
Reaching Back for a Good Move
Hi chess friends,
I recently played a short 15 minute game online, which I won with an early tactic. I just developed my pieces, saw a move by my opponent that seemed wrong, and used it to win a piece. It wasn't until I showed the game to a few friends that I realized that they tended to have a very hard time spotting the winning plan. I think that's because I won with a couple moves that brougth pieces backwards. In general, these moves are easy to miss, so I found a few practice positions to show students and provide as a challenge for you.
First, here's my game from last week
The top French player, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave (MVL) had a great backwards move in his win over, Fabiano Caruana, then the World's number two rated player in January. In the position below he wanted a way to attack the white kingside, but there's only one good way to do it.
Notice that MLV's 22...Bd8! was the only way to create an effective bishop-queen battery. 22...Qe5 would have been met by f4 and the attack stalls.
In a less tactical context, see if you can find how another top player, Alexander Grischuk, broke out of his passive looking position?