Chess: Keep pushing
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Your support makes all the difference.'WHEN you don't know what to do', advised the Danish grandmaster Bent Larsen, 'push a rook's pawn.' In today's game (a half-hour tie- split from the Interpolis tournament) Anatoly Karpov pushed his a-pawn four times between moves 17 and 25 and he knew exactly what he was doing on each occasion.
After 16 moves, Vyzmanavin had a sound position and the bishop pair. His c-pawn was backward, but difficult to attack, his bishop on a6 was a little uncomfortable, but these problems seemed temporary. His real difficulty was that his natural freeing moves all had undesirable side-effects: b4 gives up the c4 square to a white knight; e5 allows both d5 and Nf5, while c5 allows d5. Karpov provoked a crisis with 17. a3] tempting c5 before it was ruled out by White's b4.
The next move of the a- pawn, 19. a4] shifted the black pawn from b5 to gain c4 for the white knight. 20. Nb5] was well judged, calculating that 23 . . . a6 could be met by 24. d6] followed by a5] Black moved his bishop from e7, to avoid attack by the d-pawn, but Karpov's next two a-pawn moves firmly cemented his advantage.
After 25. a6] Ba8, the black bishop was cornered and immobile. The rest of the game was a patient exploitation of that fact, culminating in 36. Qe8 excommunicating the bishop entirely.
--------------------------------------------------- White: Karpov Black: Vyzmanavin --------------------------------------------------- 1 d4 Nf6 23 exd5 Bf6 2 c4 e6 24 a5 Qd8 3 Nf3 b6 25 a6 Ba8 4 g3 Ba6 26 Ra2 Qd7 5 b3 Bb4+ 27 h4 g6 6 Bd2 Be7 28 Qd3 Rfe8 7 Bg2 c6 29 Kh2 Be5 8 Bc3 d5 30 Re2 Bg7 9 Ne5 Ne4 31 Rde1 Rxe2 10 0-0 Nxc3 32 Rxe2 Rb8 11 Nxc3 0-0 33 Qe3 Bf8 12 e4 dxc4 34 Qe5 Rxb5 13 Nxc4 b5 35 cxb5 Qxb5 14 Ne3 Nd7 36 Qe8 Qxa6 15 Qc2 Rc8 37 Re7 Qf6 16 Rfd1 Qb6 38 Rxa7 Bxd5 17 a3 c5 39 Bxd5 Qxf2+ 18 d5 Ne5 40 Bg2 c4 19 a4 b4 41 Ra8 Qc5 20 Nb5 Bb7 42 Rc8 Qd6 21 Nc4 Nxc4 43 Bd5 1-0 22 bxc4 exd5 ---------------------------------------------------
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