Adorjan, The Modern (Robatsch-Ufimtsev) Defense and Other Musings
This post is dedicated to Adorjan's games with the Modern Defense, because in his "Black is Back!" book there are various games of his which I find interesting.
Adorjan's style of play is very attractive to me. I have always struggled to know "what to play with Black?", and this is due to the fact that my chess "career" was very short, from 1972 to 1978. The inner call to pursue music and spirituality was stronger than chess, so short it was.
However, the love for chess remained, and in 2008 I was invited by an Icelandic friend to play in a tournament there, an individual tournament. I was grieving the loss of a dear one at the time, and could not play chess well at all. A year or two later I was invited to play in the Icelandic Chess club Team Championship, and I have been to Iceland five or six times since then.
In the process of getting ready to play there, I have been buying chess books and trying to fill in the gaps in my chess formation, which are many. You see, I grew up in Puerto Rico, and there was no structure of chess coaching of any kind. I learned chess by looking at games from Alekhine and Capablanca, and later on the Zurich 1953 Candidate's book, and some Soviet Championships, and My System, by Nimzowitsch.
When I started buying books in the last 10 years, I fell in love with certain players, such as Bronstein, Tal , Gufeld, Judit Polgar and Tartakower, among others. Their style of playing was exciting and adventurous, plus extremely creative. And their books, oh my God, they made me love chess more. They are true Artists, and can transmit their love for their Art to others.
I came across Adorjan's "Black is Back!" book recently, and through it became aware that this is a theme he has developed in previous books, including "Black is Still OK!".
Well, being a part-time chess player, the question of "what to play with Black?" seems more pressing than ever, since nowadays people can prepare so well!
I remember that when I was playing chess actively, I used the Modern Defense a few times, because it meant I could create over the board; I could improvise! And it served me well.
Reading Bronstein, Gufeld, Judit Polgar and Tal, I desire to play the King;s Indian Defense, but I am weary of being imprisoned in a KID-type formation where the only way to free my position is to sacrifice material in a way that I might not see OTB, just because I am not intricately familiar with the dynamics of such openings! Yet, when I look at games of these great Masters with these openings, it is so inspiring!
Wow, I am rambling quite a bit, but I will get to the point soon!
One thing that Bronstein and Kramnik (and I know Fischer also did this!) both mention is the importance of looking at the games of the Old Masters of the past, specially the 19th Century. So I started buying game collections..Morphy, Steinitz, Chigorin, Zukertort, Blackburne, Lasker, among others, and I discovered so many jewels! The creative output of many of these great Masters is like going to a chess university Graduate School! each game is a Master Class!
Going back to Adorjan, his games with Black are incredible! He reminds me a little bit of Polugaevsky, in the sense that both like to engage, from the very first moves, in a fierce battle for the centre and the initiative.
Now, since I do not own "Black is Still OK!", I do not know which of Adorjan's Modern Defense games were published before this "Black is Back!" book, but I understand that Adorjan is not re-publishing games from the previous book into this one. So, since I will be gathering some of his Modern Defense games from other databases, I will publish my own comments (patzer level) in the games from his previous books. All the games from "Black is Back!" will have Adorjan's (world-class) comments.
Two more things I would like to say: I do not have a deep knowledge of chess theory, and I also do not use engines for my analysis; just the two neurons I have left, and they are not always on speaking terms with each other!
So here we go!
Note: As I do not have a lot of time to devote to this per day, I will be posting one or two games per day for the next few weeks. Thanks for your patience!
