Karpov's Strange King Move in the Caro-Kann

by GM Magesh & GM Arun

This week we shall see an interesting idea by the former world champion and one of the greatest players in the history of Chess, Anatoly Karpov, in the Caro-Kann Defence. Karpov has introduced many interesting ideas in the Caro-Kann system, and today's game is one of the best ideas introduced by him. 

Our game is between Gata Kamsky and Anatoly Karpov from Dortmund 1993. Black's 11th move was the novelty introduced by Karpov and the most amazing thing is that he found this move over the board and not in his home preparation!!

At the end both the players committed several errors but still the game made its mark in the theory of chess. Such theoretical novelties are not seen everyday and are rare to come by. 11. ... Ke7 is still considered sound and even the computers havent found a proper way to refute it. 11.Qh4 was later replaced by 11.Qe2 by many strong players and is considered to be the best reply for White.