Gufeld, The Artist, The Attacker, The Strong GM!- In Short, an Exciting Player!

Sometimes there is a debate of whether a player should go for beauty, or for the best moves. But what if you could do both? There are players who are able to do so: they can play at a high level, yet play inspired! Players of this type are the Artists. Among them, Chigorin, Petrosian, Gufeld, Tal, Bronstein, Tartakower, to name a few.

I am currently starting my training to play 2 games in the Team Championship in Iceland. How do I start? By looking at games of players that inspire me; players that I feel close to my heart, who give me joy with their chess, and also fill me with admiration. This is how I start my training.

Tonight I was not planning to write a blog post;  yet looking at the first few pages of Gufeld's book, I had to share a game with you all. This game is NOT on chessgames.com, but it is featired in Gufeld's book, "My Life in Chess". I recommend this book highly! There are many, many great games and juicy stories!

From page 12..

Master's Rubicon

"If youth had known..."

In 1953 the chess heights seemed rocky, inaccessible peaks to me. The future grandmaster had just finished school and only dreamt of the master's title, which in those years was extremely difficult to get. But I wasn't content with just dreams. The same year I made my first step towards the cherished aim: in an adult's tournament I took second place and obtained the right to be awarded the title Candidate Master. And already the next year I shared 2nd-4th place at the Ukraine Championship.

"The tournament showed significant sporting and creative growth of young Ukranian plyers", wrote the Raidansky Sport newspaper. "Gufeld displayed much skill, and produced a number of extremely interesting games."

After the fifth round I was even called the hero of the day. During the game against Tokarev, I energetically carried out an attack and mated him on move 27. This game was applauded as one of the best."