Various Pawn Positions in the Center

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I have been working through this chapter of the Keres & Kotov book The Art of the Middle Game. Having just started the section on mobile centers, we are greeted with a position from the game Konstantinopolsky - Kotov. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Kotov states this is from the USSR Ch 1945. Since it is late at night and I was just burning a few more minutes on study before going to bed I decided to bring up the game in Chessbase and work through it on the computer. The only problem is, the above position doesn't occur in the game Kostantinopolsky - Kotov at the USSR Ch 1945. Here is the game from the USSR Ch.

 

The game the position comes from isn't in my reference database, but I was able to find it on chessgames.com. If the header is correct, the game was played the year after the USSR Ch 1945, and was a victory for Kotov. It is a nice example of black stopping white's mobile pawn center.

 

Interesting that Kotov got the event wrong, but understandable since they weren't using databases and such back in those days. I verified that the USSR Ch 1945 game was listed as a draw in the crosstable of Taimanov's book on the Soviet Championships.