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By Manuel Gerardo Monasterio
The alert reader may have noticed that the first part of the title of this article is the same used by the great Tigran Petrosian in one of his own famous articles. Petrosian describes how he failed against Mikenas because of blind belief in written opening theory. Things have changed dramatically since the mighty Armenian player wrote that article. Today players may be literally drawn under tons of information. Postal or Email chess requires its own particular approach. You are not always able to play as if you were over the board. Many OTB strong players trying to prove their hand at distance chess have learned bitter lessons when they have approached their Email games as if they were “normal” chess. In my next installment, I will show one of these examples from my own practice against a FIDE IM who seemed to have forgotten that he was playing another kind of chess. But let me introduce you today to my recent game against Lech Marusiak, a very solid Polish Email player actually rated at 2467. It was played at an IECG Master Class tournament that is still running.
Marusiak - Monasterio [B33]
IECG-CM285, Aug-Sept 2005
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5
I’ve been fond of the Sveshnikov-Pelikan since around 1990. It has given me a lot of success. In fact, I have been very lucky to never loose a game with it so far, which is much more than I could say of other defenses in my practice!
6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Nd5
POSITIONAL APPROACH
This rather positional approach was Karpov’s favorite when he used to play 1.e4.
9.Bxf6, instead, introduces the other main line. Both variations have been heavily analyzed nowadays
9...Be7
An interesting alternative for Black here is Timoshchenko’s 9...Qa5+. This whole variation we are looking at is mostly known as the Chelyabinsk variation, because it was mainly developed by two strong Masters from that city, Sveshnikov and the same Timoshchenko. The only problem with 9...Qa5+ is that Black must be ready to agree a draw if White plays 10.Bd2, since after the forced 10...Qd8, 11.Bg5 would repeat the position. Instead, White can take up the gauntlet and play one of the two available “manly” moves: 10.c3 or, alternatively, 10.Bd2 and then 11.c4, after which a very tense and interesting struggle lies ahead.
10.Bxf6
The most principled and usual option, although lately some strong White players – which include Anand, Smirin, Volokitin and Motylev among others – have been trying to revive the old try 10.Nxe7. We don’t know if this is out of confidence or despair, as it is very tough to get the upper hand in the main lines, as we shall see.
10...Bxf6 11.c3 Bg5
Instead, Black may try another plan, favored by one of the foremost exponents of the Sveshnikov-Pelikan, the Polish Grand Master Krasenkow, namely 11...Ne7. But after the natural sequence 12.Nxf6+ gxf6 I don’t like to face 13.g3 – GM Korneev’s pet line. Also possible is 13.Bd3, or even 13.Nc2 – this one I thrust less.
Anyway, with any of the first two moves White would be much more in command than in the line that I chose. Black may also try 11...Bb7, a favorite of the young British GM McShane, which seems to be okay with him and he has all my good wishes. But I just don’t like the firm positional grip that White is able to get in this line. Black may be able to equalize after some very careful maneuvering, but he may have to suffer too much for my liking! Finally, 11...0–0 is the most natural move, and a must if Black is wishing to play after 12.Nc2 Rb8 a move that invites, among others, Kasparov's 13.h4!?. Although Black’s resources seem to be holding lately, I rather prefer to stay away from that for the time been.
12.Nc2 0–0 13.a4 bxa4 14.Rxa4 a5 15.Bc4
The main move, 15.Bb5, is an idea from Smyslov’s creative arsenal that seems to be already past its prime. It used to be one of Sergey Tiviakov’s pet lines, but lately Black has grasped the equalizing plan and it no longer holds much terror for the second player. Nevertheless, there are some subtleties that Black must understand and I will gladly discuss them in a later article.
15...Rb8 16.b3
Recently, some top guns have preferred 16.Ra2, as in Anand-Kasparov, Linares 2005 or Ponomariov-Kramnik Corus 2005, both ending in a draw.
16...Kh8 17.0–0 f5
17...g6 is the other completely legal approach.
18.exf5 Bxf5 19.Nce3
A WELL KNOWN POSITION
This is the modern “Tabya” of this variation. Here Black has two approaches, …Bg6 or …Be6. It is rather a matter of choice, as both moves are equally viable.
19...Bg6 20.Be2
The normal answer, preparing Nc4.
20...Bf7!
As the White Bishop has left the diagonal, this is now a strong move.
21.Bc4
What is this? Anyway, I am not interested in knowing anything about it, therefore, I go back again. Of course, I was absolutely sure he was not going to repeat moves
21...Bg6 22.Qe2
And there he is. Now many sources give this move a “?!” sign, but I am not sure that, objectively, it deserves such a distinction; but then chess, at least played by humans, is full of subjectivity. Sometimes such an underrated move could lead to “misunderstandings”...let’s see what happened.
22...e4
The approved method, freeing e5 for the stead.
23.Rfa1
Possibly the strongest move. The alternatives are 23.Qa2, which has scored poorly so far, and 23.Bb5, when after 21...Ne5 22.Rfa1 Bh4! does not promise much for White.
23...Qc8!?
RECOMMENDED BUT PERHAPS NOT BEST
A rather non-automatic move that frees the d8-square for the Bishop. Two different sources – Yakovich and Horvath – give it a “!” mark. With hindsight, I would have played 23...Bh4!?, which I now believe gives more chances for Black than the move I chose.
