| Aug-19-12 | | backrank: Like in the better known game Petrosian vs S Schweber, 1962, but even more drastically, Petrosian shows here the superiority of the knight pair over the bishop pair. After move 12, Tarrasch would probably have said that in his bishop pair, Black has sufficient compensation for his disrupted pawn structure:
click for larger viewMaybe Black has believed this; but Petrosian shows very clearly that it is not the case. With seemingly effortless elegance, only 5 moves later he has achieved a position where Black's pieces lack any chance of activity, now and in the future: 
click for larger viewAfter move 22 and a pawn sac by White the position looks like this: 
click for larger viewQuite a long time ago, Lasker has taught us that the two knights are strongest when standing side by side, and weakest when protecting each other (as they do in the above position), but again Petrosian falsifies that rule. He wins by an elegant manoever which is on each move based on a potential knight fork on e6 which Black has to avoid until he can't escape: 23 Rxf8! Kxf8 (Qxf8 24 Ne6+) 24 Nxg5 hxg5 (Qxg5 25 Ne6+) 25 Qb7! 
click for larger viewAnd now 25 ... Rd8 fails to 26 Rxd8 Qxd8 (?) 27 Ne6+. Very pretty! |
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on b3 is very strong. If I were Black, I might have tried 7. ...e6 and 8. ...d5, setting up a Stonewall. That might have afforded better defensive opportunities desite the loss of a tempo or two.
