Mikhail Tal Vs Marks Pasman annotated

3. d4 exd4

4. Nxd4 Nf6

5. Nc3 a6........Najdorf, so far very typical, "Play the opening like a book" as Spielmann put it.

6. f4 e5.........the Amsterdam Variation of the Sicilian Najdorf was the continuation f4. e5 is a typical response.

7. Nf3 Nbd7.... Bg4 would be answered with a3, whereby black can choose to either lose the bishop pair, or end up retreating his bishop to g6 where it's path is blocked by the pawn on e4, which allows f5 to follow, whereby black loses his bishop,  Bg4 is a terrible idea, at best, it loses the bishop pair in the first few moves of the game, at worst, it gives white a free bishop, and significant expansion into black's kingside. Thus, Bg4 is not an option, Nbd7 played was best. g6 is answered by f5 whereby a kingside attack is threatened. b5 or Qc7 are both possibilities, but it's better to get some development of the minor pieces first, Nbd7 perfectly follows the fundamental idea of developing the knights first before the bishops, rooks, or queen.

8. Bd3 Be7.....Both sides prepare to castle, but with f4, white has significantly weakened the king's side. castling on the King's side with the f pawn pushed so far forward signifies aggression, which, for Tal, is quite typical.

9.O-O O-O Both sides get their kings to safety, which, in the Najdorf, is pretty typical. Usually it is considered safer for both sides to castle on the same side, because when they castle on different sides, there will be fireworks, and both players will mobilize all forces to take out the other's king. 

10. Kh1 b5.....Kh1 by Tal is a move that is to prevent any possibilities of black gaining a tempo by playing a bishop or a queen to the dark diagonal that the king is standing on at g1. Qb6+ at some future point is to be expected unless the king moves to h1. b5 is black's effort to expand on the queen's side, which is quite normal in these kinds of situations. The immediate threat would be b4, whereby white's knight would have to move to e2, moving the knight to d5 would destroy the pawn structure after the knights are traded off, moving the knight to a4 would ensure that the knight is inactive, for what can easily be seen to be a significant period of time because of c5 and b6 being guarded by a pawn and knight respectively. 

11. a3 Qc7.....had it not been for d6 blocking off the dark squared bishop for black, playing b4 anyways would have been possible, however, there is not point because the bishop would not be pinning the knight to anything. Qc7 allows for the queen to pressure the knight on c3, and for black to connect his rooks after Bb7.

12. fxe5 dxe5......Tal decides that since the pawn on e5 will not voluntarily take f4 by itself, due to the way black would then give up his center control, and also because white immediately recaptures with the bishop, the pawn on f4 that otherwise wouldn't end up doing anything for a while should go ahead and take e5. Black obliges and takes e5 with his d pawn, retaining his own center control and keeping the white dark squared bishop from playing to f4.

13. Nh4 Nc5.... Nh4 is to re position the knight onto the outpost f5 where it will be useful in a future attack on the black king. Nc5 is to trade off the knight on d7 that is obstructing the bishop on c8 for a white's bishop on d3 that could prove potentially dangerous to black because it is aimed straight at h7. Also, trading the knight for the bishop would allow black to retain the bishop pair, and lose the pair for white, in an open game, it is usually always better to have the bishop pair.

14. Bg5 Qd8.....Bg5 is simply to attack the knight, however, Qd8 does not seem to be a very useful move at all. The bishop on g5 is not actually threatening anything because the bishop on e7 is guarding the knight on f6, if white chose to take on f6, he gains no positional advantage, black still has the king's side safety and even better would be that black retains the bishop pair in an open game. Qd8 does not strike me as the best move at all here in the situation. Perhaps better was Nxd3, this bishop, even if now it is blocked by the e pawn, will clearly soon prove to be an annoyance because it is so conveniently aimed at h7, Qd8 might have sought to place some sort of indirect pin on the d3 square, but I think that that sort of pin is absolutely unnecessary. Qd8, from the way I look at it, is just wasting a move. To add onto that, it even stops the queen from defending the e5 pawn, which is now left hanging. Qd8 by black created the lone tempo that white needed to initiate his attack on the king. It immediately handed back the tempo that black gained when white played Kh1.

15. Nf5 Bxf5 This was the best black could do in the situation where he had just returned the tempo back to white. Giving a player as aggressive as Tal the initiative...is a terrible idea. of course, allowing white to gain the knight outpost on f5 is even worse than trading bishop for knight and losing the bishop pair. For white, having the outpost on f5 is extremely valuable because this is an outpost so incredibly close to the black king. It would allow g7 to almost certainly be attacked. g6? is not possible because then Nh6+ and since the knight is defended by the dark squared bishop, white has a permanent outpost right next to the black king. 

16. Rxf5 Nfd7 .....exf5? would be answered with e4, where the pawn is defended by 2 knights and is attacking the bishop.

17. Bxe7 Qxe7....typical trade off, just notice that white no longer has the bishop pair anymore.

18. Nd5 Qd6......Nd5 attacks the queen, Qd6 tries to move the queen to a more centralized square where it could potentially be of more use. e6 is blocked off by the rook and the knight, moving the queen to somewhere like h4 is not going to work, because the initial pressure on the white king cannot be backed up, and the queen cannot go back to defend from white's assault on the black king. All other alternatives seem to just be leading the queen to (further) inactivity.

