( Position after 17..Rab8 ) Initiating a straightforward siege of the a-pawn. Black hasn't the time to bring the knight to b6: if 2l..Nd7, then 22 Bb2 Nb6 23 Qc3, forking g7 and a5. Strategically, Black already has a won game: the a-pawn is falling, while White has yet to find useful employment for his bishops. In this difficult sit- uation, Najdorf employs the res- iliency of his position to work up one last tactical try. As time-pressure approaches, the less strategy and the more tactics. How to meet the threat of 25..N:a4 is a question White was never called upon to answer, be- cause Reshevsky, having four mi- nutes left to make his last 16 moves, offered a draw. Evidently he was unable to calculate fully the consequences of White's com- bination 25 Ng4 N:a4 26 N:f6+ gf 27-Q:f6. Right after the game, and later in his published commentaries as well, Najdorf showed that he had a guaranteed draw:' for example, 27.. N:b2 28 Bg4, and there is no escaping the perpetual after 29 B:e6+ and 30 Bf5+. etc. One pretty variation is 28. .Qg7 29 B:e6+ Kh7 30 Bf5+ Kh8 31 Rd8+ If Black had not taken thepawn at move 25, playing 25..e5 in- stead, then 26 Qc2 and 27 Qg6 also leads inevitably to a per- petual check. White would have had a harder time if, instead of 24..Nb6,Black had simply played 24..B:a4, leav- ing the knight to defend the king side. Now 25 Ng4 would not have nearly the same effect, in view of 25.. e5 26 Qc2 Nf8. Another possibility after 24..Nb6 25 Ng4 would be 25..Nd4; for example: 26 ed N:a4, etc. The aim of 25..Nd4 is to close off the c3- £6 diagonal, thereby cancelling out White's N:f6+ gf; Q:f6.Since such variations are impossible to calculate accurately in time- pressure, Reshevsky preferred the DRAW 3. Petrosian-Keres (English Opening) In contrast to his opponent's somewhat slothful play, Keres is handling the opening energetic- ally: taking advantage of a tac- tical nuance (7 Nf3 d4 8 N:e5 Qa5+), he obtains a brace of powerful center pawns, just waiting for the chance to push onward. It was time to start thinking about castling and developing the rooks to support the further advance of the pawns. One at- tractive line, involving long castling- lO..B:f3 11 B:f3 e4 12 Bg2 h6 13 b3 Qd7 14 Bb20-0-0- fails to come off, because on the 11th move White recaptures, not with the bishop, but with the pawn, which he then advances to f4, breaking up the enemy center pawns. After the text move, Black no longer has to worry about an eventual b2-b4. Black sets up the threat of 12..e4, but grants White the opportunity to stop this pawn cold. After 11. .Be7!, White would not have had this block- ading opportunity. In order to meet the threatened advance of the e-pawn, White would have been practically forced to make the exchange on £6. The most important point in this position is unquestionably d4: it marks the intersection of the lines of force from the black bishop to the white king and from the black rook to the white queen; also, if the black knight could get to d4, it would take away four squares from the white queen and strengthen the pin on the knight at £3. White's next - and quite obvious - move will reduce the value of this communications nexus to a mini- mum, if not to zero. The block- aded d-pawn will frustrate both the bishop on c5 and the rook on a8 with its aspirations to d8. The nexus could have been cleared for the price of a Pa-: 14-.d3 would have given Black a very promising game. Black could not capture the h- pawn, since 17 B:h3 Q:h3 18 Nd:e5 N:e5 19 N:e5 would have deprived him of either the castling priv- ilege or his d-pawn; and retreat- ing to h5 would have permitted 17 N:d4! A pretty final stroke, based on combinative motifs, to the defen- sive system White has devised. If Black exchanges queens and continues with ..f7-£6, he will lose: 19..Q:f5 20 ef £6 21 R:c6! bc 22 B:c6+ Kf7 23 Bd5+!, fol- lowed by the capture of the rook at a8. If, after exchanging queens, Black defends the e-pawn with his bishop instead, then White has a positional advantage. And if 19..Qd6, then 20 £4 g6 21 fe, or 20 Rc5 are strong. 