SC Week 2/1: Tal - Bronstein USSR Ch. 1959 (Outposts)

 "… an outpost is a square at the forefront of your position which you can readily support and from where you can control or contest squares in the heart of the enemy camp … in particular it must be immune to attack by enemy pawns."

Michael Stean

Notes and Observations

This is another example of the stronger side being patient in exploiting a permanent weakness (see also Petrosian-Portisch SC Introduction/3). Bronstein creates the outpost at d5 with 10 … c5, but Tal doesn’t actually occupy it until 22 Nd5.

Bronstein allowed doubled-isolated pawns on the e-file but at the price of of them being on e6 covering the outpost square. Tal apparently agreed that this would not be a good development for White.

Normally you want to occupy an outpost with pieces, but Tal allowed Bronstein to block d5 with 22 Nd5 Bxd5 because 23 exd5 covers c6 which means the Black knight is harder to bring back to the centre. It’s no accident that Tal went Nd5 only after Bronstein had played … Na5.