Disruption! (Chaos vs.Structure)

There are many ways to win a chess game- you can have a positional advantage, or the game can be even until move 40, and then your opponent makes a small mistake in the endgame.

Other ways are more exciting to us chess fans; an attack on the opponent's King is always exciting! Another thing we love is gambits: someone sacrifices a pawn or a piece, or even a Queen! Then we get REALLY excited, and we have fun analyzing with each other and trying to find the truth of the position: WHO IS WINNING?

I am talking, of course, of analysis without engines- the type you do with your friends. This is the most fun for me.

Certain players are Professional Disruptors; they delight in upsetting the patterns on the board, and in the process, breaking the opponent's psyche, which then leads to a win. This is where sport, art and psychology meet, and this is the most exciting for me.

I am inspired by the uniqueness of some ideas; the obtuse angles achieved. Sometimes even an "inferior" opening line will do the trick!

An recent example was Praggnanandhaa's win against Vidi Gujarathi in the Candidates Tournament. This happened, if I remember correctly, in the third round. Here is a video of the game:

As you can see, it is not the most typical position in the Ruy Lopez....

Now, the interesting thing here is that, in the previous round, Vidit had done the same thing to Nakamura, and beat Nakamura from the Black side of an Italian Game...in 29 moves!

Here is the video.....

And here is the game....

and as you can see in the final position, the no.3 player in the world was made to look like a child who could not play at all; his Queenside pieces remained in their original squares, and he had to resign after only 29 moves, with the White pieces!

One of the most famous examples of disruption is Tal's knight sacrifice in game 6 of the 1960 World Championship Match with Botvinnik.

Now, Botvinnik and Tal are opposites- Botvinnik was a player of extraordinary strength. if Botvinnik found a plan in a position, he was quiet ruthless in its execution- brilliant, both positionally and tactically. There are many examples of his skill.

Perhaps one of the earliest examples of his talent was his win against Capablanca in the 1938 AVRO Tournament. 

In that game, the accumulation of certain advantages, and the exposed position of the Black King, created the conditions for his sacrifice of the Knight on h5.

Tal, on the other hand, thrived on chaos; disruption of logical patterns, in the process of energizing his chess pieces and opening lines for attack, in a way that challenged the usual patterns of geometry and piece interactions on the board.

Here is the position after Tal sacrificed his Knight:

....and here is the position a few moves later, when Botvinnik's position had collapsed!

We can see the difference between White's bishops and Black's bishops. One of White's bishops sits on the e1 square, while his partner on g2 is blocked by his own pawn on d5!

Going back to Tal again, as a child he was quite prodigious in mathematics. It has been written that, at the age of 8 years old, he could multiply three-digit numbers in his mind.....

Please take a look at the following game, and the position reached in the diagram. You will see that the pattern of piece relations and geometry that Tal has created is quite unique!

I hope these game inspire players young and old to develop their imagination......

Peace.