| May-09-05 |
| Milo: Good find Nikolaas. White's play has a profound logic to it: after the g3/a4 pawn trade, black's K-side pawn majority is immobile and his knight lacks squares, while white's Q-side pawns march on to victory. |
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| May-09-05 |
| Milo: 43...Re8 could evidently use improvement. |
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Jun-28-06
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| wwall: This game was played in the first round of the Interzonal and Spassky lost. Perhaps 51...Nf1 or 51...Kd8 instead of 51...g5 draws. After 96.Ba4! Bf3 97.Kb4 Be2 98.Kc3 Bd3 99.Bb5 Be2 100.Bxc4 Bh5 101.Kd4 Kd7 102.Ke5 Bf3 103.Bf7 Bh5 104.Kf6 Kxd6 105.Bxg6 and White wins. |
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| Nov-18-06 |
| Rama: Boris tempts fate with 22. ... a4. Perhaps he forgot that his Nc5 had no good retreat since d7 is occupied, so it's on to b3! And waddya know he does it again with 36. ... Nb3. What is this strange attraction? After that it is very hard to see how black can accomplish anything. I suppose 52. ... Bh5, was worth just about any cost; I could almost feel the relief. Darga gets off to a good start in the tournament, it is a bad time for Spassky to blow one. |
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| May-09-09 |
| jerseybob: Spassky, even at his peak, was known for being sort of indifferent and sloppy in the openings, but he outdoes himself here. What's with 7..Bb4 after having played 5..Be7 only two moves before? And he was strangely restrained with his queenside pawn play, except for the Bridge too Far of his a-pawn on a4. At some point a QID demands either c5 or d5. But black is eventually left with no pawn levers whatsoever. To answer Milo, I think he just abandoned the a-pawn out of frustration. But with all that, a nice solid game by Darga. |
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| May-10-09 |
| Peter Nemenyi: <Spassky, even at his peak, was known for being sort of indifferent and sloppy in the openings> This is true, but only half the story. Spassky once declared, "I'm an artist, not a variation player like Geller"; I believe the quote may be in Darrach's book. Spassky often approached the opening unscientifically, as Fischer or Geller would have understood it, playing moves improvised at the board to get positions in which he could express his creativity. But this was a basic feature of his style, not just an element of carelessness he could have eliminated with a better work ethic; and it produced superb wins, for example the third game of his match against Byrne in 1974. Byrne relates that Spassky was criticized for that brilliancy in the USSR by commentators who thought he'd been "indifferent and sloppy" again despite the result. |
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| May-10-09 |
| AnalyzeThis: This is a fantastic game of chess. |
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Jul-30-09
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| whiteshark: "Die Partie kann man keinem zeigen, die ist zu lang."
-- Klaus V Darga :D |
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