Find the Right Plan with Anatoly Karpov Anatoly Karpov and Anatoly Matsukevich Translated by Sarah Hurst BATSFORD First published in the United Kingdom in 2008 by Batsford Old West London Magistrates Court 10 Southcombe Street London W140RA An imprint of Anova Books Company Ltd Copyright © B T Batsford 2008 Text copyright © Anatoly Karpov, Anatoly Matsukevich Translation copyright © Sarah Hurst The moral right of the authors has been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. ISBN 9781906388683 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 10987654321 Reproduction by Spectrum Colour Ltd, Ipswich Printed and bound by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow This book can be ordered direct from the publisher at the website: www.anovabooks.com Or try your local bookshop 2 Contents A correct plan is the route to success 5 Chapter One. With the sources 7 Chapter Two. Evaluating a position. Reference points 21 Chapter Three. The attractiveness of a concrete goal 35 Chapter Four. Reference point - Open lines 51 Breakthrough in the centre 51 Between the centre and the flank 56 Attack on the edge of the board 59 Dangerous diagonals 65 Chapter Five. Pawn structure. Weak and strong squares 68 Chapter Six. The centre and space 97 Closed centre 98 Mobile centre 105 Open centre 108 Static centre 114 Dynamic centre 118 3 COlltellts Chapter Seven. The most important law of chess 122 Seven bases for restriction 123 A lasso for the knight 127 'Club-12' 'A golden dozen of studies' 135 The bishop hunt 141 'Club-12' 154 , A golden dozen of studies' 158 How difficult it is to be a rook 160 'Club-12' 174 'A golden dozen of studies' 177 The queen: thorns and roses 179 'Club-12' 196 'A golden dozen of studies' 202 The obstinate pawn 204 'Club-12' 206 'A golden dozen of studies' 209 Kings under arrest 211 'Club-12' 214 'A golden dozen of studies' 217 Zugzwang 220 A page of studies 232 Solutions 234 A lasso for the knight 234 The bishop hunt 237 How difficult it is to be a rook 239 The queen: thorns and roses 242 The obstinate pawn 244 Kings under arrest 247 4 A correct plan is the route to success In chess, as in life, a plan is a are completely unfamiliar, and general concept that unifies a how can you choose the correct series of moves and actions order of actions to accomplish the directed towards achieving the main task? How can you learn to main aim. As Emanuel Lasker distinguish important features justifiably remarked, it's better to from secondary ones, and if play according to a flawed plan you've managed to do this, what than with no plan at all. do you do next? Our book is about all of this. At the dawn of the development of chess theory the first great How the book is organised. masters beheved in only one The first chapter is history. The principle of battle - a direct attack story of how human thought on the king. Attacks on a castled gradually progressed from one position were the bread and landmark to the next, becoming butter of games in those days. acquainted with the positions that Only with the arrival of Wilhelm arose on the chess board under Steinitz were clear laws the fingers of the great masters. established, according to which the creation of a plan was The second chapter is the key. exclusively based on an objective In it we layout seven basic evaluation of the position. A principles that will enable you to robust plan must take into evaluate any position. This consideration the opportunities chapter and the subsequent ones for both sides. An optimistic are generously illustrated with overestimation of your own examples from practical play by position leads to the creation of top grandmasters. headlong attacking plans that are doomed to failure from the very Chapters three through six outset. interpret these principles in detail. Careful study of them will help How can you find your way in you to re-examine your usual every situation, even those that plans and learn to find new 5 A correct plal1 IS the route to success opportunities in positions that great pleasure to the chess player previously seemed dull and and will impress the experts far uninteresting. more than a win as a result of a beautiful combination that arose The seventh and last chapter by accident. defines what, in our opinion, is the most important rule in chess - We hope that for every reader, the rule of domination, the even the most demanding ones, superiority of your pieces over this book will bring pleasure and your opponent's, and, as a natural help you to understand our consequence of that, the rule of ancient game more deeply. restraining the enemy pieces. Anatoly Karpov A game that is played on a deeply strategic basis will bring Anatoly Matsukevich 6 Chapter One With the sources .. Tile 1I0vice's reflex - a strategy for eellturies .. Wallderillg ill the fog .. Phi/ldor - 100 years ahead of his time" Comet Morplty .. The great Stelllltz -lillk through the ages .. Half an hour is enough to By the 13th century, according to explain the rules of chess to the historical literature, chess had anyone, teach them to set up the entered the list of the seven pieces on the board, describe how knightly virtues along with those pieces move, and what riding, archery, fencing, hunting, check and checkmate are in chess. swimming, hawking and writing If you suggest to the novice that poetry. you play a game after this preparation, then nine times out Chaturanga, chatrang, shatranj ... of ten they'll immediately move their bishop out to c4, their queen A slow, hypnotic game. The to f3 and try to dispose of you rook was the strongest piece. The with the help of Scholar's Mate. queen moved diagonally only to adjoining squares, and the bishop However, a few days will pass, a little further, two squares away. perhaps a week, then two or three There was no castling. months, and while associating with you, your pupil will start to The opening was very understand that it isn't all that uninteresting. The players simple and that such primitive manoeuvred for almost 20 moves methods won't achieve their in their own camps. To speed up goals. the game the masters of shatranj It took centuries for chess developed opening positions - players all over the world to tabiyat with equal chances for the understand this truth at the dawn players. They then started from of the development of chess ... these. 7 With the sources that positional methods were completely unknown to them, but these methods were used purely intuitively and accidentally. The plans that the chess romantics created were chaotic, disjointed and almost never adhered to a unified logical theme. But the early Italian school 'Double Mujannah' - the most accomplished its task in the popular tabiya history of chess. Chess reforms (at the end of the The fantastic combinational 15th century) led to the enlivening inspiration of Leonardo, of the game and a flourishing of Domenico, Polerio, Salvio and romantic tendencies. The games especially Greco brought to light of that era were full of sharp the dynamism of the chess pieces, sacrifices and attacks, subtle traps demonstrated a huge variety of and bold ideas. Sacrificing and tactical ideas, and provided accepting sacrifices was examples of the most effective considered a matter of chess mating attacks. honour. Gioachino Greco (1600-1634) The masters of the Italian school was born in Calabria in southern always saw only the enemy king Italy. At the age of 25 clearly. It was as if the entire he produced his wonderful remainder of the board was in a manuscript collections, which fog for them. That's why the waited a long time for their majority of tactical operations moment (they were published in more often than not weren't England only in 1656) and then positionaIly prepared, and were disseminated in almost all impressive wins were the result of the European languages. a weak defence. Choosing open piece play as Greco's own contemporaries their weapon, the masters of the commented that the games he Italian school looked at each collected were "rich in subtly concrete position on the board placed traps and, despite the only through the prism of forced sparseness of the notes, include a variations. We can't claim multitude of easily-understood 8