some time, this is the position that finally convinced me to start this blog.
Forget what the best move is here - although I’d like to know what you think about that - my interest here the discovery that calculation can only get you so far. In my case that turns out to be not nearly far enough.
Unlike BtM 2, I did manage to spot I had a major piece attacked this time. Although in the circumstances it might have been better if I hadn’t.
I suspect that most chess players with a reasonable exposure to the game are going to think about giving up their queen in this position. I looked at this line first and eventually got to this sequence …
1. exf6 Bxb3, 2 fxg7 Kxg7, 3 axb3 Nc6, 4 Be3 Nb4, 5 Rc1
… which I didn’t like at all for White. What I saw was pawn weaknesses all over the place, a bishop stuck behind the IQP, a Black knight which could immediately blockade on d5 and a lack of development. And for this I was giving up material (queen and pawn for three pieces)? I don’t think so.
I moved on.
Then I checked the feedback and saw that 11 of 13 Masters had gone for 1 exf6. Clearly I’d gone badly wrong. What was it that I hadn’t seen?
The answer turned out to be nothing. At all.
In the feedback article WIM Sue Arkell gives exactly the same line as I’d worked out. Exactly. It’s just that, being a Master, she reached entirely the opposite conclusion to me. For her, rather than "White is struggling" after 5 Rc1 it was, " … and the three pieces should dominate the queen."
Later, whilst discussing the position on the EC Forum, I realised that I’d actually seen this position before. It’s in an old Grunfeld book I’d owned at the time. I was sure that there was a note in it saying that the queen sacrifice was very good for White. I looked it up.
"The apparently good developing move 9 … Be6? leaves White with a not very complicated queen sacrifice: 10 exf6! Bxb3, 11 fxg7 Kxg7, 12 axb3 Nc6, 13 Be3 Nb4, 14 Rc1 Qd7, 15 Be2 when White’s three minor pieces proved much stronger than Black’s queen in Bronstein - Poutiainen, Tallinn 1977."
Adorjan and Dory, Winning with The Grunfeld, Batsford (1987)
My line with one move tacked on the end.
So it wasn’t that I hadn’t seen enough. It’s just that I hadn’t perceived it’s worth.
It’s curious that your engine, that can see pretty much everything, will probably not like the queen sac either - but that’s another story.
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POINTS
10: exf6
6: Qa3
3: Qb4, Qd1
3: Qb4, Qd1
2: Qc2
MASTERS
exf6: GM Plaskett, GM Flear, IM Conquest, IM Levitt, IM Howell, IM Pein, BM J. Littlewood, IM Martin, IM Botterill, BM Horner, IWM S. Arkell
Qa3: IM P. Littlewood, IM Norwood
Akhmilovskaya - Ioseliani, USSR Women’s Championship 1987
Move Chosen: 10 exf6
I see the font sizing is still bollocksed. Hopefully i’ll have it fixed by Friday.
ReplyDeleteIt's a really interesting position. I worked through the queen sac and could visualise it but just wasn't convinced - possibly because I am looking for concrete threats. When I set up the position on the computer and look at what's happening after Be2 - it becomes clearer that Black has limited options and that the ability of the minor pieces to co-ordinate against the major pieces comes into play and that White controls the centre. On the other hand b3 looks pretty weak and White may have to contort to defend this. Interestingly both Fat Fritz (Leela) and Komodo prefer Qa3. With both Komodo and Fat Fritz (with it's neural network engine) Qa3 is only marginally preferred to exf6. After Be2 Fat Fritz evaluates +- whereas Komodo gives +=. Faced with this in a OTB game I doubt I would go down the Queen sac line unless it formed part of opening prep. Judging a position where there aren't forcing variations after visualising 4-5 moves ahead is pretty hard for a club level player like me! On a practical level I would probably avoid calculating too much and look to catch up in development - at the faster time controls (even OTB) of modern chess this seems just as important - just focus on making a good moves consistently (rather than looking for the best) and avoid blunders.
ReplyDeleteInteresting comments. Thanks for dropping by.
Delete"I worked through the queen sac and could visualise it but just wasn't convinced - possibly because I am looking for concrete threats."
ReplyDeleteI suspect this was my problem. It gets to the point where it’s an issue of judgement rather than concrete lines. I suspect I reply on calculation too much.
There’s a line in the Bc4 Pirc that used to be fashionable where Black plays Nc6xd4xQe2 whilst White takes Nf6 then Bg7 with the e-pawn. It ends up with White having three pieces against a queen (and a couple of pawns). Nigel Short - who used to favour this line for White - comments on the position in Nigel Short Chess Prodigy and basically says the pieces outplay the queen. No concrete lines to justify the assessment. They just are.
I think that’s probably where you have to get to. I"m not sure how you do though.
I mean, I see the position at move 6 right in front of me and I find it hard to judge, let alone from the starting position.