Bronstein and the King's Indian

With my eBay auction of a super book, "The World Chess Championship 1951", about to finish, it's a good opportunity to talk again about David Bronstein, who tied that 1951 match with Mikhail Botvinnik.

Full of enthusiasm, Bronstein was a great tactician who played adventurous attacking chess. He had deep views about the game and contributed some of our finest chess literature.

He was responsible for re-introducing the King's Gambit to top level play, but the opening he will always be most associated with is the King's Indian, where he contributed not only tactical, but also a wealth of new positional and strategic ideas.

This game against Pachman from 1946 showed a new way for Black to fight against the fianchetto variation, with Bronstein using a number of tactical shots to realise his goals in first the centre, then the queenside and finally also the kingside of the board (like the dutch football team of the 70's, this is 'total chess'):

Ludek Pachman - David Bronstein, Prague vs. Moscow 1946
(notes abridged from "Tactics in the King's Indian" by Gennady Nesis)

1 d4 Nf6; 2 c4 d6; 3 Nc3 e5; 4 Nf3 Nbd7; 5 g3 g6; 6 Bg2 Bg7; 7 0-0 0-0; 8 b3 Re8; 9 e4 ed; 10 Nxd4 Nc5; 11 Re1

After 11 f3 Black would get an excellent game with 11 ... c6 and 12 ... d5! Also bad is 11 Qc2 because of 11 ... Nfxe4; 12 Nxe4 Nxe4; 13 Bxe4 Bxd4.

11 ... a5; 12 Bb2 a4!; 13 Rc1 c6; 14 Ba1 ab; 15 ab Qb6; 16 h3 Nfd7! 17 Rb1 Nf8; 18 Kh2 h5!

White was planning to strengthen his position in the centre with 19 f4. But Bronstein is alert to his opponent's intentions: after 19 f4 he is ready to start a fight for the initiative on the kingside with 19 ... h4! 20 g4 Nfe6!, when the f-pawn also becomes a weakness.

Now the fireworks begin (RC):

19 Re2 h4!; 20 Rd2



20 ... Rxa1!; 21 Rxa1 Bxd4; 22 Rxd4 Nxb3; 23 Rxd6

The idea of this strong riposte is that on 23 ... Nxa1 there follows 24 Nd5! and 25 Nf6+. But, once again, Bronstein has foreseen everything.

23 ... Qxf2!

Now it is clear how important it was to advance the pawn to h4. Owing to this pawn it is now not possible to play 24 Qxb3 because of 24 ... hg+ 25 Kh1 Bxh3! 26 Rg1 Bxg2+ 27 Rxg2 Qf1+ 28 Rg1 Qxh3 mate!

24 Ra2 Qxg3+; 25 Kh1 Qxc3; 26 Ra3 Bxh3; 27 Rxb3 Bxg2+; 28 Kxg2 Qxc4; 29 Rd4 Qe6; 30 Rxb7 Ra8!

Black inflicts a blow on the enemy king from the queenside.

31 Qc2 h3+! 0-1

White has no satisfactory defence. On 32 Kg1 there follows 32 ... Qe5! 33 Rd1 Ra3! and then ... Ne6-f4.

Greatest chess player never to have become World Champion

The rise of Viswanathan Anand to number 1 in the world rankings gives an excellent excuse to revive the debate as to who is the greatest chess player never to have become World Champion.

I'm going to list 4 contenders, and categorically state that no-one else merits a mention. They are Paul Keres, David Bronstein, Viktor Korchnoi and, of course, Vishy Anand himself. I guess in the case of Vishy and even Viktor (we can hope) they could still become champion.

Keres, Bronstein and Korchnoi were all hampered in their bids to become World Champion by the Soviet authorities; Keres allegedly even having to reach a deal with Stalin to avoid being executed.

Paul Keres, an Estonian, was probably the strongest player in the world in the late 30's and throughout the 40's. His progress to the title being hampered by the outbreak of the second world war, and then afterwards by the rise of first Botvinnik, and then Smyslov and Tal. Allegedly, Keres was spared his life after the war (during the Soviet reprisals against the Baltic States) in return for 'throwing' the 1948 World Championship tournament to Botvinnik. He died suddenly of a heart attack in 1975, and was given a state funeral in Talinn attended by 100,000 people.

David Bronstein, as well, was allegedly pressured by the Soviet authorities into not winning his 1951 World Championship match with Botvinnik. Bronstein led with 2 games to go, but played badly in the penultimate game and the match finished in a 12-12 tie, allowing Botvinnik to keep his title. He makes my list not just for drawing this match, but for continuing to play at a high level into old age, writing about and contributing so much to the theory and enjoyment of chess, having a James Bond character based on him, and best of all we shared a beer and briefly played for the same team. David unfortunately passed away at the end of last year.

No-one's tussles with the Soviets are better documented than Viktor Korchnoi's. A survivor of the siege of Leningrad, he defected in 1976 in Amsterdam. He contested 2 (effectively 3 if you include the '74 Candidates final) World Championship matches with Karpov, losing by the odd game in '74 and '78. In 1974 he was allegedly beaten up by authority thugs during the match, and in '78 had to beat all the Soviet guard (Polugayevsky, arch enemy Petrosian, and Spassky) on his way to the title match with Karpov. He was amongst the world's elite for 4 decades, and still ranks in the top 100 at the age of 75.

Which brings up back to Vishy Anand. In 1993, he led his World Championship challenge against Kasparov for a long time, but finally cracked and Kasparov finished the match remorselessly. As a youngster he was famed for the fluency and speed of his play, often finishing off strong grandmasters in a matter of minutes. He seemed to lose his edge after the match with Kasparov, but is experiencing a resurgence and is now only the sixth player to have topped the FIDE rating list since its inception in 1970.

Ok, so who've I missed off, and of the 4 players, who was the greatest chess player never to have become World Champion?

The search for heroic chess failures

Chris Wardle's "Haymarket" post set me thinking about heroic chess failures, those chess players who have achieved a Eurovision style 'null point'. Taimanov and Larsen made a good stab at it in the '71 candidates, but don't really qualify because their opponent was Bobby Fischer on a hot streak.

I consulted my bible on all matters relating to chess statistics (the 2 dozen or so tournament tables in 'Korchnoi's 400 Best Games') and was bitterly disappointed to find the closest contender, Cuellar at the '73 Interzonal, had managed a princely 3 draws out of 18 games; definitely failure, but not heroically bad.

I then remembered I was making up the rules in this game, and could change them with impunity, so I switched tack to heroic blunders. One game sprung to mind immediately, Short marching his king up the board in a 'won ending' and setting up a self mate in the only way possible; fortunately, Streatham and Brixton have already written about this and a host of horrors: "The Worst Move On The Board". In fairness to Short one of his other king marches, against Timman, has gone down amongst the great manoeuvres of chess history.

One thing the S&B site talked about was the difficulty in spotting pieces moving backwards (in Short's case the killer was a Bishop returning to c8 to deliver mate) which made me smile and remember a conversation with Bronstein; David was buzzing with excitement, as he enthused about a position where a Queen had returned to d1 to deliver a knockout blow, and how even some of the very strongest players had failed to spot it.

In a possibly unbeatable bid for worst game by a World Champion, I present:
Viktor Korchnoi - Boris Spassky, Leningard 1948
1 e4 c5; 2 Nf3 d6; 3 d4 cd; 4 Nd4 Nf6; 5 Nc3 g6; 6 f4 Bg4; 7 Bb5+ Nbd7; 8 Bd7+ Qd7; 9 Qd3 e5; 10 Nf3 Bf3; 11 Qf3 Qg4; 12 Nd5 1-0