19..Bd6 20. Q:e6+ fe 21. a3 Kd7 22. Bfl a4 23. Nel Ra5 24. ~ c 2 Rc8 25. Racl Na7 26. R:c8 N:c8 27. Bc4 Be7 The position is now a clear draw: White's knight returns to d3 presently, leaving Black no place to penetrate. Keres plays it out to the 41st move and ad- journs, hoping to find some hid- den resource at his leisure. 28. Nd3 Nd6 29. f3 N:c4 30. R:c4 Bd6 31. Kf2 Ra6 32. Ke2 g5 33. Kdl Ra8 34. Ke2 h5 35. Rcl Rh8 36. Rhl h4 37. g4 b5 38. Rcl Rb8 39. Kdl Rb6 40. Rc2 Rb8 41. Rcl Rc8 The game was agreed a DRAW without further play. 4. Averbakh-Smyslov (Ruy Lopez) e2-e4 e7-e5 Ngl-£3 Nb8-c6 Bf 1-b5 a7-a6 Bb5-a4 Ng8-f6 0-0 Bf 8-e7 Rfl-el b7-b5 Ba4-b3 d7-d6 c2-c3 0- 0 h2 -h3 Nc6-a5 Bb3-c2 c7-c5 d2-d4 Qd8-c 7 Chigorin's System in the Ruy Lopez is a frequent guest in in- ternational competition, but it appeared in Zurich only six times. White marshals his forces for a kingside attack which gen- erally doesn't have much bite to it, since today's grandmasters have learned quite well how to set up a defensible position. Not surprisingly, therefore, most of the games played with this variation have lately been wind- ing up drawn. I find it hard to tie White's last two moves in with his stra- tegic plan: the bishop on d2 and the rook on cl are not one whit better placed than they were at their original positions. After Chis loss of two tempi, White's diversion on the kingside can have no serious future. Averbakh decides to generate piece play on this wing without taking on additional responsibilities with the advance of the g-pawn. This being the first round, both players wage rather blood- less battle: neither has yet pushed a man past the boundary of his own territory. Both sides are concealing, as much as pos- sible, the area in which they in- tend to take action. In the event of 23 hg, Black had prepared the reply 23.. Qh4. As a result of White's slow play, Black has obtained aslight advantage. Now he wishes to se- cure d4 for his knight, but he might well have considered a plan involving ..c5-c4, which could be prepared here with 28..a5. (See diagram, top of next page) Smyslov wasn't worried about the check at h6, intending sim- ply to move his king to f8; but at the last moment he noticed the textbook stroke 31 B:c5!, and the queen is lost. Now he must give up his darksquare bishop instead, which might have proved decisive under other circumstances. DRAW Black's centralized knightful- ly compensates for White's pow- erful bishop at h6. -L-1.-8--1^.^1. ,. ,. ,. ,. ,. ,. 5. Taimanov-Bronstein (Benoni Defense) It's a difficult thing tomain- tain objectivity when commenting on one's own games. Variations running in the commentator's fa- vor are always interesting, so details flow quick and plentiful from the yen; variations which favor one s opponent, however, are often unclear as can be.For one's own mistakes, one seeks (and generally finds) justifi- cation; while the opponent's er- rors seem so natural as to need no explanation whatever. So even before beginning to comment on my game from Round One, I feel compelled to note that Black did not have a decisive advantage until very late in the game, al- most the very end. Psychologic- ally, White's loss can be traced to the fact that he missed the turning point of the game, at which it was necessary for him to begin giving serious thought to the problem of how to get a draw. As regards the purely chessic reasons for his loss, these I shall try to illuminate in my notes. What does Black achieve by sacrificing a pawn? First, he undermines the spearhead of the white pawn chain, the pawn on d5; in addition, after the un- avoidable ..a7-a6 and b5:a6, he obtalns the good diagonal a6-£1 for his bishop, which would have far fewer prospects along the c8-h3 diagonal. The two open files Black obtains on thequeen- , side, allowing him active play against White s a- and b-pawns, also speak in favor of the sac- rifice. Nor ought we to forget Black's bishop at g7: sinceBlack intends to leave his e-pawn at e7 in this system, the bishop's sphere of activity is automatic- ally increased. And finally, there is the interesting strate- gic idea (encountered also in other variations of the ~ing's ~ndian) of developing thequeen's rook without moving it from its original square. Of course, the sacrifice has its