The Timeless Attacking Idea

One of my first chess books was Richard Reti's Chess Textbook. The title of the book was a bit misleading, since the book was absolutely useless for total beginners. I assume that it was implied that any Soviet schoolboy knew the rules of chess as well as some basic principles of chess strategy and tactics. Many years later, I learned that the original title of the book was Masters Of The Chess Board, so I have no idea why they decided to change it for the Russian edition!

This book quickly became one of my favorites, since I really liked Reti's logical approach. For example, the first chapter was about Adolf Anderssen. Can you believe that Reti skipped two of this legendary attacking player's most famous games? The author explains that both the "Immortal Game" and the "Evergreen Game" are beautiful, but they are not very instructive due to very poor play of Anderssen's opponents. Besides, Reti added, Anderssen's combinations were the result of his desire to play in the old, romantic style and were not the logical result of an attack. While some people might disagree with Reti's opinion—arguing that we can learn from chess players mistakes as well and that a game doesn't need to be absolutely perfect in order to be instructive—personally, I am on his side.

By the way, it is interesting that in the English edition of the book, you won't be able to find Reti's explanation, so a reader is left wondering why Anderssen's two most famous games are missing from a chapter about him. But, if you speak Spanish, you will find it in Reti's Los Grandes Maestros del Tablero. Anyway, here is the game Reti does decide to give after this explanation:

To an inexperienced chess player, this game might look boring, but Reti devoted four pages of his book to explain the beautiful logic of White's play. Even today, looking at the position on the diagram above I cannot help but enjoy the placement of White's pieces and his full control over the center. In his annotations, Reti mentioned that Anderssen had adapted to the changes in the chess development and this game, played more than 20 years after his more famous games, shows that his play became more positional. 

Despite this nice win and Reti's excellent annotations, the idea of moving the queen to the center early in the game didn't became very popular. That changed, though, after the following game of Alexander Alekhine. There, the world champion demonstrated that the idea, described by Reti as purely positional, in reality can be used to prepare a very dangerous attack:

It was around this time that Soviet master Vitaly Chekhover developed his system in the Sicilian Defense with an early Qxd4 move. The following well-known game is a good example of White's attacking opportunities in that variation:

There is one more game with this attacking idea, where GM Mikhail Tal was an indirect participant. Famous Soviet coach IM Mark Dvoretsky tells the following story in one of his books. He was playing a tournament where Tal was also a participant. After one of his games, Dvoretsky showed the position in the following diagram to the "Magician from Riga" as Tal was nicknamed. "Can you imagine that White doesn't have a forced win in this position?" Dvoretsky said. Indeed, he spent a lot of time looking for the solution, but in the end, he played a simple move 14.Nxd7 and later won the game only because Black made a mistake. "What? There is no combination here?" Tal exclaimed looking at the position, "No way! I'll quit chess if it is so!" Sure enough, just a few seconds later, Tal showed a forced win! Can you find it?

Needless to say, modern top players frequently use this idea in their games. Here is an attractive attacking game of the current world #4 player, GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov:

And here is a crazy attacking game which was played just last week:

I hope you enjoyed the attacking opportunities provided by Adolf Anderssen's setup. Give it a try—it might be a nasty surprise for your opponents!