Karpov's Chess Legacy - Karpov CRUSHES the Ruy Lopez!
Welcome to the second blog in my series about Karpov!
Today we will discuss one of Karpov's first big successes on the national level - lets get started!
The year is 1966. Karpov, a young talent who's already known by Tal and Botvinnik, is playing a strong tournament of Candidate Masters and Masters in the city of Leningrad. It was the chance for our young Karpov (he was 15 at the time) to gain himself the title of Master.
Round four came, and it was a critical moment for Karpov. Winning this game would give him the temporary first place. But what an unlucky match! He now has to face the old, 60 year old master Grigory Ravinsky, one of the favourites to win the tournament! How would Karpov play under these circumstances? Well, lets find out!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We reached a position that Tal defined as the critical moment of the game.
Lets analyze it together.
An evaluation of a position starts off with finding the imbalance of the position. What's the difference between black and white here?
Pieces - The black knight are not the best, same as white's. Black would love to put his knight on e3, but its not possible right now (getting to f4 is actually possible if the bishop moves to f7. but the knight is useless on f4). The other knight can go to c5 and be strong there.
Space - Black is definitely taking a point here. He has much more space on the queenside, and white doesn't have a space advantage on any side at all.
Pawn Structure - Black queenside pawns are all on white squares, like the bishop. Not an ideal position. White has a pawn on e4 with restrics their bishop and actually gets their bishop to be a very useless piece. Black can try and improve their bishop by getting his pawns to dark squares.
Initiative - Black has the initiative here. He is the one who's playing for queenside push, and white has to defend against it.
From the relevant imbalances of the position we can understand that black is better. What is the move that Karpov played?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lets continue the game.
"Style? I have no style" Karpov one said. I hardly disagree!
A great positional game, where Karpov showed a great queenside push. Can you find the beautiful finish after N:c2?
