SC Week 2/4: Fischer - Gadia, Mar del Plata 1960 (Outposts)
"When an outpost has been set up the next and most logical thing to do is to chase off, exchange or harass defending pieces which cover the square in question."
Michael Stean
Notes and Observations
15 Bxf6 and 16 Bd5 looks so ... simple! Trade off the pieces that can challenge the outpost square.
18 Rad1 prevents any sniff of counterplay with … Qd4. Nd5 can wait. The outpost isn’t going away.
21 Ra1 comes once the outpost is occupied. Fischer played a similar rook switch to the a-file (albeit on the third rank) in Fischer - Bolbochan, Stockholm Interzonal 1962. That game had a very similar structure to Fischer - Gadia.
Create an outpost;
win undisputed control of the outpost;
occupy the outpost;
turn your attention to creating further weaknesses elsewhere.
Reminders
Chapter on Nd5 vs bad bishop in van de Oudeweetering’s Chess Pattern Recognition for Beginners (called, appropriately enough: Fischer’s Knight). Review it.
Polgar - Anand, Wijk 1998 is what this game would have looked like if Gadia had put up more resistance
An outpost on d5
ReplyDeleteBy pushing f5 white forces black to play e5. With that an outpost on d5 is created. To make optimal use of this Fischer firstly trades his darksquared bishop for the black knight on f6, secondly trading the light squared bishop pair via d5. After this a classics example of good knight versus bad bishop has arisen.
This all was possible because black developed his knight to c6 instead of d7 which made the f5 pawn push possible for white without losing any tempo and also not giving black the option to jump to the wonderful c5 square and attacking both the pawn on e4 as the bishop on b3.
The idea with f5 and with either totally opening the position of the black king by capuring on e6 or creating an outpost on d5 is seems pretty thematic, although I never realised it to be a theme.
At the end when the centre is fully stable. White simply seeks to activate his rooks by opening the a-file with Ra1 and a4.
Besides occuyping the d5 square the possibility that is always in the air of taking on e7 and maybe breaching through with caputering on d6 is also a nice feature.
White dominated and created a perfect game for students! :)
Hello again Maxim. That's an interesting point about ... Nc6 as opposed to Nd7.
ReplyDeleteI agree - it's a very instructive game.