The Botvinnik System Part 1 by GM Magesh and GM Arun
This week in our article we shall see The Botvinnik System. We wanted the readers to understand the opening clearly. So to begin with we decided to check the side lines that are played by white against this system. In this system White is considered to be doing well in the main lines but this is chess and there is always room for improvement. But one has to know what is going on in the side variations to employ this system confidently.
The final position is going to be the starting position for our next week's article. But for this week we shall see the possible complications in the early stage of this system.
Even though 7.a4 is dubious and completely out of fashion, it is always good to know the ideas of this move. It is important for Black to maintain the pressure on white once he gets the initiative in these types of openings because a single mistake would yield the initiative to the opposite side.
Even though Shirov misplayed and lost the game later, Black players managed to find the exact way to defend the position for a draw against the 9.ef6 idea. Check the analysis of move 16. There were other ideas also for a draw that were analysed on moves 18 and 22. Our final game is between Rychagov and Grischuk. A wild game that needs to be thoroughly checked before playing in this way.
The Rook and Bishop is better against the Rook and Knight. That was a fine endgame show by Grischuk. This week we have seen the side lines of the Botvinnik system and next week we shall see the main lines which are more complex but still very interesting. For this system especially, we would suggest that you play more practice games before you employ it in a serious game.