deficiencies as well, chief among these being the pawn defi- cit. Should White gradually suc- ceed in overcoming all his diffi- culties, and reach an endgame, he will have excellent winning chan- ces. It is for this last reason that this variation was not seen in any more games from this tour- nament. I used it here, partly because I did not want to begin this tournament with the sort of protracted defense Black is us- ually forced to put up with in one of the "normal" lines. Up to this point, Black might still have hoped to regain his pawn, but now it becomes a real sacrifice. I Once I had precisely the same position to play, but as White, vs. Lundin at Stockholm, 1948. I traded bishops, whereupon Black recaptured at a6 with his knight, which he then brought via c7 and b5 to d4. This seemed overly pro- tracted to he, so in the present game I recaptured at a6 with my rook, sending the queen's knight via d7 and b6 to a4, trading off the white queen's knight and weakening the defense of the pawns at a2 and b2. Taimanov has decided on e4-e5, cracking the foundation of the Black position; but this proves tactically unrealizable. White would have had more prospects with 11 Bf4 and 13 Qd2, instead of his 11 Re1 and 13 Qe2: after- wards, he could post his rooks to cl and bl, with the idea of gradually clearing all of his pieces and pawns off the enemy bishop's long diagonal. And af- ter that, White would prepare the advance b2-b4, beginning the active realization of his extra pawn. This is how I played against Lundin, and I still con- sider it to be the correct plan. Taimanov's intended 14 e5 no longer appeals to him in view of 14..de 15 N:e5 N:e5 16 Q:e5 Q:e5 17 R:e5 Kf8. Once again, 16 e5 de 17 N:e5 £6 does not work, but this does not mean he should have brought the bishop back. 16 a3 was bet- ter, allowing Black to recover his pawn at the cost of his dark- square bishop: 16..B:c3 17 bc R:a3 18 Racl. Black would stand actively on the queenside, but with some dangerous darksquare weaknesses about his king. I did not want to capture the a-pawn, since White would then achieve his goal: 18..R:a2? 19 R:a2 R:a2 20 e5, and Black has no queenside targets, while White gets some dangerous threats in the center. lack's endgame advantage is founded on the fact that hisbase pawn at e7 is close to home and therefore easy to defend, while the white pawns at c3 and e4 af- ford excellent targets to lack's rooks. If the e-pawn advances, then the pawn on d5 becomes weak. The following lines give an ap- proximate idea of what all this means in practical terms: 21 Q:a6 R8:a6 22 Re2 Nf6; or 22 e5 Nc7; or 22 Rabl R:a2 23 Rb8 Ra8 24 Rebl Ral. Taimanov was cor- rect in avoiding this exchange of queens - but he should also have avoided it later on. Either White overestimatedhis endgame chances, or else he sim- ply failed to give proper con- sideration to Black s strong 24th move. Black now has a weak pawn at c5, and White could, for exam- ple, exchange knights and give up his two queenside pawns for Black's one, and the draw would be assured, since the rook end- game with four pawns against three on the same side is gene- rally not winnable. All this, however, is easier said than done. Taimanov is a born optimist. Having weathered his troubles reasonably enough, he immedi- ately begins to ask himself why he cannot simply win the black pawn. 26 Kfl would have been a more suitable move for the endgame, and would have left White far fewer, if any, losing chances. Meeting the threatened 29 Nd7+ and threatening in turn to at- tack the pawn at c3. Suddenly it becomes clear that Black can also attack kingside pawns successful- ly. A rook behind enemy lines is a force to be reckoned with. White was on the point of los- ing his knight: 31 Kg3 £5; or if 31 Kg1 Re2 32 Ng3 Rel+ 33 Kh2 £5. Taking the c-pawn would cost White his f-pawn; after that, the attempt to pick up the h-pawn is refuted as follows: 34 R:c4 R:f2 35 N:h7+ Kg7 36 Ng5 R:g2+ 37 K:g2 Ne3+, and the knight endgame is won for Black. Take the knights from the board, and this game must wind up drawn; but Black's knight has time to fork- White protects his f-pawn, but WHITE RESIGNED 6. Euwe-Kotov (Benoni Defense)