Kavalek-Bronstein: 2 Great Games!

Dear readers, I present you here with two great games between Lubomir Kavalek and David Bronstein.

I am an unabashed fan of David Bronstein. His games sparkle with richness of ideas, originality, real old-style cleverness (not in vain they called him "Cunning Devik") and world-class strength. On a good day, he could literally beat anybody!

The first game I want to present to you today called my attention for its original idea. Great Masters can notice small details in a position; details so minute that they can escape the attention of many a chess fan, and even some GMs!

In this game, Kavalek plays his bishop to h6, paralyzing Black's kingside, and proceeds to "trap" Black's light-square bishop, just to discover this would "auto-trap" his own bishop on h6!

This game is not perfect; not by any means. Bronstein makes some inexact moves. But the effect of his opening surprise must have affected Kavalek's concentration at a subtle level; slowly Bronstein gains the upper hand and wins the game!

The 2nd game is significant for me, for it shows, even in a slight way, the way the mind of a genius works! There is talent, and then there is genius-level talent! In chess, it is the ability to extract, absorb, assimilate and then manifest the inherent wisdom in the games of the great Masters! To incorporate into your own practice the understanding of someone else, specially, in this case, someone of Emanuel Lasker's stature.

Bronstein was not only a great player; he was also a great Teacher. And great Teachers are able to transmit, even in small comments, part of their great wisdom. Let me tell you what I am referring to:

In his book, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (one of the best chess books ever written), there are two games, one against Belavenets in 1941, and the other against Tolush in 1944, in which Bronstein, playing the King's Indian as Black, plays his rook to e8, and then his knight from d7 to f8. And he indicates the origin of this idea: he mentions that Lasker recommended this move in the King's Indian.

Now, here my lack of chess culture shows: I have no idea in which book Bronstein found this. But I trust his word.

August 8, 2019- update!

Thanks to my good friend, Simaginfan, who pointed me in the right direction, I was able to find a game with the Nd7-f8 maneuver from the 1909 St. Petersburg Tournament. There is a wonderful book, with all the comments and annotations by the great Emanuel Lasker. It is a book worth having!

Here is the game in which the ...Nf8 maneuver was played in 1909.....

And here are the two games from 1941 and 1944:

Why do I mention these games? Because in the next game, from the Black side of a French Defense, against Kavalek, Bronstein uses the same idea, but on the queenside!

The French Defense is not easy to play, but Bronstein loved to play it, and played it well! Anyway, in this game Bronstein plays the Petrosian Variation, which, in its original form, involved the idea, after Black's ...b6, of exchanging white-square bishops, therefore gaining a strategic advantage.

But Bronstein played it differently! He played the bishop to b7 and castled long!

The "Lasker" maneuver in this game occurs when Bronstein plays Nc6-e7-c8, achieving on the queenside the same formation that he achieved on the kingside in those two previous games from 1941 and 1944! Take a look!

I hope this humble blog post gives us a glimpse on how a great Master of the past, like Lasker, could transmit some of his wisdom an understanding about the organic dynamics of a position to someone of Bronstein's genius-talent!

Thanks for reading this blog!