Karpov's Chess Legacy - Candidates Time, Baby!

Hello and welcome to the third episode of Karpov's Chess Legacy!

Sorry for the break in my posting - Im sick with Covid right now, so its a bit hard to write a blog

Today we will discuss Karpov's first candidates cycle - 1974 candidates matches! This time, the tournament was very important for the Soviet chess school because the reigning champion was non-other than Bobby Fischer (The American).

In the 70's the candidators were chosen by tournaments all across the globe, and then battled in Playoffs. In the quarter-finals, Karpov beat the strong Lev Polugaevsky, and now had to meet the former world champion, Boris Spassky. 

The drama began before the first move had been played. Efim Geller, the guy Spassky worked with in his world championship against Fischer, snitched his opening preparation to Karpov, and moved to his team. Spassky, Obviously, was nervous because of that leak. With all that in mind, lets dive in the amazing game Ive prepared for you today!

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We reached a critical position. Lets try to create a plan here for white.

Start by looking at the imbalances.

by finding what is different in the position, you can find the plan!

Pieces - Black's strong knight on c4 can't be touched without creating a protected passed pawn. Same can be said about the knight on c5. Black's white-squared bishop is aiming the h3 square, so white should be ready to trade their bishop on black's. The knight on c3 is very weak, so we will keep that in mind.

Pawn Structure - White's pawn structure doesn't let black's dark-squared bishop to be a good piece. We should be careful with changing it, because if we do, this bishop may become strong.

Control Over Holes - White is controlling c5, and black is controlling c4. How can white break this 2-pawn control over the hole?

Karpov took all these in mind, and played the move 21. e4!

Lets continue watching the game.

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A beautiful, aggresive win by Karpov.

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Anatoly went on to win the match, and advance to the final of the 1974 candidates cycle. Who did he play against? Did he win? I would recap the final in the next blog!

Hope you enjoyed, Don't forget to follow if you did, and write your suggestions/questions in the comments. Have a great day!