Ivanchuk-Kramnik.....Genius vs. Genius!
Lately I have been drawn to Kramnik. A few years ago, when I bought his book "Kramnik: My Life and Games", co- authored with Iakov Damsky, I was struck by a few things....the force of his moves and concepts, the overall solidity and fluidity of his play, the powerful harmony in his play, the swiftness of his attack. He is a player of a "universal" style, like Spassky. But also his game is permeated with a deep chess culture.....it is an intangible, intuitive quality that I feel in players like Bronstein, Smyslov....and Kramnik!
The book is excellent! The comments by both Kramnik and Damsky are very instructive.
Recently, New in Chess released another book about Kramnik, which I have just ordered....
(I am a fool for good chess books!)
Actually, this second Kramnik book was published just 5 days ago!
Another book which I was happy to purchase lately is Timoschenko's book on the Chelyabinsk (also called Sveshnikov) Variation:
I highly recommend this book. It is so excellent, you can open it to any page at random, and learn something useful!
Then I remembered that Kramnik played the Sveshnikov! So I started looking at some Kramnik games.....he also used the Classic Sicilian quite often, so I was looking at some of his games as well.
In this process, I came across two games between Ivanchuk and Kramnik, which were both spectacular, so I want to share them with you all. And it is only fitting, since we are watching games in the World Championship match which are almost perfect from the technical point of view, but not very entertaining. So here we go!
In the first game, played in 1993 in Linares, Kramnik sacrifices his Queen for Rook and Bishop, but obtains a decisive positional advantage.
Iakov Damsky gives us a nice preface to this jewel:
"It is something that musicians have, as well as engineers (it is sufficient to recall Eiffel and the aviation engineer Tupolev, who at one glance could give a diagnosis whether or not a plane would fly) and poets. it is also something- equally rarely- that chess players have.It is this gift from God that enables them to see what was earlier unknown, and to find that which others earlier passed by.
Without this perfect chess pitch Kramnik would have been unable to play such a game: Mozart-like clear, transparent and convincing. And this against an opponent whose unusual thinking is acknowledged by the entire chess society....."
The second game was played in Dos Hermanas, 1996.
Again, Iakov Damsky gives us a proper introduction to this game:
"One can, realising the importance of a forthcoming encounter, prepare for quite a specific game. One can prepare more abstractly, studying chess; this in particular is the approach taken by those who are capable of generating new ideas- and not by way of exceptions. But the happiest case must be considered that, when work that was done earlier comes in useful at a decisive moment. Any clash with Kasparov, Anand or Ivanchuk is always such a moment. and any victory of the 'Big Four' (at that moment- after all, its composition has a tendency to change frequently) in a battle between them always echoes around the chess world. So that the fresh 'seed' sown by Kramnik bore fruit a year later, where it was both necessary, and important."
