SC Week 2/6: Outposts with Boleslasvky

 "In general a successful attack can only be launched from a position of strength in the centre of board. This 'position' of strength' can take various forms, the simplest being an outpost."

Michael Stean

In Ben Johnson’s excellent Perpetual Chess podcast on Yasser Seirawan’s Winning Chess Strategies, Neal Bruce talked about the importance of repetition in learning positional ideas. You don’t just see one example of an outpost, tick the box and move on to the next concept. You have to look at hundreds. Thousands probably.

Woodpeckering key positions from the games in Simple Chess is one way forward. Another way to cement your understanding of outposts is to play through a bunch of master games - something you should probably be doing anyway - and keep your eye out for them.

A while ago I looked at some of the games Isaac Boleslavsky played during the second world war. I noticed he often seemed to be going out of his way to create outposts for his pieces. Below are a few that I spotted.

24 … Bxf5

Boleslavsky - Kotov, 13th USSR Championship Moscow 1944

Boleslavsky had played his knight into f5 (reminiscent of Benko - Najdorf, SC: Outposts/02) and doesn’t mind at all that Kotov has just taken with his bishop. The simple 25 exf5 gives White a key outpost on e4.

18 … Nxf4

Boleslavsky - Panov, 12th USSR Championship Moscow 1940

This position is from the previous Soviet Championship played four years earlier. It looks very similar to the previous game but that’s an important difference. Boleslavsky allowed Panov to play his knight to f4 because after 19 Bxf4 exf4 White has 20 e5. No outpost. No problem.

12 Rad1

Ivanshin - Boleslavsky, Kuibyshev 1942

Here Boleslavsky took advantage of the Ne2 being tied to d4. After 12 … Bxc3, 13 bxc3 he followed up with 13 … Nd6 and 15 … Na5 and eventually 18 … Nac4.

10 0-0

Lilienthal - Boleslavsky, Match Tournament of Six, Leningrad-Moscow 1941

This example reminds me of Botvinnik’s 16 b5 from SC: Introduction/2. Boleslavsky secured a central outpost, with gain of   tempo, by 10 … c4 and 11 … Nd5.