Yes, I Like Annotated Games! (Part III)

In this blog post we continue looking at annotated games, with notes by the Masters themselves!

This next example is remarkable, because Bronstein was 70 years old when he played this game against Velimirovic! Take a look! Notes by Bronstein.

When I was a teenager I loved the Open Ruy with the Black pieces.....maybe inspired by games like the following one, where Rubinstein teaches Alekhine a lesson!

                                Alekhine and Rubinstein

The next game, commented by Lev Polugaevsky, shows his great defensive skills, and also his thorough preparation (way before the computer era). Take a look!

Lev Polugaevsky

The following game has an interesting story. Like in the previous game by Polugaevsky, Black plays 11.....Qb6. As we just saw, Geller's move, 12.Nxe6, was refuted by Polugaevsky. But in the meantime, let us hear what GM Eduard Gufeld has to say. Gufeld was the coach for World Champion Maya Chiburdanidze!

"The prelude to this game is curious. In 1973 in Portoroz Portisch, Geller and Polugaevsky were playing for the two remaining passes to the Candidate's tournament. In the first game Polugaevsky used an interesting novelty against Geller and won. We spent half a night with Efim Petrovich analyzing the game and we found an excellent refutation. But we were not able to use it, and for many years chess players repeated polugaevsky's idea. Nobody saw the efficient refutation we had found."

"I had no secrets for Maya. But having approached this variation while studying the opening, I was at a loss: was it ethical to show the variation found jointly with others? But taking into consideration that 50% of the "shares" belonged to me, I found a solution and said: 'Maya, in this position White can forcefully achieve a superior position. I can't tell you how, but I leave it to you to find for yourself.' The next day Maya discovered the idea and used it against Dvoiris and won."

Now let us look at the game, which shows us what kind of player was Maya Chiburdanidze!

                                             Gufeld, Chiburdanidze and Tal

The next game of today's post is perhaps one of Tal's most spectacular victories in the 1959 Candidates' Tournament in Bled, Yugoslavia.

Smyslov was a great player, and in certain openings he was almost unbeatable! The Caro-Kann was one of his specialties! Yet Tal made him look like a child in this game! Once Tal began opening the game, Smyslov could not find his footing again! With every move Tal's attack gained strength, like a tornado!

Yet there is a background story to this game:

Two quotes about this game from Tal's book, "The Life and Games of MIkhail Tal"!

A few months before the Candidates' Tournament in 1959, Tal played in a team event, called the Spartakiad. He thought he would play his first game against Botvinnik in that event, as they were on the same board. Talking about this, Tal said:

"Nevertheless, I prepared carefully for the first game in my life with Botvinnik. However, instead of him, the Moscow reserve Vasiukov turned out and, as a result of this, it was Smyslov who suffered "on the rebound". I was expecting Botvinnik to play the Caro-Kann Defense, and the position which Smyslov and I were to reach in the second cycle of the coming Candidates Tournament in Yugoslavia was already standing on a board in one of the rooms of the skycraper "Ukraine" hotel, during the Spartakiad in Moscow."

Later in the book, talking about the Candidates Tournament, Tal commented:

" The second cycle went roughly the same way, except that, in addition, I succeeded in winning a game against Smyslov that was important for my frame of mind. As you will recall, it was here that exploded the mine intended for Botvinnik in the USSR People's Spartakiad. However, the attack itself, and the sacrifices in this game- which won the brilliancy prize- were pure improvisation."

Here is another spectacular game by Geller....a victory with the Black pieces against then-newly-crowned USSR Champion, Lev Psakhis. It is a game worth of study!

Psakhis- Geller, Erevan 1982

And last, but not least, in the following game Geller teaches new World Champion Anatoly Karpov a lesson! Like Tal against Smyslov in 1959, Geller steamrolls over Black's position in such a way, it looks like Geller is the World Champion, and not Karpov!

And with that, I leave you all and wish you a great day!