Understanding Pawn Play Study Group - Game 2

This forum topic will continue our study of Marovic's "Understanding Pawn Play in Chess" book.  This posting covers Game 2, pgs 11-13 - A game between Gary Kasparov and Nigel Short from the 1986 Brussels Tournament.  For those who are also members of chessgames.com and like to use their Guess-the-Move chess training tool (my favorite way to play through a game!), here's the direct link:  Kasparov-Short, 1986.  I'll post the game in the chess.com game previewer after some introductory comments, so as not to give away the moves for anyone who wants to play "Guess the Move".

Here's a photo of the contestants, taken about 7 years after this game was played.  At the time the picture was taken, Gary Kasparov held the title of World Champion from 1986-1990.  From 1990-1993, a set of Interzonal and Candidates matches were held, during which Nigel Short emerged as the top contender, but Kasparov retained his title after beating short in the 1993 match.

On to the game featured in our Pawn Play study group, though.  This game is included as an excellent example of the Isolated Queen's Pawn (IQP), and demonstrates again the transformation of an isolated pawn to a passed pawn "creating havoc on the 7th rank".

Before playing through the game itself, please see if you can solve these two puzzles. 

Puzzle 1:  The first puzzle is a single move...see if you can find Kasparov's move in this position:

After attempting each puzzle, reply to this forum to let the other members of our study group know that you are participating and tell us whether or not you were able to solve either or both of these puzzles.

Now, for the game itself:

Nice puzzles.. Got neither of them right..  

I got the first one but missed on the second one.

Just a thought because I don't have a solid answer. Move 5 was Bg5..h6.

I always question why a person uses his bishop to pin the knight at f6. Oh yes, I know that in some instances it does keep the knight from moving. But, the pin is very easy to counter; h6 is a good example. Be7 is another.

I consider it a wasted move to set the pin unless you either want your opponent to move his h-pawn or you want to take the knight. If you have to move your bishop a second time in the first six moves of a game you may be giving up precious time for developing your pieces.

In this game, white has set the pin. My second question is, why does black move h6? (Incidentally, h6 is not the move my openings book tells me to make.) First, moving h6 is easy to counter by moving back to h4 if white wants to maintain the pin.  I've found that chasing the bishop with g5 to be almost always contrary to good development because the pawns are now out of place (particularly if you want to short castle). Black can easily counter the pin with 5...Nd7. There can now be an exchange on f6 as 6. Bxf6..Nxf6. The bishop pin is gone and a black knight sits at f6 ready to move to e4.

There is no longer a black knight on the queen side of the board. So, if this is what while wanted to accomplish, he did so. But, if he wanted to remove a knight from the king's side of the board he did not accomplish his purpose (assuming black moved his Queen knight to d7).

As I said to start with, I have no solid answer for this. But, it is always a thought process that goes through my head every time I am presented with the situation. What do you think is the correct move?

And, what does this have to do with pawn structure? I've addressed a little of this about h6 and g5 messing up your structure. Although, moving h6 provides an escape route for you king (after short castling) early in the game. I'll try to relate this to the isolated pawn later in the game in another post. Or, perhaps you have some ideas you can present.

The knight at f6 guards the key central squares. So, pinning the knight prevents it from doing its duty and causes inconvenience to the opponent by preventing him from moving his pieces freely. To break the pin, he needs make moves which are not ideal, like Be7, while the bishop would have functioned better at b4 or c5.

Move h6 is made for the following reasons: The bishop is better at g5 than at h4. From g5, it pins the knight and also can move along the c1-h6 diagonal, if the bishop is later needed to play along the other side of the board. But after ...h6 and Bh4, bishop can no longer move along the c1-h6 diagonal and only serves the purpose of pinning the knight. so it only acts along one dimension rather than two. Also, h6 gives an escape square for black king, preventing back rank mates at the later stages of the game..

In the game, I guess the reason for kasparov exchanging the bishop for knight is that, he has put his central pawns on dark squares, which blocks his own dark squared bishop's movement. So, he exchanges the bishop and hopes to keep the center closed, where the knights are better.

Ven369, I appreciate your answer and I agree almost completely with it. The question I have  is this: Once white pins the knight with his bishop and black responds with h6, what is white's best response?

If he moves Bh4 then he gives up his effectiveness on the c1-h6 diagonal but he retains the pin (which I still maintain is easy to neutralize).