19. Qg4 g6......Qg4 pressures the black king, g6 relieves some of it, there is probably no other alternative in the given situation for black, with g6, once the king moves to h8, it threatens to take the rook, but it will significantly weaken the king's side. 

20. Raf1 f6.........Tal doubles up the rooks, an excellent move. I believe f6 was played simply so the white rook could not play there. If the white rook played to f6 on the next move, not only would it gain a tempo for white, but it would lose any kind of centralization for the black queen, and remove the threat of Kh8.

21. h4 Kh8...... Tal can foresee the coming combination where he will completely decimate black's king's side. I feel that his next move was a trap that Pasman feel for, and it resulted in a beautiful combination that ultimately won the game for Tal. I feel that he advances the h pawn because he can see that there will be another pawn on g that it will be supporting.

22. R5f3 f5.......f5 is the clear indication that Pasman feel into the trap. More prudent would have been Nxd3 followed by Rf7, where the bishop that watches over h7 is gone, and so it cannot continue to attack black's already weak king's side defenses. Also, Rf7 gives black the chance to double up his rooks and allow the a rook that really hasn't been doing anything thus far to get back into the game. It's very miniscule, but it was clear that Tal gave up the attacking initiative with h4, this should have probably suggested to black that he was preparing a renewed attack soon. Perhaps that was why black chose to counterattack too early. There were definitely more prudent defenses for black in this situation, but it looked liked he wanted to get some counter play. Black failed to recognize the need for a more solid defense and instead launched a premature counterattack, thus falling into Tal's trap.

23. exf5 Qxd5........accepting this sacrifice was a bad move, better was Nxd3 followed by Nf6, which would have led to Nxf6 Rxf6 fxg6 Rxg6. After the queen moves away, black can now double up the rooks and he will have a solid defense for his own king and the g file open to attack on white's king. If instead o after Nxd3 white replies fxg6, black should reply Qxg6 and trade off queens, it's best to trade off material when a lot of pieces are pressuring and threatening to destroy one's defenses.

24.fxg6 Rxf3..... there's not a whole lot black can do even with his material advantage after fxg6 because his king's side defenses have been completely wiped out. Black does not see his own rather severe positional disadvantage, blinded as he is by the fact that he has more material. Black was not prudent enough in this game.

25. g7+ Kg8....notice how the pawn is literally forcing the king to stay on g8, moving elsewhere runs the very real danger of allowing white to promote the g pawn.

26. Bxh7+ Kxh7......again not a whole lot black can do about this, his last defense for the king's side which was the h7 pawn has now been taken and white can now freely escort his g and h pawns down to threaten promotion.

27.Rxf3 Ne4..... allowing the rook to stay on f3 any longer would pose the danger of checkmate to white, and by moving the rook to the third rank, white makes active use of his rook to escort the pawns. Ne4 threatens on black's next move Qd1+ Kh2 Nf2, the knight is attacking the queen and the rook is pinned to the queen, taking the knight results in the immediate capture of the queen, and otherwise, the queen has to go whereby Qh1+....... could prolong the suffering a bit more, or otherwise may force the white king out of it's territory whereby black could hope for a win by bringing the full force of his rook upon white. 

28.h5 Ndf6......Ndf6 was a terrible move,black has ruined any hope for victory with this move because he just gave the tempo right back to white. Qd1+ followed by Nf2 was much better, although it's still rather difficult to say that black could have won, he might have had a chance at a perpetual check.

29. Qg6+ Kg8.....absolutely forced.

30.h6 Ra7......Black doesn't want to leave his 7th rank exposed after black's knight ends up forced to go to h7 to block the path of the h6 pawn.

31.Kh2 Re7......White doesn't want any interference by black for any kind of check, and white has already accumulated enough tempo to see that this move works. Black's Re7 is only awaiting a slow, but brilliant, death.

32. Rh3 Nh7.......with Rh3, white can now push his pawn forward, and black, seeing this, is forced into playing the only possible move that can extricate him from immediate death, but black is instead forced to put up with a slower, and more agonizing death.

33.Rd3 Qa8.....Rd3 attacks the queen and Qa8 is meant to guard the 8th rank, it's already rather useless though, but even in this situation, white would still have a hard time pushing his pawns to the 8th rank, had it not been for another brilliant combination that Tal managed to produce.

34.Qxe4 Qxe4

35. Rd8+ Kf7....notice how Tal drew the only interfering piece, black's queen on the 8th rank, and then used his own rook to gain promotion for his own pawn, black was already totally lost, but this combination is the nail in the coffin. Every move from here is absolutely forced.

36. g8=Q+  Kf6

37. Rd6+ Kf5

38 Qg6+ Kf4

39. g3+ Ke3

40. Rd3+ Qxd3

1-0

As we can all see, Tal was able to masterfully attack the black kingside in this game and by sacrificing his knight and bishop, obtained such a significant positional and tempo-wise advantage, that the two minor pieces he sacrificed proved to be an asset that was able to blind his opponent into allowing Tal to continue his attack on the king's side for just a few more moves, but those few moves were of utmost importance and ultimately decided the whole game. Black did not defend prudently enough in this game, and effectively ensured his own loss after falling into white's trap. By falling into the initial knight sacrifice, black underestimated the magnitude of white's attack, and so lost.