24.Qg4 Qxg4 25.Nxg4 Bd8
There is no way out. From my move 23...Qc8 on, what follows is a more or less forced sequence of moves. Now White is virtually forced to sacrifice the Exchange. Through the years, I have used several sources for my Sveshnikov games. My first “bible” many years ago was THE SICILIAN PELIKAN, from the venerable Sveshnikov himself, a book that still gives me unsurpassed delight in terms of the love and caring that the great man has put into his brainchild. But of course, the book, published in 1989, is grossly outdated for practical purposes. After that came Neill McDonald’s book, not bad, but less than exhaustive in some lines. Then the ChessBase CD by Rogozenko. And later, the book which remains my actual Sveshnikov’s “bible”, THE COMPLETE SVESHNIKOV, by Yuri Yakovich, a very fine treatise indeed. But sometimes (most of the time?) grandmasters forget that their main audience is not other grandmasters, but lesser mortals like myself, and perhaps you. In a minute, you will understand what I mean...
26.b4 Be8 27.bxa5 Ne5 28.Nxe5 Bxa4 29.Rxa4 dxe5
WHAT IS THE CORRECT ASSESSMENT?
Yakovich ends his comments on this line, writing, “gives White compensation for the Exchange, but no more than that, Ibragimov-Filippov, Russia Cup,Tomsk, 1997.” After reading this, I looked up the position in my databases, and in fact the only game I found featuring 21...Qc8 (in our game it’s move 23 because of my opponent’s repetition “trick”) was Ibragimov-Filippov. Why in heaven does a 2467 rated player (my opponent’s reating at that time) choose a completely drawing line? Or is it? And then I began to smell a rat...and my own inner ghosts began to grow. But let us see how the story unfolds...
30.a6 Rb1+ 31.Bf1
Okay, all pretty much forced up to here, no choices for either side. And now what?
31...Bb6!
This is what I found; even leaving my irrational fears aside, I believe this is the safest plan. Ibragimov-Filippov, instead, continued 31...e3 32.Nxe3 Bb6 33.Rb4 Rxf1+ 34.Nxf1 Bxf2+ 35.Kh1 Be1 36.Ng3 Bxc3 37.Rb7 e4 38.a7 Be5 39.Rb8 and, of course, in this completely drawn position the players agreed a draw.
But I had already entered into “panic” mode and going back to White’s 38th move (in the Ibragimov game) I saw, instead of 38.a7, 38.Re7!? Kg8 39.Rxe4 and was horrified by the look of this position.
NOT WHAT I WANTED FOR BLACK!
After the game I found out that perhaps it was not so terrible after all: 39...Rd8 40.Kg1 Rd1+ 41.Kf2 Ra1 42.Re6 Kf7 43.Rc6 Bd4+ 44.Kf3 Ra3+ and although a complete analysis may be too long for this article (and commentator!), it doesn’t seem at all easy for White to make progress. Anyhow, I was absolutely convinced at the time of the game that I was losing the position after 38.Re7, therefore I had to find another way. Looking at the score of Ibragimov-Filippov I “deduced/fantasized” that they were in a time scramble and both had blundered.
As Databases are usually mute, they cannot tell you much about the real things that go on in a game. Sometimes, you may even base a whole game over a line that two masters have prepared beforehand because they were tired and just wanted a resting draw, and then you find to your horror that the position may not be a draw at all! (It happened once to me, against the highest rated player in the World at the time. I hope to show that eventful struggle soon).
Then you also have some commentators that are sloppy in their analysis. One of my usual excellent sources, ChessBase Magazine, for example, seems obsessed with one man in particular. I cannot tell you the bulk of errors that keep coming from this good man’s brain, historical mistakes, misnaming of variations, wrong calculation, faulty evaluations, everything you may think of. Therefore, every time I find a game commented by him, I check it very closely. I am very grateful to him, nevertheless – his sloppiness has obliged me to work harder on my chess!
When you have more or less mastered your navigation skills through the maze of theory, you are confronted with your worst and more dreadful enemy,,,yourself! In this game I began to torture myself thinking that my opponent had prepared a dreadful trap...I looked carefully and there I found it! “This explains why a strong player like Marusiak used this line,” I thought. Was Yuri Yakovich mistaken when he assessed the position “with compensation but not more for White" No, he was very right. But is the route to equality for Black that obvious? No, I think it is not. That is the way I thought during the game, I am not so sure now.
32.Nxb6 e3 33.Ra2 Rxb6!
The exclamation mark for this rather natural move may need some explanation, because there was another possibility: 33...exf2+ 34.Rxf2 Rxf2 35.Kxf2 Rxb6 and although the position may be also be drawn, White has a lot of possibilities to confuse the issue. The road actually taken in the game is definitive.
34.fxe3 Rb1 35.Rf2 Rc8
SMOOTH SAILING
No matter what White plays now, Black is too active to be in any danger anymore.
36.g4 Ra1 37.Kg2 Kg8 38.Rc2 Ra3 39.Kf3
Is this another repetition “trick,” or is it a tacit offer of a draw? As my opponent does not speak English I sent my last move with the word “Remis?” attached to it…
39...Rf8+, 1/2-1/2.
Therefore, trust but verify, but please, do not “over-verify” and above all, do not let your fears take command of your mind! I have saved a lot of games by entering into the mode of “the law of infinite resistance,” as Jonathan Rowson explains in his beautifully written, THE SEVEN DEADLY CHESS SINS. I hope to be able to show you some of those games in future installments. Until then, Hasta la vista, amigos!
If you wish to submit some opening related postal experience to Dr. Manuel Gerardo Monasterio, please contact him here: manuelmonasterio@gmail.com
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