SC Week 5/4: Arkell's Lifetime of Minority Attacks (Half-Open Files)

 "Minority attacks derive from the pawn structure, pawn structures derive from the opening."

Michael Stean

Heading back to Keith Arkell’s Perpetual Chess interview (see: Half-Open Files/1) it’s  surely no coincidence that Ulf Andersson and Anatoly Karpov - cited as two of Arkell’s favourite players - appear multiple times in Simple Chess.

Stean’s book evidently made a big impression on Keith Arkell. It even seems to have determined a huge chunk of his opening repertoire.

That bit on page 72 where the 4 … Nd7 Caro-Kann as one possible road that leads to minority attack positions? A coincidence that Arkell - amongst other British GMs like Jon Speelman and Michael Adams in his youth - became a fan? I doubt it.

Another thing that I’m pretty sure is not a coincidence is that the Caro-Kann has an advantage over the other openings Stean mentions in this section - the French and the Sicilian - is that multiple variations can end up in minority attacks and not just the main lines. For instance the Caro Exchange and the two games below that Arkell played more than two decades apart.

Incidentally my game with Arkell and, more importantly, an in-depth analysis of how he interprets Minority Attack positions, can be found in Sadler and Regan's excellent book Chess for Life.