If he takes Bxf3..{ }xf3 (I use { } because, depending on how many moves have been made, there could be several pieces that could take the bishop) then he removes the knight guarding those precious central squares at the  cost of his bishop. Most of us would consider the material to be an even trade.

In other words, is there a "best" move or is it just personal preference? Normally I take the knight and give up the bishop (but not always).

In this game, Black moves his bishop to e7 (rather than a more advantageous b4 or c5) before the pin. Therefore, I assumed that Kasparov meant to take the knight all along.

Thanks for your discussion. I certainly appreciate the insight.

Usually, whether to take the knight or maintain the pin depends on the position of the board. But in most cases, the bishop is retained since the position can be easily opened at any time and having a bishop pair is advantageous. Also, If the opponent wants to unpin his knight, then he needs to deviate from his original plan and make some additional moves to unpin before he can continue with his actual plan.

But, if the center is already closed, which occurs in openings like  advance variation of caro-kann, etc, exchanging knight with bishop is better. So, there is no "best" move. It depends on the board's position.

Hope this helps.

Great answer! I certainly agree...it depends on the board's position.

I also agree that it may be necessary to made additional moves to unpin the knight. Thinking back on several of my games I can remember having to take as many as three moves to get my queen out from a pin. Of course, I'd like to think that some of those moves were also developmental. But, as you say, they may not be in line with my actual or original plan.

Thank you...it helps  :-)

Hello,

I will point out that Be7 had already been played, so he didn't play Bg5 to pin the knight (it was not pinned) it played it to change the black bishop for the knight. On move 11th the C file was already open so he is moving the Rook there. The black bishop would be more of a nuisance than anything else (sitting at d2?) He brings the bishop out of the chain f2-e3-d4 before closing it and trades it.

The move I love on this game is 23.Qg4. He leaves his passed pawn and makes a mate attack...

Thanks for the comments, gfollana! You are right about the pin (or lack of a pin) because the bishop has already been moved. That exactly why I think Kasparov intended to take the knight all along.

I quite agree with you about white's move 23. I think that entire mating attack is amazing. I could never have seen that entire process. In fact, even move 33 amazed me. Too often I get blinded to the straight in from the front attack when you get a much better combination by moving a little bit away and getting a good angle.

Marovic says "Since 17...cxd5 is obviously out of the question..." after Kasparov pushes his isolated pawn. Can someone explain what is obvious about not making this move?

At the same time, I believe that black's previous move 16...Nd7 is the move that allows white to push the pawn. Did he really not have a better move than that? Even Marovic calls this a passive reaction.

The point I am trying to make is that the isolated pawn is only dangerous if it has a supporting cast. The knight that black moved to d7 controlled d5 as did the pawn at c6. Those two men keep the isolated pawn from moving.

If 17...cxd5 18.Qxd5 forking the Bishop in f5 and the pawn in b7 is my first thought. To be sure you should pass it thru a computer to check if there is nothing better than that. (surely there is!) But that is a pawn for nothing...

Thanks! I had completely missed that. I was hung up on the diagram and did not take the knight move (that blocks the queen) into account.

In the article by Kramnik a couple of days ago he made some comments that I think we could apply to the isolated pawn discussion. He says we first have to determine who has the advantage and if it is long term or short term. Then you have to decide how best to exploit the advantage if it is yours.  Long term advantages call for positional or strategic playing while short term advantages call for immediate or tactical playing. We're seeing in the three examples that there is a right time to move the isolated pawn. I don't want to quote much of the article because it is easy to get to; but, I do suggest you at least look at the article.

I also suggest going to the end of the chapter in Marovic and reading his section titled "Some General Observations." Once again, I don't want to simply quote long passages. In this section Marovic discusses his rules or maxims concerning isolated pawns. After you've read this section, attempt to apply it to the games that are presented. I suggest rereading the section before analyzing each game just to get the rules fresh in your mind. Sooner or later those rules will become part of your chess playing.

I said in an earlier post that I would try to relate it to the isolated pawn question. I don't know that I really can. I have some problems thinking about the game as it was played and thinking about how I would have played it. I know ECHOOooo has suggested playing to see if you can guess the next move. I find that in many cases I would not make the same move Black did because I think he made a lot of mistakes. For example, I think his move 16...Nd7 is the move that allowed White to push the isolated pawn to d5. Even Marovic says "A passive reaction, but sometimes there is no appealing option...."  I invite you to determineif there are better moves to make.

Just some thoughts.