BtM 37A: Excelling II (Elements and Concepts)

 October 1989, Position E

White to play

Shvidler - Levitt, Tel Aviv 1989

Contributions to the comments box are welcome. I’ll reply with what the Masters have to say about their choice to anybody who suggests a move.

Scroll down to see some commentary from me and the Masters’ feedback.

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There’s no BtM tragedy quite like thinking you’ve found the 10-point answer and then discovering you’ve barely got any points at all.

That’s my story about this position, but before I get to that let me tell you about the actual game. Well, no. Let Jonathan LEVITT tell you.

"A very memorable position … which after two time scrambles, reached the diagram above. Shvidler quickly played 61 h5 trying to keep alive some winning chances, and I was hoping that 61 … h6 followed by 62 … g5 would draw. After about five minutes, I realised that I could play actively and sealed* 61 … Ke6!. With some joy I found that this was winning …."

Fast forward 21 years and we’re back to me.

Looking at the position it was obvious that I’d bringing the king across to prevent the pawn from queening was going to be a key idea in many lines.

I noticed quite early on that if the pawn got to c2 it could potentially cause trouble for me as there would then be a barrier with the knight covering d2 and the pawn itself covering d1. This was to be kept in mind but it wasn’t necessarily something to worry about if I could cover the queening square with my rook - either from the c-file or the first rank.

Using Aagaard’s terminology from Excelling at Chess - chapter three, "No Rules?", this possibility of a barrier preventing my king from coming across is a Concept. Something that could, at least in theory, happen in the future. As opposed to an Element - something concrete which exists now. A centralised knight defended by a pawn for instance.

As well as Elements and Concepts, Aagaard writes about Primary Concepts. These are the key defining ideas in the position. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but the barrier Black can create with pawn and knight turns out to be the Primary Concept of this BtM position.

My thinking process went like this:-

quickly reject 1 Rc6+ because forcing the king back doesn’t cut it off, it helps bring the king over;

consider Kf1 or Kf3 and wonder if it matters;

realise that h5 could be very strong as it 'forces’ … h6;

realise that … h6 is only forced if Black can’t bring the king over;

calculate 1 h5 Ke6, 2 Rxg7 Kd6, 3 Kf1 c2 and realise that the king has to go to f3;

calculate 1 h5 Ke6, 2 Rxg7 Kd6, 3 Kf3 c2, 4 Rg1 and feel happy because Black has no time for 4 … Nc3, 5 Ke2 Nd1 blocking the rank because of 6 Kd2;

consider 1 … h6 forced;

think that … g5 could be awkward so after 1 h5 h6 consider 2 Rc6 with the idea of being able to answer … g5 with hxg6 or even ruling it out entirely with Rg6;

open feedback article expecting to score 10 points;

see that I have only scored 1 point;

swear a bit.

Here’s the problem. After 1 h5 Ke6, 2 Rxg7 Kd6, 3 Kf3 c2, 4 Rg1 Black has 4 … Nd2+. It looks a little stupid to check the king because it just gives White a tempo to bring the king over - remember how I rejected 1 Rc6+ right at the start? - but actually it’s genius because 5 Ke2 Nb3 and Black will queen the pawn because the barrier is now operational.

It’s not super easy to see, certainly not half a dozen moves into a variation, but had I known that the barrier was the primary concept in the position I’m sure I’d have  been able to find Black’s … Ne4-d2+-b3 plan.

Which begs the question, how do you know which of the many concepts in a given permission are the most important? You get better at chess, I suppose.

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POINTS

10: Kf3

7:  Kf1

3:  h3

1:  h5, Rc6+

MASTERS

Kf3: Adams, Levitt, Plaskett, P. Littlewood, K. Arkell, Lane, Botterill, S. Arkell, Mephisto Almeira

Kf1: Davies, Pein

h5:  Norwood

SOURCE

Shvidler - Levitt, Tel Aviv 1989 61 h5

* younger readers may wish to ask their grandparents about this quaint procedure.