V. Rajlich - R. Souly
[C42/45] Petrov: Classical (Jaenisch)
12 Jan 2000
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1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6
| Back in the U.S. I barely ever looked at this and
did not like playing against it. It seemed lame and drawish.
However, it’s actually an amazingly rich opening. True, White has
several drawish continuations, and these probably help explain why the
opening isn’t played much, but if White takes up the challenge and plays
actively then Black will have plenty of counterplay (and winning chances)
or his own. |
| I am going to keep my ideas about the opening to
myself for now, but I will say that I think it’s fascinating to see how
Karpov’s treatment of this opening from both sides has evolved. Earlier
in his career he won a bunch of nice games with 8.Re1 here, including many
against 8...Bf5, but later he switched to 8.c4, probably because of the
reply 8...Bg4 (to 8. Re1), which he himself plays with black. |
| Played by Kasparov (of all people!) vs Karpov in
the ’84 match, but Karpov himself prefers 8...Nf6, which also appeared
in the ’84 match. |
| The first new move, and it doesn’t look very good.
White is basically left alone to build up his attack. |
| 14.d5 was tempting, but I decided that ...c6 would
later be too effective in breaking up the center. |
| 16.Bg5 Nd5 seems like nothing much. I think
that the whole “bad bishop” thing just doesn’t apply here. 16.Ng5
g6 17.Qf3 Nd5 also seems like nothing. The main alternative is 16.Ne5,
with ideas of 17.Ng4, but Black seems to have a bunch of satisfactory replies,
for example 16...Ng6 and if 17.Ng4 Be7. So, I decided to just build
up more slowly. |
| 17.Rb5 a6 18.Rh5 Bg4 goes nowhere. I looked
at 17.h3 to prepare this, but then 17...a6 (or 17...c6) is useful. |
| 17...Bg5 18.Qh5 or 17...Nf4 18.Bc2 seem unjustifiably active for Black. |
| Ok, an important decision has arrived for White.
Can he play 19.Qh5 Qd5 20.Ng5, allowing 20...h6? |
19.Qh5 Qd5 20.Ng5
| I am not sure what the objective merit of this move
is, it’s very complicated. Better here from a practical standpoint
is just 20.Qe2, keeping a sizeable positional advantage. |
| After this White’s game just completely plays itself.
He may even then already have enough to win. The big question is,
what happens on 20...h6? I planned 21.Rxe7 Nxe7 22.Bh7+ Kh8 23.Be4,
thinking that 23...Qd7 was forced in which case White plays 24.Nf7+ and
Black is just crushed. I didn’t even bother to calculate further.
But, there is 23...Qc4. This is a notorious form of chess blindness
- c4 was originally covered by the bishop on d3. In light of this
resource, this whole position after 20...h6 is just unclear. White
can go into the line given above and then play 24.Nh7, but then 24...Rd8
seems to be holding on, i.e. 25.Bxh6 gxh6 26.Ng5 Kg7, or 25.Nf6 Ng8, etc.
White also has a whole other slew of winning attempts, but none seem clear: |
| A) 21.Be4 Qa5 22.Bxg6 hxg6 23.Qxg6 Bxg5 and
Black is safe. |
| B) 21.c4 Qxd4 (forced, 21...Qa5 22.Rxe7 Nxe7
23.Bh7+ & 24.Nxf7+, or 21...Qd7 22.Nxf7, etc.) 22.Rxe7 Qxd3 (22...Nxe7
23.Bh7+ Kh8 24.Bb2) 23.Bxg6 Qxg6 and the threat against f2 prevents 24.Bb2. |
| C) 21.Rxe7 Nxe7 22.c4 Qd7 (22...Qxd4 23.Bh8+
Kh7 24.Bb2) and I don’t see White’s next move. |
| Everything is close to working, but I can’t make
a definite conclusion. Probably White does have a win somewhere in
this mess, and maybe I would have found it if the opportunity had arisen,
but this is exactly the sort of situation that I wanted to avoid. |
| White’s last two moves were played to make sure
that Black’s knight doesn’t have any nice squares to settle on. The
rest is mainly technique. |
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